Cybistra or Kybistra, earlier known as Ḫubišna,[1] was a town of ancient Cappadocia or Cilicia.

Kybistra/Ḫubišna was the capital of a Luwian-speaking Neo-Hittite kingdom in the 1st millennium BCE.

Location

The main city of Kybistra/Ḫubišna was located in the general region of present-day Konya Eregli, approximately 150 km southeast of Konya city, in Konya Province, Turkey, but the exact location is still to be decided.

The main modern town here is Ereğli, Konya. The more exact location of Cybistra is probably at Eregli Kara Höyük,[2] a large ancient settlement mound, located 1 km west of the small village of Aziziye, Ereğli [tr], about 20 km northeast of Ereğli town,[3][4][5][6][7][8]

Another possible location is at Tont Kalesi, an important archaeological site located near the village of Gökçeyazı, approximately 10 to 12 kilometers southeast of Ereğli.[2] Çiğdem Maner (2017) argues that Tont Kalesi should be identified with Ḫupišna/Ḫubišna because of its important strategic location that controlled the southern frontier east of Tuwanuwa.[9]

The ancient Hellenistic town of Heraclea Cybistra was also located in the same general area. It could have been located in the same place as Cybistra at the modern town of Ereğli, Konya, or it could have been moved to one of the other two locations in this area. Archaeologists have not yet investigated these sites in great detail.

Name

The name of the city was recorded during the Old Assyrian Colony Period as Ḫabušna (Old Assyrian Akkadian: 𒄷𒁉𒅖𒈾).[10]

The name of the city was Ḫūpišna⁠ (𒌷𒄷𒌋𒁉𒅖𒈾,[11] 𒌷𒄷𒁉𒅖𒈾,[11] 𒌷𒄷𒁉𒌍𒈾,[11] 𒌷𒄷𒄫𒈾[11]) or Ḫapušna (𒌷𒄩𒁍𒍑𒈾[12]) during the Hittite Empire.[10][1]

The city appears in Neo-Assyrian records under the names:[1]

  • Ḫubišna (𒆳𒄷𒁉𒅖𒈾[13][14][15]),
  • Ḫubušna (𒆳𒄷𒁍𒍑𒈾[15][16]),
  • and Ḫubušnu (𒆳𒄷𒁍𒍑𒉡[16]).

During Classical Antiquity, the city became known as Cybistra (Ancient Greek: Κύβιστρα, romanized: Kúbistra; Latin: Cybistra).[10][1]

History

The Hittite Empire, with Ḫūpišna located in the Lower Land.

Middle Bronze Age

Before the Hittite period, Ḫūpišna was a strategic hub guarding the northern end of the Cilician Gates going south to Tarsus.[citation needed]

According to the Telepinu Proclamation, Ḫūpišna was one of the places which the 17th century BCE founder-king of the Hittite Old Kingdom, Labarna I, had conquered and over which he had subsequently appointed his sons as rulers.[3]

During the 16th century BCE, the late Hittite Old Kingdom king Ammuna carried out several military campaigns to attempt to re-subjugate former states which had revolted against Hittite suzerainty, including Ḫūpišna.[3]

Late Bronze Age

Ḫūpišna was mentioned in the texts of the Hittite Empire, as a country located in southern Anatolia, in the part of the Lower Land corresponding to the later Classical Tyanitis.[1]

Iron Age

Kingdom of Ḫubišna

After the collapse of the Hittite Empire, Ḫubišna became one of the Neo-Hittite states of the region of Tabal, in whose southern regions it was located.[1][3]

Iron II. Little is known about the kingdom of Ḫubišna. The king Puḫame of Ḫubišna did not initially submit to the Neo-Assyrian king Shalmaneser III (r. 859 – 824 BCE) after 24 other kings of the Tabalian region submitted to him following his attack on the kingdom of Tabal proper during his campaign there in 837 or 836 BCE. Puḫame became a tributary of Shalmaneser III only after he passed through the kingdom and capital of Ḫubišna.[17]

By c. 738 BC, the Tabalian region, including Ḫubišna, had become a tributary of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, either after the Neo-Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III's (r. 745 – 727 BCE) conquest of Arpad over the course of 743 to 740 BC, causing the states of the Tabalian region to submit to him, or possibly as a result of a campaign of Tiglath-pileser III in Tabal.[18][19][7]

Therefore, the king Uirimmi of Ḫubišna was mentioned in the records of the Neo-Assyrian Empire as one of five kings who offered tribute to Tiglath-Pileser III in 738 and 737 BCE.[1][20][3]

In 679 BCE, the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (r. 681 – 669 BCE) defeated the Cimmerians and killed their king Teušpa at Ḫubišna. Esarhaddon appears to have reached Ḫubišna by passing through the Göksu River valley and bypassing the Anti-Taurus Mountains and Tabal proper.[21]

List of rulers

Classical Age

Strabo, after mentioning Tyana, says "that not far from it are Castabala and Cybistra, forts which are still nearer to the mountain," by which he means Taurus.[27] Cybistra and Castabala were in that division of Cappadocia which was called Cilicia. Strabo makes it six days' journey from Mazaca to the Pylae Ciliciae, through Tyana, which is about half way; then he makes it 300 stadia, or about two days' journey, from Tyana to Cybistra, which leaves about a day's journey from Cybistra to the Pylae. William Martin Leake observed, "We learn also from the Table that Cybistra was on the road from Tyana to Mazaca, and sixty-four Roman miles from the former." Ptolemy places Cybistra in Cataonia.[28]

