BIBLICAL ARCIHAEOLOGIST 1~v~ 31 13 Published By The American Schools of Oriental Research (Jerusalem and Baghdad) Drawer 93A, Yale Station, New Haven, Conn. Vol. XIII February, 1950 No. 1 Fig. 1. Lower Valley of the Lycus, looking from Hierapolis toward the mountains of Caria; travertine deposits in the foreground. (Photographs by the author, reproduced by courtesy of the Zion Research Foundation, Brookline, Mass.) LAODICEA AND ITS NEIGHBORS Sherman E. Johnson Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Massachusetts Colossae, Laodicea and Hierapolis, the three cities of the Lycus valley in Asia Minor, are mentioned only occasionally in the New Testa- 2 THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XIII, The Biblical Archaeologist is published quarterly (February, May, September, December) by the American Schools of Oriental Research. Its purpose is to meet the need for a readable, non-technical, yet thoroughly reliable account of archaeological discoveries as they are related to the Bible. Editor: G. Ernest Wright, McCormick Theological Seminary, 2330 N. Halsted St., Chicago 14, IIl. (Only editorial correspondence should be sent to this address.) Editorial Board: W. F. Albright, