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)

5. SIBIDOUNDA. 753

which "caused me to abandon my first view remain unsolved. His
valuable discovery of a milestone at Atly-Hissar certainly tells rather
in favour of the Oinan-Ova line; but it is not conclusive, for the
stone lies away from both roads (see-M. Radet's route map), and might
readily have been carried from either.

But it seems not impossible that there were two roads, alike in
ancient as in modern time; and that, just as we have recognized both
a trade-route and a horse-road from Ephesos to the east, so we should
recognize a double road between Metropolis and Synnada. It would
in that case remain uncertain on which of the two roads Melissa lay ;
but, perhaps, probability would incline to place it on the horse-road
and at Baljik-Hissar. Alcibiades was slain there, and he was likely
to be travelling by the direct road. Similarly, Hadrian, who built at
Melissa a monument to Alcibiades, was likely to prefer the direct path
from desire to see the place where the famous Athenian perished.

In that case the ancient site at Bedesh on the road between
Synnada and Baljik-Hissar, whose existence is determined by
M. Badet, would be the city Sibidonda; and the marbles of Dokimion
would be carried from Sj'nnada through Sibidonda round by the west
end of Oinan-Ova to Metropolis. As to Sibidonda, the only choice
seems to lie between Baljik-Hissar and Bedesh: future exploration
will decide the question, but at present probability leans to the
latter site. See Note, p. 755.

Sibidonda is mentioned at the council of Chalcedon, where Mirus
Bilandensis1 was present among the bishops of Phrygia Salutaris
(read [Si]bidandensis, where A has been corrupted to A). M. Badet
has rightly recognized that the Debalikia2 of Hierocles is a corruption
of Sibidonda: here we have a clear case where £ has passed by
a copyist's error into A, and A into A. The order Sibidonda, Lysias,
Synnada, is natural, when we recognize that Lysias was in Oinan-
Ova, and that thus the three cities were closely connected by a line of
road. The order in all Notitiae, Prymnessos, Meros. Sibidonda,
Phyteia, is not good3. The strange name Sibidonda, or Sibidounda,

1 The variety of forms is puzzling: to A, and that the form should be

Ev\av8pcDi/,Eulandrae,Eulandrorum,&ho [Si]bidandensis; with the intrusion of

occur. In the classified list in Actio p compare Ptolemy's BXeavSpos for

XV, it is placed in Salutaris; and in B\avv8os.

the other lists it usually comes before 2 I wrongly took Debali-kia as a cor-

Ipsos and Lysias. Elias of Blaundos in ruption of two names Beudos, Kinna-

Lydia was also present. On the whole borion.

these forms are most easily explicable s If Phyteia be Beudos, as I formerly

by the theory that A has been corrupted suggested, it was near Sibidonda (being

VOL. i. ft. ir. D d