SEVERUS ALEXANDER demiourgos 222AD Medallion of Tarsus Cilicia Roman Coin i44150

Item: i44150

Authentic Ancient

Coin of:

Severus Alexander
–
Roman Emperor
: 222-235 A.D.

Bronze Medallion 36mm (23.36 grams) of
Tarsus
in

Cilicia

Reference: SNG France 1580 (same dies); SNG Levante –
A. K M. A. CЄOV. ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡOC CЄB,
bust right, wearing crown and robes of demiourgos; in field,
Π-Π.
ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡOV TAPCOV ΔHM around crown, MN/TPOΠΟ/ΛΕΩC/AMK/ΓΠ

Severus Alexander wears both the crown and the chiton of the demiourgos, the
official who oversaw the operation of regional festivals and games.
 

You are bidding on the exact item pictured,

Authenticity.

Tarsus is a historic

city in south-central
Turkey
, 20 km inland from the
Mediterranean Sea
. It is part of the
Adana-Mersin Metropolitan Area
, the
fourth-largest
metropolitan area
in Turkey with a population
of 3 million. Tarsus District forms an administrative district in the eastern
part of the
Mersin Province
and lies in the core of
Çukurova
region.

With a history going back over 6,000 years, Tarsus has long been an important
stop for traders, a focal point of many civilisations including the
Roman Empire
, when Tarsus was capital of the
province of Cilicia
, the scene of the first meeting between
Mark Antony
and
Cleopatra
, where
Paul the Apostle
was born.

Geography

Located on the mouth of the
Berdan River
(Cydnus
of the antiquity), which empties into the
Mediterranean Sea
, Tarsus is a junction point
of land and sea routes connecting the
Cilician
plain (today called
Çukurova
), central
Anatolia
and the Mediterranean sea. The climate
is typical of the
Mediterranean
region, summers very very hot,
winters chilly and damp.

Tarsus has a long history of commerce and is still a commercial centre today,
trading in the produce of the fertile Çukurova plain; also Tarsus is a thriving
industrial centre of refining and processing that produces some for export.
Industries include agricultural machinery, spare parts, textiles,
fruit-processing, brick building and ceramics.

Agriculture is an important source of income, half of the land area in the
district is farmland (1,050 km²) and most of the remainder is forest and
orchard. The farmland is mostly well-irrigated, fertilised and managed with the
latest equipment.

Etymology

The ancient name is Tarsos, derived from “Tarsa”, the original name of
the city in the Hittite language, which was possibly derived from a pagan god,
Tarku, as
Hittites
were the first settlers. At other
times the city was named Tarsisi; Antiochia on the Cydnus, Darson
in
Western Armenian
and Tarson in
Eastern Armenian
.

History

Antiquity

Foundation and
prehistory

Excavation of the mound of
Gözlükule
reveals that the prehistorical
development of Tarsus reaches back to the
Neolithic Period
and continues unbroken through
Chalcolithic
and
Early Bronze Ages
.

The settlement was located at the crossing of several important trade routes,
linking Anatolia
to
Syria
and beyond. Because the ruins are covered
by the modern city, archaeology has barely touched the ancient city. The city
may have been of
Semitic
origin; it is mentioned as Tarsisi
in the campaigns of
Esarhaddon
, as well as several times in the
records of
Shalmaneser I
and
Sennacherib
. A Greek legend connects it with
the memory of
Sardanapalus
(Ashurbanipal), still preserved in
the Dunuk-Tach, called ‘tomb of Sardanapalus’, a monument of unknown origin.
Stephanus of Byzantium
quotes
Athenodorus of Tarsus
as relating another
legend:

