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Podandus and the Via Tauri

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

In AS. XIV, 1964, Michael Ballance published in “Derbe and Faustinopolis” not only the decisive evidence for the identification of Faustinopolis at Başmakçı but also a useful summary of the evidence for the Roman routes leading towards the Cilician Gates. In the same volume I published a prosopographical study of Aradius Paternus, a previously unknown governor of Cappadocia commemorated on a milestone of Severus Alexander (illustrated on Pl. XXIa) found at Soğukpınar, three miles south of the modern town of Pozantı. I present here the results of survey work done in the ilçe of Pozantı, in the summer of 1964, as part of a wider survey of Roman Cappadocia undertaken as Institute Scholar and with the benefit of a survey permit obtained for me by the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums, Ankara.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1970

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References

1 I previously preferred a measurement from the “mutatio Pilas” whose exact site we do not know. The distance to the Gates by modern road is in fair agreement with the milestones. Possible minor divergencies of the ancient and modern routes render it impossible to be dogmatic.

2 Geographical Journal XXII, 1903, 357 ffGoogle Scholar.

3 Ramsay, op. cit., 383–4.

4 AS. XIV, 1964, 143Google Scholar. fig. 2.

5 Cf. also RE. XXI, art. Podandus (Bittel), col. 1139.

6 In Cicero's time the passage of Taurus was clearly not an all-weather possibility. Ep. ad Att. V, xxi, 14Google Scholar: “A Quinto fratre his mensibus nihil exspectaris; nam Taurus propter nives ante mensem Iunium transiri non potest.” (1st June = 21st April in 50 B.C., cf. Magie, , RRAM. 1154Google Scholar). From Laodiceia to Cilicia he had the full range of Taurus passes available yet considered communication broken.