Tarsus (; Hittite: 𒋫𒅈𒊭 ; ; ; ) is a municipality and district of Mersin Province, Turkey.Büyükşehir İlçe Belediyesi , Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 12 July 2023. Its area is 2,029 km2, and its population is 350,732 (2022). It is a historic city, inland from the Mediterranean Sea. It is part of the Adana-Mersin metropolitan area, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Turkey. Tarsus forms an administrative district in the eastern part of Mersin Province and lies at the heart of the region.
With a history going back over 6,000 years, Tarsus has long been an important stop for traders and a focal point of many civilisations. During the Roman Empire, it was the capital of the province of Cilicia. It was the scene of the first meeting between Mark Antony and Cleopatra, and the birthplace of Paul the Apostle.
Tarsus was served by Adana Şakirpaşa Airport, replaced in August 2024 by Çukurova International Airport; and is connected by Turkish State Railways to both Adana and Mersin.
Etymology The ancient name Tarsos is derived from , the original name given to the city by the Hittites, who were among the earliest settlers of the region. That in turn was possibly derived from the name of the storm god Tarḫunz.Sirkeli Archaeological Project During the Hellenistic era Tarsus was known as Antiochia on the Cydnus (, ), to distinguish it from Syrian Antioch. The Romans knew it as , while it was in Western Armenian and in Eastern Armenian.
According to the Suda, the city was founded by Perseus after he fought the Isaurians and the Cilicians. An oracle told him to found a city in the place where the flat (ταρσός) of his foot would touch the earth while he was dismounting from his horse after the victory.Suda, mu, 406
Geography
Located on the mouth of the Berdan River (Cydnus in antiquity), which empties into the Mediterranean, Tarsus sits at a junction where land and sea routes connecting the Cilician plain (today called Çukurova), central Anatolia and the Mediterranean Sea meet. The climate is typical of the Mediterranean region, with very hot, humid summers and chilly, damp winters.
Tarsus has a long history of commerce, and is still a commercial centre today, trading in the produce of the fertile Çukurova plain. Tarsus is also a thriving industrial centre for refining and processing for export. Industries include agricultural machinery, spare parts, textiles, fruit-processing, brick-making and ceramics.
Agriculture is an important source of income with half the local land area farmland () and most of the remainder forest or orchard. The farmland is mostly well-irrigated, fertilised and managed with up-to-date equipment.
History
Foundation and prehistory Archaeological evidence suggests Gözlükule, a mound located in southeastern Tarsus, was the site where humans first settled in the area. Excavations conducted under Princeton University archaeologist Hetty Goldman in the 1930s and 1940s at the mound found evidence that the site was occupied from Neolithic to Islamic times. A fortified town existed at the site of Tarsus since at least as early as the 3rd millennium BC.
The settlement stood at the crossing of several important trade routes linking Anatolia to Syria and beyond. Because most of the ruins lie under the modern city, archaeology has barely touched the ancient city. As an important port in a merchant marine trade network spanning the eastern Mediterranean and beyond from before the third millennium, the city was always an important centre for cultural interchange with traces of its influence visible from pre-Homeric Greek evidence onwards. The city may have been of Anatolian or Semitic origin; it is first mentioned as Tarsisi in Neo-Assyrian records of the campaigns of Esarhaddon, as well as several times in the records of Shalmaneser I and Sennacherib, the latter having had the city rebuilt. A Greek legend connects it with the memory of the Assyrian king Sardanapalus (Ashurbanipal), still preserved in the Dunuk-Tach, called 'tomb of Sardanapalus', a monument of unknown origin. During the Hellenistic era it was a centre for exchange between Neo-Platonic, Gnostic and Mystery traditions.
Stephanus of Byzantium quotes Athenodorus of Tarsus on another legend:
Much of this legendary account of the foundation of Tarsus, however, appeared in the Roman era, and it is not reliable. The geographer Strabo states that Tarsus was founded by people from Argos who were exploring this coast. Another legend claims that Bellerophon fell off his winged horse Pegasus here, hurting his foot in the process, and that the city was named tar-sos (the sole of the foot) in memory of his accident. Other candidates for legendary founder of the city include the hero Perseus and Triptolemus, son of the earth-goddess Demeter, doubtless because the countryside around Tarsus is such good farmland. Later the coins of Tarsus bore the image of Hercules due to another tale in which the hero was held prisoner here by the local god Sandon. Tarsus has been suggested as a possible site for the biblical Tarshish, to which the prophet Jonah wanted to flee, but Tartessos in Spain has also been offered as a possible location for this. (See furtherJonah 1:3 and the entry for Jonah in the Jewish Encyclopedia)
Early antiquity
In historical times, the city was first ruled by the Hittites, followed by Assyria, and then by the Persian Empire. As the principal town of Cilicia, Tarsus was the seat of a Persian satrapy from 400 BC onward. Indeed, Xenophon records that in 401 BC, when Cyrus the Younger marched against Babylon, the city was governed by King Syennesis in the name of the Persian monarch.
