Samosata
Encyclopedia
Samosata was an ancient city on the right (west) bank of the Euphrates
Euphrates
The Euphrates is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia...

 whose ruins existed at the modern city of Samsat
Samsat, Turkey
Samsat is a small town in the Adıyaman Province of Turkey, situated on the upper Euphrates river.Archaeological research on the hill of Şehremuz in Samsat has uncovered relics from the 7000 BC Paleolithic era; the 5000 BC Neolithic, 3000 BC Chalcolithic and 3000 to 1200 BC Bronze Ages...

, Adıyaman Province
Adiyaman Province
Adıyaman Province is a province in south-central Turkey. The province was created in 1954 out of part of Malatya Province. Area 7,614 km². Population 590,935 , up from 513,131 in 1990. The capital is Adıyaman....

, Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 until the site was flooded by the newly-constructed Atatürk Dam
Atatürk Dam
The Atatürk Dam , originally the Karababa Dam, is a zoned rock-fill dam with a central core on the Euphrates River on the border of Adıyaman Province and Şanlıurfa Province in Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey...

.

The founder of the city was Sames, a Satrap of Commagene who made it his capital.

The city is often confused with Arsamosata
Arsamosata
Arsamosata was a city in Armenian Sophene near the Euphrates. It was founded by King Arsames I of the Orontid Dynasty in 3rd century BC. It was left and destroyed in I century BC. In Middle Ages it was called Ashmushat....

. Located in southeast Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 on the upper Euphrates River, it was fortified so as to protect a major crossing point of the river on the east-west trade route. It also served as a station on another route running from Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...

, Palmyra
Palmyra
Palmyra was an ancient city in Syria. In the age of antiquity, it was an important city of central Syria, located in an oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus and 180 km southwest of the Euphrates at Deir ez-Zor. It had long been a vital caravan city for travellers crossing the Syrian desert...

, and Sura
Sura (city)
Sura was a city in the southern part of ancient Babylonia, located west of the Euphrates River. It was well-known for its agricultural produce, which included grapes, wheat, and barley...

 up to Lesser Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...

 and the Euxine (Black) Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

.
For a time, the city was called Antiochia in Commagene .
As Antiochia in Commagene, it served as the capital for the Hellenistic kingdom of Commagene from circa 160 BC
160 BC
Year 160 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Gallus and Cethegus...

 until it was surrendered to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 in 72. A civil metropolis from the days of Emperor Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...

, Samosata was the home of the Legio VI Ferrata
Legio VI Ferrata
Legio sexta Ferrata , was a Roman Legion formed in 65 BC, and in existence up to at least 3rd century. A Legio VI fought in the Roman Republican civil wars of the 40s and 30s BC...

 and later Legio XVI Flavia Firma
Legio XVI Flavia Firma
Legio sexta decima Flavia Firma was a Roman legion. The legion was created by Emperor Vespasian in 70, with the remains of the XVI Gallica , and still existed in the 4th century, when it guarded the Euphrates border camped in Sura . The emblem of the legion was a lion....

, and the terminus of several military roads.

Samosata was the birthplace of Lucian
Lucian
Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....

 (c. 120-192), a famous comic writer of antiquity, whose True Stories includes a trip to the moon, and could be considered the first space novel, as well as 80 works which have survived to this day.

Samosata was also the birthplace of Paul of Samosata
Paul of Samosata
Paul of Samosata was Bishop of Antioch from 260 to 268. He was a believer in monarchianism, and his teachings anticipate adoptionism.-Life:...

, the third leader of the Elkasites, an order of Essene
Essenes
The Essenes were a Jewish sect that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE which some scholars claim seceded from the Zadokite priests...

 Gnostics
Gnosticism
Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...

, who lived in the mid 3rd century.

In the Christian martyrology
Martyrology
A martyrology is a catalogue or list of martyrs , arranged in the calendar order of their anniversaries or feasts. Local martyrologies record exclusively the custom of a particular Church. Local lists were enriched by names borrowed from neighbouring churches...