Much of this legend of the foundation of Tarsus, however, appeared in the
Roman era, and none of it is reliable. The geographer
Strabo
states that Tarsus was founded by people
from Argos
who were exploring this coast. Another
legend states that
Bellerophon
fell off his winged horse
Pegasus
and landed here, hurting his foot, and
thus the city was named tar-sos (the sole of the foot). Other
candidates for legendary founder of the city include the hero
Perseus
and
Triptolemus
son of the earth-goddess
Demeter
, doubtless because the countryside
around Tarsus is excellent farmland. Later the coinage of Tarsus bore the image
of Hercules
, due to yet another tale in which the
hero was held prisoner here by the local god
Sandon
. Tarsus has been suggested as a possible
identification of the biblical
Tarshish
, where the prophet
Jonah
wanted to flee, but
Tartessos
in Spain is a more likely
identification for this. (See further)

Early
antiquity, Greece and Persia

In historical times, the city was first ruled by the
Hittites
, followed by
Assyria
, and then the
Persian Empire
. Tarsus, as the principal town
of Cilicia
, was the seat of a Persian
satrapy
from 400 BC onward. Indeed,
Xenophon
records that in 401 BC, when
Cyrus the Younger
marched against
Babylon
, the city was governed by King
Syennesis
in the name of the Persian monarch.

At this period the patron god of the city was Sandon and a large monument to
Sandon existed at Tarsus at least until the 3rd century A.D. Coins showed Sandon
standing on a winged and horned lion and it is now thought likely that the
Lion of Saint Mark
on the pillar in the
Piazza San Marco
in
Venice
was in origin a winged lion-griffin from
such a monument at Tarsus.

Alexander the Great
passed through with his
armies in 333 BC and nearly met his death here after a bath in the Cydnus. By
this time Tarsus was already largely influenced by
Greek language and culture
, and as part of the
Seleucid Empire
it became more and more
hellenized
. Strabo praises the cultural level
of Tarsus in this period with its philosophers, poets and linguists. The schools
of Tarsus rivaled Athens
and
Alexandria
.
2 Maccabees
(4:30) records its revolt in about
171 BC against
Antiochus IV Epiphanes
, who had renamed the
town Antiochia on the Cydnus. In his time the library of Tarsus held
200,000 books, including a huge collection of scientific works. The name didn’t
last, however, due to the confusion of so many cities named Antioch.

Rome

 

Oscillum depicting a couple kissing.
Terracotta
figurine made in Tarsus,
Roman Era

Pompey
subjected Tarsus to Rome, and it became
capital of the
Roman province of Cilicia
, the metropolis where
the governor resided. In 66 BC, the inhabitants received
Roman citizenship
.^{[citation
needed]} To flatter
Julius Caesar
, for a time it took the name
Juliopolis. It was also here that
Cleopatra
and
Mark Antony
met and was the scene of the
celebrated feasts they gave during the construction of their fleet (41 BC). In
William Shakespeare
‘s 1606 play
Antony and Cleopatra
(Act 5, Scene 2), after
Antony’s death Cleopatra says she is going to Cydnus to meet Antony, i.e., she
will commit suicide to meet him in the afterlife; “Go fetch / My best
attires: I am again for Cydnus, / To meet Mark Antony“

When the province of Cilicia was divided, Tarsus remained the civil and
religious metropolis of Cilicia Prima, and was a grand city with palaces,
marketplaces, roads and bridges, baths, fountains and waterworks, a gymnasium on
the banks of the
Cydnus
, and a stadium. Tarsus was later
eclipsed by nearby Adana
, but remained important as a port and
shipyard. Several Roman emperors were interred here:
Marcus Claudius Tacitus
,
Maximinus
, and
Julian the Apostate
, who planned to move his
capital here from Antioch if he returned from his Persian expedition.

Christianity

Tarsus was the city where, according to the
Acts of the Apostles
, “Saul of Tarsus”
was born, but he was “brought up”  in Jerusalem. Saul became
Paul the apostle
after his encounter with
Christ , and he briefly returned here after his conversion (Acts
9:30). From here
Barnabas
retrieved him to help with the work in
Syrian Antioch

Already by this time a
Christian
community probably existed, although
the first recorded bishop,
Helenus
, dates only from the third century;
Helenus visited Antioch
several times in connection with the
dispute concerning
Paul of Samosata
. Later
bishops of Tarsus
included
Lupus
, present at the
Council of Ancyra
in 314; Theodorus, at the
Council of Nicaea
in 325; Helladius, who was
condemned at the
Council of Ephesus
and who appealed to the
bishop of Rome in 433; above all the celebrated exegete Diodorus, teacher of
Theodore of Mopsuestia
and consequently one of
the fathers of
Nestorianism
. From the sixth century the
metropolitan see of Tarsus had seven suffragan bishoprics; the Greek archdiocese
is again mentioned in the tenth century (^[10]),
and existed until the twentieth century upheavals, part of the
Patriarchate of Antioch
.

