DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4679#0112
86 III. HIERAPOLIS: THE HOLY CITY.
precipices immediately south of the city, about ioo feet or more in
height, over which the water tumbles in numerous little streams, have
become ' an immense frozen cascade, the surface wavy, as of water in
its headlong course suddenly petrified' (Chandler p. 287). The
gleaming white rocks, still called Pambuk-Kalessi1, arrest the attention
of the traveller from the west, at the first glance which is opened to
him over the valley2.
Even more remarkable than this was the Ploutonion or Charonion
(Strabo pp. 580, 629), a hole just wide enough to admit a man,
reaching deep into the earth, from which issued a mephitic vapour,
the breath of the realm of death. In the fourth century the hole had
disappeared3, and the poisonous character of the exhalations was
a tradition of the past. But Strabo had seen the place, and had
experimented on sparrows, and he assures us that the vapour killed
living things exposed to it. There is other evidence to the effect that
not merely in Hierapolis, but also in many places in Phrygia, the
mephitic vapour from holes in the earth drew down birds flying over
them 4; this is perhaps only an exaggerated statement of the facts as
mentioned by Strabo.
Between A.D. 19 and 380 the Charonion had disappeared5. What
was the reason ? I think we must attribute it to the action of the
Christians, who had deliberately filled up and covered over the place,
the very dwelling-place of Satan. Christian tradition has preserved
1 I. e. Cotton-Castle. The name is is unknown to all the travellers ; but
often corrupted in the peasants' Ian- Mr. Walker is a perfect authority 011
guage into meaningless forms like Tarn- such a point. The Chrysorrhoas is given,
buk; and this has led some recent as it were, by 'the God' to enrich Iiiera-
travellers, who show a praiseworthy polis, and is then taken back to him-
accuracy, but are not familiar with self. See Ch. VI § 1.
the extraordinary tendency of the pea- 3 ' Foramen apud Hierapolim Phrygiae
sants in Turkey to distort names, to antehac, ut adserunt aliqui, videbatur :
doubt the reality of the name Pambuk. unde emergens . . . noxius spiritus per-
2 The name Chrysoroas, applied to severanti odore quidquid prope venerat
a river-god on coins of Hierapolis, must corrumpebat, absque spadonibus solis.'
designate the hot-spring, whose abun- Arnraian. XXIII 6, 18.
dant water has formed the very surface 4 pfjypa ■ ■ • T0^s vntpntTopevovs ra>v
of the ground on which the city stands, opvidav eTrio-wafifvov, as 'Adr/v^o-i t I8ttv
and was the cause of its attractiveness ecmv iv wpoSopco roC Hapdevmvos kol jroA-
and of its religious importance. My Xa^oC ttjs $pvyS>v ko\ Av8£>v yijs, Philostr.
friend Mr. Walker told me that its vit. Apoll. II 10.
waters, after tumbling over the cliffs, 6 Some scholars quote Ammianus as
flow for a short distance south through saying merely that the Charonion had
the plain until they reach a hole in the lost its poisonous properties ; but he
ground into which they disappear. I says clearly that it was no longer
have not seen this phenomenon, which visible.
precipices immediately south of the city, about ioo feet or more in
height, over which the water tumbles in numerous little streams, have
become ' an immense frozen cascade, the surface wavy, as of water in
its headlong course suddenly petrified' (Chandler p. 287). The
gleaming white rocks, still called Pambuk-Kalessi1, arrest the attention
of the traveller from the west, at the first glance which is opened to
him over the valley2.
Even more remarkable than this was the Ploutonion or Charonion
(Strabo pp. 580, 629), a hole just wide enough to admit a man,
reaching deep into the earth, from which issued a mephitic vapour,
the breath of the realm of death. In the fourth century the hole had
disappeared3, and the poisonous character of the exhalations was
a tradition of the past. But Strabo had seen the place, and had
experimented on sparrows, and he assures us that the vapour killed
living things exposed to it. There is other evidence to the effect that
not merely in Hierapolis, but also in many places in Phrygia, the
mephitic vapour from holes in the earth drew down birds flying over
them 4; this is perhaps only an exaggerated statement of the facts as
mentioned by Strabo.
Between A.D. 19 and 380 the Charonion had disappeared5. What
was the reason ? I think we must attribute it to the action of the
Christians, who had deliberately filled up and covered over the place,
the very dwelling-place of Satan. Christian tradition has preserved
1 I. e. Cotton-Castle. The name is is unknown to all the travellers ; but
often corrupted in the peasants' Ian- Mr. Walker is a perfect authority 011
guage into meaningless forms like Tarn- such a point. The Chrysorrhoas is given,
buk; and this has led some recent as it were, by 'the God' to enrich Iiiera-
travellers, who show a praiseworthy polis, and is then taken back to him-
accuracy, but are not familiar with self. See Ch. VI § 1.
the extraordinary tendency of the pea- 3 ' Foramen apud Hierapolim Phrygiae
sants in Turkey to distort names, to antehac, ut adserunt aliqui, videbatur :
doubt the reality of the name Pambuk. unde emergens . . . noxius spiritus per-
2 The name Chrysoroas, applied to severanti odore quidquid prope venerat
a river-god on coins of Hierapolis, must corrumpebat, absque spadonibus solis.'
designate the hot-spring, whose abun- Arnraian. XXIII 6, 18.
dant water has formed the very surface 4 pfjypa ■ ■ • T0^s vntpntTopevovs ra>v
of the ground on which the city stands, opvidav eTrio-wafifvov, as 'Adr/v^o-i t I8ttv
and was the cause of its attractiveness ecmv iv wpoSopco roC Hapdevmvos kol jroA-
and of its religious importance. My Xa^oC ttjs $pvyS>v ko\ Av8£>v yijs, Philostr.
friend Mr. Walker told me that its vit. Apoll. II 10.
waters, after tumbling over the cliffs, 6 Some scholars quote Ammianus as
flow for a short distance south through saying merely that the Charonion had
the plain until they reach a hole in the lost its poisonous properties ; but he
ground into which they disappear. I says clearly that it was no longer
have not seen this phenomenon, which visible.