Caesarea Mazaca

Superseded trading town

Mazaca, the pre-Roman settlement underlying Caesarea in Cappadocia, is usually placed by modern scholarship in the area of present-day Kayseri, with the early urban nucleus associated with the Beştepeler archeological zone southwest of the modern city centre on the slopes of Mount Erciyes.^[2][3]

An earlier town or city associated with the Old Assyrian trade network can be traced to 3000 BCE, in ruined Kültepe, 20 km (12 mi) north-east. Findings there include numerous baked-clay tablets, some of which were enclosed in clay envelopes stamped with cylinder seals. The documents record common activities, such as trade between the Assyrian colony and the city-state of Assur and between Assyrian merchants and local people. The trade was run by families rather than the state. The Kültepe texts are the oldest documents of Anatolia. Although they are written in Old Assyrian, the Hittite loanwords and names in the texts are the oldest record of any Indo-European language.^[4] Most of the archaeological evidence is typical of Anatolia rather than of Assyria, but the use of both cuneiform and the dialect is the best indication of Assyrian presence.

Achaemenid and Hellenistic times

Strabo noted that while Mazaca lacked natural water, walls, and fertile land, nearby Mount Argaios provided plentiful timber, though the forests were underlain by volcanic fire-pits that posed a danger to both inhabitants and livestock.^[5] Stone and animal fodder were also found in abundance around the city, but the flooding of the River Melas often made extraction difficult.^[6] The inhabitants of Mazaca were called "the Mazaceni."^[6] Mazaca may have been the seat of the lieutenant governor of Cataonia.^[7][8]

Mazaca, like the rest of the region, became a part of Alexander the Great's empire in 333 BC. In the turbulent decades that followed his death, the city fell under Antigonus Monophthalmus. Mazaca was subsequently passed to the Seleucid Empire after the Battle of Ipsus.

The system of strategiai into which the Cappadocian Kingdom was divided may derive from earlier Achaemenid hyparchies, or alternatively from the administrative subdivisions imposed during the period of Seleucid rule between roughly 301 and 255 BC.^[9] In the Hellenistic period, Mazaca was the principal city in the strategia of Cilicia.^[10]

Kingdom of Cappadocia

It became the centre of an autonomous Greater Cappadocian kingdom under either Ariarathes III or Ariarathes IV of Cappadocia in the later third century BC.^[11] In the ensuing period, the city came under the sway of Hellenistic influence, and was given the Greek name of Eusebia (Greek: Εὐσέβεια) in honor of the Cappadocian king Ariarathes V Eusebes Philopator of Cappadocia (163–130 BC). When Tigranes conquered Cappadocia, he forcibly settled the Mazaceni in his newly founded city of Tigranocerta.^[12] Some returned to Mazaca after the capture of Tigranocerta by the Roman general Lucullus.

The new name of Caesarea (Greek: Καισάρεια), by which it has since been known, was given to it by the last Cappadocian King Archelaus^[13] or perhaps by Tiberius.^[14] Caesarea was an inland trading partner for many nearby city-states, and also benefited from links both to the east and the west that gave it, vis-à-vis regional competitors, an advantageous position for trade relations.^[15]

Roman and Byzantine rule

The city passed under formal Roman rule in 17 AD. In the first century of Roman rule, the Caesarea belonged to the only four major cities in the region, together with Koloneia, Melitene and Tyana.^[16] The city served as an imperial Roman mint factory and produced zinc and lead from mines of Delikkaya and Aladağ.^[17]

Caesarea was destroyed by the Sassanid king Shapur I after his victory over the Emperor Valerian I in 260 AD. At the time it was recorded to have around 40,000 inhabitants. The city gradually recovered, and became home to several early Christian saints: saints Dorothea and Theophilus the martyrs, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Basil of Caesarea, Andreas (Andrew) and Emmelia of Caesarea. In the 4th century, bishop Basil established an ecclesiastic centre in the suburbs, consisting of numerous charitable institutions (including a system of almshouses, an orphanage, old peoples' homes, and a leprosarium), monasteries and churches, that was later called Basileias.^[18] The hypothesis that the modern city of Kayseri, situated about two miles from the site of Caesarea Mazaca, developed around this complex is not confirmed by archaeology.^[19] The city was overrun again by the Sasanian general Shahin during the war of 602–628.^[20]

It was an important trading centre^[15][21] on the Silk Road.

In the seventh century, the city became part of the Byzantine border region and became a target of the annual razzias the Arabs conducted into Anatolia. As such, it was besieged over 5 times between 646 and 738 and though it was sacked only once by Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik in 725/6, the attacks took a toll on the city and its surrounding.^[22] The imperial authorities therefore made Caesarea an aplekton and tenth-century sources indicate arms production in the city.^[23] Since the ninth century the city became also the administrative centre as the capital of the Byzantine Theme of Charsianon. Though the city lost most of its importance by the tenth century, is housed probably still around 50,000 people.^[24] The city was pillaged, sacked and burnt in 1067 by the invading Seljuks and Turkomans, who enslaved the city's residents. They also plundered the Church of Saint Basil the Great, taking its decorative gold, pearls and gemstones, but failed to destroy the structure itself. In two more instances, in 1069 and after the Battle of Manzikert, the Seljuks returned to the ruins of Caesarea to raid and pillage the surrounding Cappadocian villages.^[25][26]

Kayseri Castle, built in antiquity, and expanded by the Seljuks and Ottomans, is still standing in good condition in the central square of the city.