Owing to the importance of Tarsus, many martyrs were put to death here, among
them being
Saint Pelagia
,
Saint Boniface
,
Saint Marinus
,
Saint Diomedes
,
Saint Quiricus and Saint Julitta
.

At about the end of the tenth century, the Armenians established a diocese of
their rite;
Saint Nerses of Lambroun
was its most
distinguished representative in the twelfth century.

A cave in Tarsus is one of a number of places claiming to be the location of
the legend of the
Seven Sleepers
, common to Christianity and
Islam.

Ecclesiastical history

The first bishop, Helenus, dates from the third century; he went several
times to Antioch in connexion with the dispute concerning
Paul of Samosata
.
Le Quien
mentions twenty-two of its bishops, of
whom several are legendary. Among them are:

• Lupus, present at the
  Council of Ancyra
  in 314;
• Theodorus, at the
  Council of Nicaea
  in 325;
• Helladius
  , condemned at Ephesus, and who
  appealed to the pope in 433;
• the
  exegete

  Diodorus
  , teacher of
  Theodore of Mopsuestia
  and consequently one
  of the fathers of
  Nestorianism
  .

From the sixth century the metropolitan See of Tarsus had seven suffragan
bishoprics (Echos d’Orient, X, 145); the Greek archdiocese is again mentioned in
the tenth century (op. cit., X, 98), and has existed down to the present day,
being comprised in the
Patriarchate of Antioch
. The Arabs took
possession of Tarsus from the seventh century.

The archdiocese of Tarsus (Italian Tarso) remains a Catholic
titular see
, not to be confused with the
titular see of
Tarsus dei Maroniti
.

Islam and beyond

The Tarsus region was annexed by the Forces of
Rashidun Caliphate
under the command of
Khalid ibn Walid
in 637. Tarsus was on the edge
of the de facto border with the Byzantine empire in this period of the
Taurus Mountains
range separating the
Armeniac
and
Anatolic

themes
from Cilicia, Syria and northern Iraq.
Tarsus was near the strategically important
Cilician Gates
which passed through the Taurus
Mountains as well as access to the Mediterranean Sea which was used for both
land and naval operations further in the Byzantine territory. While the region
was lost by the Byzantine
Emperor Heraclius
in 637, it is unclear when
the city was permanently occupied by the Arabs as sources indicate the city was
garrisoned and retaken multiple times until the 9th century.

According to the Arabic geographer
Ibn Hawqal
and the accounts of Arab historian
Abu Amr Al-Tarsusi, Tarsus was a stronghold of Muslim forces with thousands of
volunteers from across the Islamic world coming to fight in jihad against the
Byzantine Empire. The city was a base of operations for the regular summer raids
(ṣawāʿif) into Byzantine lands through the Cilician Gates when the
mountain snows had melted and passage was possible. Later the city was used in
defense of the frontier in response to a resurgent Byzantine empire in the
mid-10th century. The city was lost in 965, when
Nicephorus Phocas
returned it to the
Byzantine Empire
for nearly a century. The area
was retaken by the
Seljuk Turks
, recaptured in 1097 during the
Crusades
and then disputed between Latins,
Greeks, and Armenians of the
Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia
(Kingdom of Lesser
Armenia); these last became definitively masters until about 1359, when it was
captured by the
Ramadanids
with
Mamluks
. Finally, the area was brought under
the control of the
Ottoman Empire
by
Selim I
in 1516.

