Selinus (Cilicia)
Coordinates: 36 ° 16 ' N , 32 ° 17' E
Selinus (also Selinous , Greek: Σελινοΰς), at times Traianopolis, was an ancient city in the rough Cilicia ( Kilikia Tracheia ) on the south coast of Asia Minor , near the present-day city of Gazipaşa in Turkey , eight kilometers southeast of the ancient city of Iotape .
Little is known about the city's history up to Roman times. 197 BC It was from Antiochus III. subject. In 117 AD the Roman Emperor Trajan died there on his way back from the war against the Parthians . After him, the city was renamed Traianopolis, but in late antiquity, when it was the seat of a bishop, it was renamed to its old name. In 269 the Persians conquered the city, and in the 5th century it was hit by the Isaurian unrest.
The city is located on a mountain at the mouth of the Selinus River (today Musa Çay) and expanded into the plain in Roman times. Remains of the city wall, an aqueduct and a theater have been preserved. A building standing on a square surrounded by colonnades (so-called Şekerhane Köşkü), which is referred to as Trajan's cenotaph , is presumably Seljuk in its current form , but probably stands on the site of the cenotaph, a building of the Corinthian order , of which numerous spoils have been reused were.
The well-preserved castle on the Acropolis is a small Armenian fortress from the 12th century.
literature
- George Ewart Bean : Selinos (Gazipaşa, formerly Selinti) Turkey . In: Richard Stillwell et al. a. (Ed.): The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1976, ISBN 0-691-03542-3 .
- Elisabeth Rosenbaum ; Gerhard Huber; Somay Onurkan: A survey of coastal cities in Western Cilicia. Preliminary report . Ankara 1967, pp. 29-35; 53-58.
- Claudia Winterstein: The Şekerhane Köşkü in Selinus. Architectural studies on the presumed cenotaph of the Emperor Trajan. In: Architectura. No. 39/1, 2009, pp. 27-41.