Alabanda () or Antiochia of the Chrysaorians was a city of

ancient Caria Caria (; from Greek: Καρία, ''Karia''; ) was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid- Ionia ( Mycale) south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Carians were described by Herodotus as being Anatolian mainlanders ...

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

, the site of which is near Doğanyurt, Çine,

Aydın Province Aydın Province () is a Provinces of Turkey, province and Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey, metropolitan municipality of southwestern Turkey, located in the Aegean Region. Its area is 8,116 km2, and its population is 1,148,241 (2022). T ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. The city is located in the saddle between two heights. The area is noted for its dark

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) that have recrystallized under the influence of heat and pressure. It has a crystalline texture, and is ty ...

and for gemstones that resembled

garnet Garnets () are a group of silicate minerals that have been used since the Bronze Age as gemstones and abrasives. Garnet minerals, while sharing similar physical and crystallographic properties, exhibit a wide range of chemical compositions, de ...

Stephanus of Byzantium Stephanus or Stephen of Byzantium (; , ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD) was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethnica'' (). Only meagre fragments of the dictionary survive, but the epit ...

claims that there were two cities named Alabanda (Alabandeus) in Caria, but no other ancient source corroborates this.

History

According to legend, the city was founded by the Carian hero Alabandus. In the

Carian language The Carian language is an extinct language of the Luwic languages, Luwic subgroup of the Anatolian languages, Anatolian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family, spoken by the Carians. The known corpus is small, and the ...

, the name is a combination of the words for horse ''ala'' and victory ''banda''. On one occasion,

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

mentions Alabanda being located in

Phrygia In classical antiquity, Phrygia ( ; , ''Phrygía'') was a kingdom in the west-central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. Stories of the heroic age of Greek mythology tell of several legendary Ph ...

, instead of in Caria, but the same city was meant. Amyntas, son of the

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

official Bubares and grandson of the Macedonian King Amyntas, received control of the city from King

Xerxes I Xerxes I ( – August 465 BC), commonly known as Xerxes the Great, was a List of monarchs of Persia, Persian ruler who served as the fourth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 486 BC until his assassination in 465 BC. He was ...

(r. 486-465 BC). In the early

Seleucid The Seleucid Empire ( ) was a Greek state in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 312 BC by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator, following the division of the Macedonian Empire founded by Alexander the Great, a ...

period, the city was part of the

Chrysaorian League The Chrysaorian League (, ''systema Chrysaorikon'') was an informal loose federation of several cities in ancient region of Caria, Anatolia that was apparently formed in the early Seleucid period and lasted at least until 203 BC. The League had i ...

, a loose federation of nearby cities linked by economic and defensive ties and, perhaps, by ethnic ties. The city was renamed Antiochia of the Chrysaorians in honor of

king

Antiochus III Antiochus III the Great (; , ; 3 July 187 BC) was the sixth ruler of the Seleucid Empire, reigning from 223 to 187 BC. He ruled over the region of Syria and large parts of the rest of West Asia towards the end of the 3rd century BC. Rising to th ...

who preserved the city's peace. It was captured by

Philip V of Macedon Philip V (; 238–179 BC) was king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon from 221 to 179 BC. Philip's reign was principally marked by the Social War (220–217 BC), Social War in Greece (220-217 BC) ...

in 201BC. The name reverted to Alabanda after the Seleucid defeat at the

Battle of Magnesia The Battle of Magnesia took place in either December 190 or January 189 BC. It was fought as part of the Roman–Seleucid War, pitting forces of the Roman Republic led by the Roman consul, consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus and the allied ...

in 190 BC. The Romans occupied the city shortly thereafter. According to

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

in Greece, they worshiped several deified human beings, at Alabanda there was Alabandus. In 40 BC, the rebel

Quintus Labienus Quintus Labienus Parthicus (died 39 BC) was a Roman general in the Late Republic period. The son of Titus Labienus, he made an alliance with Parthia and invaded the Roman provinces in the eastern Mediterranean which were under the control of Mar ...

at the head of a

Parthia Parthia ( ''Parθava''; ''Parθaw''; ''Pahlaw'') is a historical region located in northeastern Greater Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Medes during the 7th century BC, was incorporated into the subsequent Achaemeni ...

n army took the city. After Labienus's garrison was slaughtered by the city's inhabitants, the Parthian army stripped the city of its treasures. Under the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

, the city became a conventus ( Pliny, V, xxix, 105) and

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...

reports on its reputation for high living and decadence. The city minted its coins until the mid-third century. During the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

, the city was a created as a

bishopric In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

. The ruins of Alabanda are 8 km west of

Çine Çine is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Aydın Province, Turkey. Its area is 820 km2, and its population is 48,466 (2022). It is from the city of Aydın, on the road to Muğla. History Throughout the ages this area has ...

and consist of the remains of a theatre and a several other buildings, but excavations have yielded very few inscriptions.