, seven Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...

s were crucified in 297 in Samosata for refusing to perform a pagan rite in celebration of the victory of Maximian
Maximian
Maximian was Roman Emperor from 286 to 305. He was Caesar from 285 to 286, then Augustus from 286 to 305. He shared the latter title with his co-emperor and superior, Diocletian, whose political brain complemented Maximian's military brawn. Maximian established his residence at Trier but spent...

 over the Persians: Abibus, Hipparchus, James, Lollian, Paragnus, Philotheus, and Romanus.
Saint Daniel the Stylite
Daniel the Stylite
Saint Daniel the Stylite is a saint of the Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholic and Eastern Catholic Churches. He was born in a village by the name of Maratha in upper Mesopotamia near Samosata, in today what is now a region of Turkey. He entered a monastery at the age of twelve and lived there...

 was born in a village near Samosata; Saint Rabulas, venerated on 19 February, who lived in the sixth century at Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

, was also a native of Samosata. A Notitia Episcopatuum of Antioch
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the...

 in the sixth century mentions Samosata as an autocephalous metropolis (Echos d'Orient, X, 144); at the synod that reinstated Patriarch Photius I of Constantinople (the Photian Council) of 879, the See of Samosata had already been united to that of Amida
Diyarbakır
Diyarbakır is one of the largest cities in southeastern Turkey...

 (Diyarbakır). As in 586 the titular of Amida bears only this title , it must be concluded that the union took place between the 7th and the 9th centuries. Earlier bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

s included Peperius, who attended the Council of Nicaea
First Council of Nicaea
The First Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea in Bithynia by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325...

 (325); Saint Eusebius of Samosata
Eusebius of Samosata
Saint Eusebius, Bishop of Samosata was a Christian martyr and opponent of Arianism. His feast day is June 21 in the Western Church and June 22 in the Eastern Church....

, a great opponent of the Arians
Arianism
Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius , a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of the entities of the Trinity and the precise nature of the Son of God as being a subordinate entity to God the Father...

, killed by an Arian woman (c. 380), honoured on 22 June; Andrew, a vigorous opponent of Cyril of Alexandria
Cyril of Alexandria
Cyril of Alexandria was the Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 to 444. He came to power when the city was at its height of influence and power within the Roman Empire. Cyril wrote extensively and was a leading protagonist in the Christological controversies of the later 4th and 5th centuries...

 and of the Council of Ephesus. Chabot gives a list of twenty-eight Jacobite bishops.

It was at Samosata that Julian II
Julian the Apostate
Julian "the Apostate" , commonly known as Julian, or also Julian the Philosopher, was Roman Emperor from 361 to 363 and a noted philosopher and Greek writer....

 had ships made in his expedition against Sapor
Shapur II
Shapur II the Great was the ninth King of the Persian Sassanid Empire from 309 to 379 and son of Hormizd II. During his long reign, the Sassanid Empire saw its first golden era since the reign of Shapur I...

, and it was a natural crossing-place in the struggle between Heraclius
Heraclius
Heraclius was Byzantine Emperor from 610 to 641.He was responsible for introducing Greek as the empire's official language. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his father, Heraclius the Elder, the exarch of Africa, successfully led a revolt against the unpopular usurper Phocas.Heraclius'...

 and Chosroes in the 7th century.

In February, 1098, the emir Baldoukh (Bulduk) of the Turkish Artukid or Ortoqid (Artuklu) dynasty, attacked by Baudouin of Antioch, cut his army to pieces there. In 1114 it was one of the chief quarters of the Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

s hostile to the Count of Edessa, to whom it succumbed, but was recaptured by the Muslims about 1149.

Samosata remains a titular see
Titular see
A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular bishop", "titular metropolitan", or "titular archbishop"....

 of the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

, Samosatensis; the seat is currently vacant following the death of the last bishop in 1967.

Modern Samsat

Ancient Samosata continues to the present day as the Turkish town of Samsat. The old town of Samsat was submerged in 1989 under the Ataturk Dam
Atatürk Dam
The Atatürk Dam , originally the Karababa Dam, is a zoned rock-fill dam with a central core on the Euphrates River on the border of Adıyaman Province and Şanlıurfa Province in Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey...

. A new town bearing the same name was built for the population dislocated by the sinking of the old town. Modern Samsat
Samsat, Turkey
Samsat is a small town in the Adıyaman Province of Turkey, situated on the upper Euphrates river.Archaeological research on the hill of Şehremuz in Samsat has uncovered relics from the 7000 BC Paleolithic era; the 5000 BC Neolithic, 3000 BC Chalcolithic and 3000 to 1200 BC Bronze Ages...

 is a town of approximately 2000 inhabitants. It is the capital of the district of the same name in the Turkish province of Adıyaman
Adiyaman
Adıyaman is city in southeastern Turkey, capital of the Adıyaman Province. It is one of the fastest-growing cities in Turkey...

.

External links

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