In the Middle Ages Tarsus was renowned throughout the Middle East; a number
of Arab writers praised it as a beautiful and well-defended city, its walls
being in two layers with five gates and earthworks outside, surrounded by rich
farmland, watered by the river and the lake. By 1671 the traveller
Evliya Çelebi
records “a city on the plain,
an hour from the sea, surrounded by strong walls two-storeys high, moated on all
sides, with three distinct neighbourhoods inside the walls”.

Despite its excellent defences, Tarsus was captured from the Ottomans in 1832
by the
Mamluks
of
Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt
, son of
Muhammad Ali
, and for 8 years remained in the
hands of the Egyptians, who began growing cotton on the surrounding plain. Upon
the return of the Ottomans this cotton drove a substantial growth in the economy
of the area, due to increased world demand for the crop during shortages caused
by the
U.S. Civil War
. A new road was built to the
port in Mersin
and the city of Tarsus grew and thrived.
Still today many large houses in the city stand as reminders of the wealth
generated during this period. However after being a port for 3,000 years, by the
end of the 19th century neglect resulted in Tarsus no longer having access to
the sea, and the delta became a swamp. At this point Tarsus was a typical
Ottoman city with communities of Muslim Turks, Christian Greeks and
Armenians
. At the founding of the
Turkish Republic
in the 1920s the swamp was
drained and the River Berdan was dammed to build Turkey’s first hydro-electric
power station. Irrigation, roadworks and a railway brought the economy of Tarsus
back to life, with new factories, particularly producing textiles.

Cuisine

The local cuisine includes: chargrilled chicken;
hummus
;
şalgam
(pickled turnips);
tantuni
(a sandwich of grilled meats; the tiny
pizzas called “fındık lahmacun”; and
cezerye
(a confection made out of carrots).

Places of interest

Tarsus has a great many ancient sites of interest, with many in need of
restoration and research. These have been well described by travellers over many
years. For instance
Blackwood’s Magazine
(Edinburgh) in 1890, 
and
H. V. Morton
‘s In the Steps of St Paul
in 1936.

The best known include:

 

Church of
St. Paul
in Tarsus (the church and
the surroundings are on the
UN World Heritage
tentative list)

• Cleopatra’s Gate
  – to the west of the city,
  the only ancient city gate still standing, where Anthony and Cleopatra
  entered the city in 41 BC, though the “restoration” of this structure has
  involved covering much of it over with shiny new stone (see
  [1]
  for a picture of the gate before the
  work was done).
• The Roman bridge of
  Justinian
  over the
  Berdan River
  . Still in good condition.
• Tarsus Museum – contains lots of ancient coins and a severed mummified
  arm.
• Roman road
  north of Tarsus
• Ancient road
  another Roman road within
  Tarsus.

Sites of religious interest and pilgrimage:

• The
  St. Paul’s Church
  and well (it is now a
  museum, but occasionally Christian services can be performed there).
• The mosque said to be the burial place of the
  Prophet Daniel
  .
• The ancient story of
  Pegasus
  , the winged horse, also concerns
  Tarsus. Because of Pegasus’ faithful service to
  Zeus
  , Pegasus was honored with a
  constellation. On the last day of his life, Zeus transformed him into a
  constellation, then a single feather fell to the earth near the city of
  Tarsus.

From the Turkish era:

• Tarsus Grand Mosque
  and
  Kırkkaşık Bedesten
• The old baths; the dark brown spots on the white marble walls are said
  to be the bloodstains of
  Shah Meran
  , the legendary Snake King who
  was killed in an ambush in the baths.
• Tarsus American College
  ; founded in the
  Ottoman period, still active today.
• “Nusret
  (Nusrat)” the
  minelayer
  used to defend the straits before
  the
  Battle of Gallipoli
  is being restored in
  Tarsus; it is to be part of a memorial park to those lost in the fighting.

Places of natural beauty include:

• Tarsus Waterfall; since the construction of the Berdan dam the water of
  the Tarsus river has been distributed in canals for irrigation, with the
  result that the waterfall can now be seen only in seasons of very heavy
  rainfall.
• Karabucak Forest
  ; popular picnic area a few
  kilometers south of the city center