Universitätsbibliothek HeidelbergUniversitätsbibliothek Heidelberg
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Ramsay, William Mitchell
The cities and bishoprics of Phrygia: being an essay of the local history of Phrygia from the earliest time to the Turkish conquest (Band 1,2): West and West-Central Phrygia — Oxford, 1897

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4680#0068

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2. THE RIVERS OF APAMEIA-KELAINAL 399

covering; around her are grouped four river-gods with the names
beside them MAI, MAP, 0£P, and OP. This coin evidently implies
that four rivers flowed in close proximity to the city, Maiandros,
Marsyas, Therma, and Orgas.

§ 3. Marsyas (Katarrhaktes) has been recognized rightly by
Arundel, Hamilton, Waddington, Hogarth, and Weber as the modem
Dineir-Su, which rushing out in an impetuous stream from a recess
at the foot of a precipitous cliff1, and flowing with headlong current
down a glen, and through the modern town of Dineir, falls into
the main stream (still distinguished from it as Menderez) below the
town.

The Marsyas is the only one of the rivers of Apameia that is fully
described by the ancients ; it was a rapid and headlong stream (Herod.,
Strab.), of considerable size (Herod., Dio), twenty-five feet broad (Xen.),
rising in a cave (Xen.), in the agora of Kelainai2 (Herod.), underneath
the acropolis of Kelainai (Xen.), springing from the acropolis of
Apameia (Strab., Koman coin3), flowing through the city of Kelainai
(Xen., Herod.), flowing through the city of Apameia (Strab., Dio,
Paus.4). Its course was quite short, and it fell into the Maeander
in the outskirts of Apameia. Its springs burst forth from the earth
with such strength as to carry stones out in its current (Theo-
phrastus 5).

All these characteristics are true of Sunun-Bashi, the head-springs
of Dineir-Water; and they are true of no other fountains beside
Apameia. I cannot attest that it carries out stones from below the
ground in its rushing course ; but every visitor can vouch that it rises
with much stronger current than any other spring at Apameia. I quote
here verbatim the description of this stream which Mrs. Ramsay and
I wrote in company at Apameia in 1891, trying to make it as accurate
as possible.

' A little way behind the modern village, at the foot of the hill which
beyond all doubt was the acropolis of Kelainai, and close under it, rises
a great spring. The natives have no special name for the stream,
but call it simply Su or Tchai (i.e. the Water, or the Stream)6. The

1 This cliff is the western face of the he rises in a cave underneath the acro-
Acropolis hill: Xen. says the Marsyas polis of the imperial time.

rose vwo rfj aKpon6\ei. 4 Both Dio and Pausanias X 30, 9

2 This statement is incorrect, p. 412. speak of Kelainai, but mean by that
8 Reading with Hirschfeld aKpojroXias name the city of their time.

instead of waXcas. On a coin the Mar- 5 Theophr. op. Plinium XXXI 19.

syas is represented'recumbent in cavern c Dineir-Su in speaking about the

beneath i*ocks and towers ' (Head) ; i.e. geography of the district.
 
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