Tarsus

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

the ancient capital of Cilicia, and one of the most important cities in Asia Minor; on the Cydnus river; 12 miles from the sea in the midst of a productive plain. It was a great emporium for the traffic carried on between Syria, Egypt, and the central region of Asia Minor. In the time of the Romans two great roads led from Tarsus, one N. across the Taurus by the "Cilician Gates," and the other E. to Antioch by the "Amanian " and "Syrian Gates." Tarsus, which was sacred to Baal Tars, and is thought by some to have been founded by by Sennacherib, 690 b. c., was probably of Assyrian origin, but the first historical mention of it occurs in the "Anabasis" of Xenophon, where it figures as a wealthy and populous city, ruled by a prince tributary to Persia. In the time of Alexander the Great it was governed by a Persian satrap; it next passed under the dominion of Seleucidæ, and finally became the capital of the Roman province of Cilicia (66 b. c.). At Tarsus Antony received Cleopatra, when as Aphrodite she sailed up the Cydnus, with magnificent luxury. Under the early Roman emperors Tarsus was as renowned for its culture as for its commerce, Strabo placing it, in respect to its zeal for learning, above even Athens and Alexandria. The natives were vain and luxurious; a Moslem general estimated their number at 100,000. Weaving goats' hair was the staple manufacture manufacture. It was the birthplace of the apostle PAUL (q. v.), who received the greater part of his education here; the Stoic Antipater and the philosopher Athenodorus were also natives, and here the Emperor Julian was buried. Gradually, during the confusions that accompanied the decline of the Roman and Byzantine power, it came into the hands of the Turks, and fell into comparative decay; but even yet this modern, squalid, and ruinous city, under the name of Tarso or Tersus, has a population of about 25,000, and exports corn, cotton, wool, gall nuts, wax, goats' hair, skins, hides, etc.