When Cicero was proconsul of Cilicia (51/50 BCE), he led his troops southwards towards the Taurus through that part of Cappadocia which borders on Cilicia, and he encamped "on the verge of Cappadocia, not far from Taurus, at a town Cybistra, to defend Cilicia, and at the same time hold Cappadocia.[29] Cicero stayed five days at Cybistra, and on hearing that the Parthians were a long way off that entrance into Cappadocia, and were hanging on the borders of Cilicia, he immediately marched into Cilicia through the Pylae of the Taurus, and came to Tarsus.[30] This is quite consistent with Strabo.

According to the Res Gestae Divi Saporis, Cybistra was among the Roman cities claimed by Shapur I to have been captured during his campaign in Anatolia following the defeat and capture of Emperor Valerian in AD 260.[31]

In the Tabula Peutingeriana, Cybistra appears as a station on the central Anatolian Roman road network between Mazaca Caesarea and Tyana, at a recorded distance of 9 units.[32]

Byzantine

Cybistra was a suffragan see of the Metropolis of Tyana, together with Phaustinoupolis and Sasima.[33]

Bishopric

Cybistra was from an early stage a Christian bishopric, as shown by the participation of its bishop Timotheus in the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Cyrus took part in the Council of Chalcedon in 351 and was a signatory of the letter that the bishops of the Roman province of Cappadocia Secunda, to which Cybistra belonged, sent in 458 to Byzantine Emperor Leo I the Thracian after the murder of Proterius of Alexandria. The diocese no longer appears in Notitiae Episcopatuum from the end of the 15th century.[34][35]

No longer a residential bishopric, Cybistra is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.[36]

List of titular bishops

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Bryce 2012, p. 153.
  2. 1 2 Catherine M. Draycott 2024 (ed), From Midas to Cyrus and Other Stories. Papers on Iron Age Anatolia in Honour of Geoffrey and Françoise Summers. Ch.14, p.214
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Bryce 2009, pp. 320–321.
  4. ↑ Talbert, Richard, ed. (2000). Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Princeton University Press. p. 66. ISBN 978-0-691-03169-9, with accompanying Map-by-Map Directory.
  5. ↑ Lund University. Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire.
  6. ↑ Weeden 2010, p. 39-40.
  7. 1 2 Aro 2013, p. 389.
  8. ↑ Weeden 2017, p. 727.
  9. ↑ Çiğdem Maner 2017, Searching for Ḫupišna Hittite Remains in Ereğli Kara Höyük and Tont Kalesi. M. Alparslan (ed.), Places and Spaces in Hittite Anatolia I: Hatti and the East. (Istanbul 2017), 101-114 - academia.edu
  10. 1 2 3 Kessler 1975, p. 500.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Kryszeń 2023b.
  12. ↑ Kryszeń 2023a.
  13. ↑ "Hubušnayu [OF HUBUšNU] (EN)". Ancient Knowledge Networks online. Corpus of Ancient Mesopotamian Scholarship. Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus. Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
  14. ↑ "Hubušnayu [OF HUBUšNU] (EN)". The Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period. Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus. Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
  15. 1 2 "Hubušnayu [OF HUBUšNU] (EN)". The Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online. Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus. Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
  16. 1 2
  17. ↑
  18. ↑ Bryce 2012, p. 144.
  19. ↑ Bryce 2012, p. 271.
  20. ↑ Levine 1975, pp. 500–501.
  21. ↑
  22. ↑ "Puhame [FOREIGN RULER] (RN)". Ancient Records of Middle Eastern Polities. Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus. Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
  23. ↑ "Puhame [RULER OF HUBUšNU] (RN)". The Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online. Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus. Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
  24. ↑ "Puhame [RULER OF HUBUšNU] (RN)". Textual Sources of the Assyrian Empire. Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus. Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
  25. ↑ "Urimmi [RULER OF QUE] (RN)". Ancient Records of Middle Eastern Polities. Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus. Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
  26. ↑ "Urimmi [RULER OF QUE] (RN)". Textual Sources of the Assyrian Empire. Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus. Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
  27. ↑ Strabo. Geographica. Vol. p. 537. Page numbers refer to those of Isaac Casaubon's edition.
  28. ↑ Ptolemy. The Geography. Vol. 5.7.
  29. ↑ Cicero, ad Fans. 15.2, 4.
  30. ↑ Cicero, ad Att. 5.20
  31. ↑ Shapur I, Res Gestae inscription, 30
  32. ↑ Anonymous, Peutinger Table (Tab.Peut.), TUR7
  33. ↑ Pseudo-Epiphanius, Notitia Episcopatuum, 4.12
  34. ↑ Michel Lequien, Oriens christianus in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus, Paris 1740, Vol. I, coll. 401-404
  35. ↑ Raymond Janin, v. Cybistra ou Cybista, in Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie ecclésiastiques, vol. XIII, Paris 1956, coll. 1143-1144
  36. ↑ Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1), p. 869

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Cybistra". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.

Sources

37°39′45″N 34°13′37″E / 37.662456°N 34.226824°E / 37.662456; 34.226824

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybistra