THE CITY OF TARSUS AND THE ARAB-BYZANTINE FRONTIERS IN EARLY AND MIDDLE ʿABBĀSID TIMES

Abstract

The ancient settlement of Tarsus is best known for that part of its history which stretches from classical through early Christian and Byzantine times into the Islamic period, but modern archaeological excavations have further demonstrated a past going back, with some interruptions, to at least Neolithic times. Situated in classical times on the river Cydnus, the early Islamic Nahr Baradan1 and the modern Turkish Tarsus ?(ay, in the rich agricultural plain of Cilicia, the modern Turkish (;ukurova, it owed its florescence firstly, to this same fertility of the local soil; secondly, to its strategic position commanding the southern end of the Cilician Gates across the Taurus Mountains into central Anatolia, the route through which, amongst so many others, Xenophon and Alexander the Great had passed with their armies; and thirdly, to its possessing a fine sheltered harbour, that of Rhegma, opening the city to the maritime influences of the eastern Mediterranean, including those from the Semitic Near East.2 The city is certainly ancient, although not mentioned in the Hittite texts. The Greeks attributed its foundation to Perseus or Heracles. It first appears firmly in history under the Assyrian kings, for one clay tablet records the rebuilding of Tarsus by Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) after a revolt in Kue or Cilicia. It subsequently fell within the Persian sphere of influence, although probably still ruled by native princes who minted coins in the fourth century B.C. with Aramaic legends. Under the Macedonian kings, Tarsus was disputed by the