Ecclesiastical history

The names of some bishops of Alabanda are known because they participated in church councils. Thus Theodoret was at the

Council of Chalcedon The Council of Chalcedon (; ) was the fourth ecumenical council of the Christian Church. It was convoked by the Roman emperor Marcian. The council convened in the city of Chalcedon, Bithynia (modern-day Kadıköy, Istanbul, Turkey) from 8 Oct ...

in 451, Constantine at the

Trullan Council The Quinisext Council (; , literally meaning, ''Fifth-Sixth Meeting''), i.e., the Fifth-Sixth Council, often called the Council ''in Trullo'', Trullan Council, or the Penthekte Synod, was a church council held in 692 at Constantinople under Ju ...

in 692, another Constantine at the

Second Council of Nicaea The Second Council of Nicaea is recognized as the last of the first seven ecumenical councils by the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church. In addition, it is also recognized as such by Old Catholic Church, Old Catholics and others. ...

in 787, and John at the Photian

Council of Constantinople (879) The Fourth Council of Constantinople was held in 879–880. It confirmed the reinstatement of Photius I as patriarch of Constantinople. The result of this council is accepted by the Eastern Orthodox as having the authority of an ecumenical c ...

. The names of two non-orthodox bishops of the see are also known: Zeuxis, who was deposed for

Monophysitism Monophysitism ( ) or monophysism ( ; from Greek , "solitary" and , "nature") is a Christological doctrine that states that there was only one nature—the divine—in the person of Jesus Christ, who was the incarnated Word. It is rejected as he ...

in 518, and Julian, who was bishop from around 558 to around 568 and was a Jacobite. No longer a residential diocese, Alabanda is today listed by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

as a

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbi ...

Notable people

* Aridolis, tyrant of Alabanda during the

Second Persian invasion of Greece The second Persian invasion of Greece (480–479 BC) occurred during the Greco-Persian Wars, as King Xerxes I of Persia sought to conquer all of Greece. The invasion was a direct, if delayed, response to the defeat of the first Persian invasi ...

* Amyntas, tyrant of Alabanda and grandson of Amyntas I *Leon of Alabanda (Λέων), a Greek rhetorician and writer *

Apollonius the Effeminate Apollonius of Alabanda (also Apollonius Malakos, Appolonius Malachus) (''malakos'' meaning 'soft', with the potential implication of 'effeminate') () was a Greek sophist rhetorician of Alabanda in Caria who flourished about 120 BC. After studying ...

, a Greek rhetorician *Menecles of Alabanda (Μενεκλῆς), a Greek rhetorician, brother of HieroclesCICERO, DE ORATORE, 26
/ref> *Hierocles of Alabanda (Ἱεροκλῆς), a Greek rhetorician, and brother of Menecles *

Apollonius Molon Apollonius Molon or Molo of Rhodes (or simply Molon; ), was a Greece, Greek rhetorician. He was a native of Alabanda, a pupil of Menecles, and settled at Rhodes, where he opened a school of rhetoric. Prior to that, he twice visited Rome as an ambas ...

, a Greek rhetorician * Apaturius, a Greek scene-painter *Menedemus of Alabanda (Μενέδημος), a Greek general who participated in the Battle of Raphia

Bishops

*Theodoret (mentioned in 451) * Zeuxis (? – 518 deposed) (Monophysite) * Julian (about 558 – about 568) (Jacobite) *Constantine (mentioned in 692) *Constantine II (mentioned in 787) *John (mentioned in 879) *Saba (9th–10th century) *Nicephorus (11th century) *Anonymous (mentioned 11th century) *William O'Carroll, (February 3, 1874 – October 13, 1880)Pius Bonifacius Gams, ''Series Episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae'', Leipzig 1931, p. 447. *Rocco Leonasi (March 30, 1882 – March 14, 1883) *Giuseppe Francica-Nava de Bontifè (August 9, 1883 – May 24) *Nicola Lorusso (June 23, 1890 – June 8, 1891) *John Brady (June 19, 1891 – January 6, 1910) *Joseph Lang (February 26, 1915 – 1 November 1924) *François Chaize,(May 12, 1925 – February 23, 1949) *José María García Grain, (March 10, 1949 – May 27, 1959) *Michel Ntuyahaga (June 11, 1959 – November 10, 1959 * James William Malone (January 2, 1960 – May 2, 1968)

Bibliography

*''Turkey: The Aegean and Mediterranean Coasts'', Blue Guides , pp. 349–50. *J. Ma, ''Antiochos III and the Cities of Western Asia Minor'', , p. 175

References

External links

*
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) at Perseus Project

Sources

* * {{Authority control Populated places in ancient Caria Archaeological sites in the Aegean region Seleucid colonies in Anatolia Ruins in Turkey Catholic titular sees in Asia Former populated places in Turkey Buildings and structures in Aydın Province Tourist attractions in Aydın Province Çine District