Tarsus

Tarsus, anciently chief city of Cilicia, and one of the most important in Asia Minor, on the river Cydnus, 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 north across the Taurus by the ‘Cilician Gates,’ and the other east 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 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 the Seleucids, and finally became the capital of the Roman pro- vince 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. 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 permanent population of 7000, and a pop. of 30,000 in winter, and exports corn, cotton, wool, gall-nuts, wax, goats’ hair, skins, hides, &c.