At this period the god of the city was Sandon, of whom a large monument existed at Tarsus at least until the 3rd century AD. Coins showed Sandon standing on a winged and horned lion, and it is now thought likely that the Lion of Saint Mark on the pillar in the Piazza San Marco in Venice was in origin a winged lion-griffin copied from such a monument in Tarsus.See The Lion of Venice: edited by Bianca Maria Scarfi (Venice. 1990) pp.101 & 110
Alexander the Great passed through with his army in 333 BC and nearly met his death here after bathing in the Cydnus. By this time Tarsus was already largely influenced by Greek language and culture, and as part of the Seleucid Empire it became more and more Hellenised. Strabo praised the cultural level of Tarsus in this period with its philosophers, poets and linguists. The schools of Tarsus rivalled those of Athens and Alexandria. A reference in the Bible (2 Maccabees (4:30)) records the city's revolt against Antiochus IV Epiphanes in about 171 BC. The king had renamed the town Antiochia on the Cydnus although the name did not stick because too many cities were named Antioch. At this time the library of Tarsus held 200,000 books, including a huge collection of scientific works.
Roman period
After crushing the feared Cilician pirates, Pompey brought Tarsus under Roman rule In 67 BC, and it became the capital of the Roman province of Cilicia. To flatter Julius Caesar, it was briefly named Juliopolis. Cassius Longinus planned to kill him here as early as 47 BC, and Cleopatra and Mark Antony met and was the scene of the celebrated feasts they gave during the construction of their fleet (41 BC). In William Shakespeare's 1606 play Antony and Cleopatra (Act 5, Scene 2) Cleopatra says she is going to Cydnus to meet Antony after his death, (i.e. she will commit suicide to meet him in the afterlife). "Go fetch / My best attires: I am again for Cydnus, / To meet Mark Antony."
In the Roman period, the city was an important intellectual centre, boasting its own academy. One of its leading lights, the philosopher Athenodorus Cananites, was the tutor of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, a fact which secured continuous imperial patronage for the city.
When the province of Cilicia was divided, Tarsus remained the civil and religious metropolis of Cilicia Prima, a grand city with palaces, marketplaces, roads and bridges, baths, fountains and waterworks, a gymnasium on the banks of the Cydnus, and a stadium. Tarsus was later eclipsed by nearby Adana but remained important as a port and shipyard. Several Roman emperors were interred here: Marcus Claudius Tacitus, Maximinus II and Julian the Apostate, who planned to move his capital here from Antioch if he returned from his Persian expedition.Roger Collins, Early Medieval Europe 300-1000 (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999) p. 40.,
Early Christian and Byzantine eras
Tarsus was the city where, according to the Acts of the Apostles, Saul of Tarsus was born, although he was brought up in Jerusalem."I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day." -- He was a Roman citizen (Acts 21:39; Acts 22:25–29) "of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city".: King James Version Scholars largely agree that Paul was from Tarsus and was a Roman citizen, as stated in Acts. Saul, who eventually became Paul the Apostle after his professed encounter with Jesus (), returned here after his conversion (). About eight years later, Barnabas retrieved him from Tarsus to help with the work of preaching and teaching in Syrian Antioch ().
By then, a Christian community probably already existed although the first recorded bishop, Helenus, dates only from the 3rd century. Owing to the importance of Tarsus, many martyrs were put to death there, including Saint Pelagia of Tarsus, Saint Boniface of Tarsus, Saint Marinus of Tarsus, Saint Diomedes, Saint Quiricus and Saint Julitta.
The city remained largely pagan until the reign of Julian the Apostate (r. 361–363), who reportedly planned to make it his capital. Following his death during his campaign against Sassanid Persia, he was buried next to the city walls, opposite the earlier tomb of the Tetrarch Maximinus Daza. In the early 5th century, Christian chronicler Palladius recorded the presence of Samaritan and Jewish synagogues in Tarsus (407/408 CE). Under Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565), public works were carried out in the city, including alterations to the course of the Cydnus river and the rebuilding of the bridge. Towards the end of his reign, the city suffered from riots instigated by the Hippodrome Blues faction.
A cave near Tarsus is one of several places said to be the location of the legend of the Seven Sleepers, common to Christianity and Islam.
Middle Ages
Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 630s, the city came into contact with the forces of the Rashidun Caliphate. It is unclear when the town was first captured by the Arabs, but it is clear that it, and the wider region of Cilicia, remained contested between the Byzantines and the new Caliphate for several decades, up to the early 8th century. According to Muslim sources, as he was retreating the Byzantine emperor Heraclius () deliberately withdrew the population and devastated the region between Antioch and Tarsus, creating a no man's land between the two empires.