DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4680#0292
1. THE ARM ON I AN DISTRICT. 623
This close connexion between Akmonia and the open valley where
Keramon-Agora lay furnishes the explanation of the Akmonian
foundation-legend. Akmon and Doias were brothers, sons of Manes
the great god of the district, § 2 : from the one brother the city derived
its name, while Doiantos Pedion was called after the other. We
have here evidently a local legend explaining by the usual device
of a genealogical myth the relation in which the plain stood to the
city.
The streams which flow from Ahar-Dagh to S. and W. traverse
narrow, fertile valleys. The most important is Ahat-Keui-Su : on its
upper waters lay the town of Diokleia, and about four miles above its
junction with the Banaz-Tchai was the great city of Akmonia. On
the Aram-Tchai and its tributaries no town of an}r importance could
ever have existed, for the. situation is contracted and quite unsuited to
maintain city life, but villages or small towns flourished in the green
shady valleys, especially at the villages of Yannik-Euren and Hodjalar.
In 1883 Sterrett and I visited almost every village of the district, and
arrived at the conclusion that no city except Diokleia could be placed
amid this hill country 1. Under Ahar-Dagh, in particular, about Ulu-
Keui, Akche-Badarik, and Eldesann, the character of the mountain
glens and the absence of any trace of ancient life forbade us to place
any ancient city or town.
The most probable situation for the second town of the Moxeanoi,
Siokharax, was at the N. limits of their territory, on the road from
Banaz-Ova, near the sources of Hammam-Su, about the villages of
Otourak and Halaslar. Further E. on the same road were two
marked sites, probably the two cities Aristion and Kidyessos, of
which the latter (the extreme frontier town of Pacatiana) struck a few
rare coins.
Geographically, these towns form a group — Akmonia, Diokleia,
Siokharax, Aristion and Kidyessos. Now in the older ecclesiastical
system, it is remarkable that none of these five cities are mentioned.
Yet they all were bishoprics (except Siokharax); and some of them
were represented at the Councils held in the fifth and the eighth
centuries. Why then should they be omitted from all the Rotitiae,
which show the older system, while they are mentioned in the Roti-
tiae of the later system ? I see only one conceivable reason: this
1 At Yannik-Euren the remains are a similar village. There were a few
certainly not those of a city but of fragments of marble at Tchukurdja,
a mere village or halting-place on the but it was a place of no consequence,
road between Eumeneia and the Penta- Elsewhere we saw nothing,
polis. At Hodjalar and Dolatann was
This close connexion between Akmonia and the open valley where
Keramon-Agora lay furnishes the explanation of the Akmonian
foundation-legend. Akmon and Doias were brothers, sons of Manes
the great god of the district, § 2 : from the one brother the city derived
its name, while Doiantos Pedion was called after the other. We
have here evidently a local legend explaining by the usual device
of a genealogical myth the relation in which the plain stood to the
city.
The streams which flow from Ahar-Dagh to S. and W. traverse
narrow, fertile valleys. The most important is Ahat-Keui-Su : on its
upper waters lay the town of Diokleia, and about four miles above its
junction with the Banaz-Tchai was the great city of Akmonia. On
the Aram-Tchai and its tributaries no town of an}r importance could
ever have existed, for the. situation is contracted and quite unsuited to
maintain city life, but villages or small towns flourished in the green
shady valleys, especially at the villages of Yannik-Euren and Hodjalar.
In 1883 Sterrett and I visited almost every village of the district, and
arrived at the conclusion that no city except Diokleia could be placed
amid this hill country 1. Under Ahar-Dagh, in particular, about Ulu-
Keui, Akche-Badarik, and Eldesann, the character of the mountain
glens and the absence of any trace of ancient life forbade us to place
any ancient city or town.
The most probable situation for the second town of the Moxeanoi,
Siokharax, was at the N. limits of their territory, on the road from
Banaz-Ova, near the sources of Hammam-Su, about the villages of
Otourak and Halaslar. Further E. on the same road were two
marked sites, probably the two cities Aristion and Kidyessos, of
which the latter (the extreme frontier town of Pacatiana) struck a few
rare coins.
Geographically, these towns form a group — Akmonia, Diokleia,
Siokharax, Aristion and Kidyessos. Now in the older ecclesiastical
system, it is remarkable that none of these five cities are mentioned.
Yet they all were bishoprics (except Siokharax); and some of them
were represented at the Councils held in the fifth and the eighth
centuries. Why then should they be omitted from all the Rotitiae,
which show the older system, while they are mentioned in the Roti-
tiae of the later system ? I see only one conceivable reason: this
1 At Yannik-Euren the remains are a similar village. There were a few
certainly not those of a city but of fragments of marble at Tchukurdja,
a mere village or halting-place on the but it was a place of no consequence,
road between Eumeneia and the Penta- Elsewhere we saw nothing,
polis. At Hodjalar and Dolatann was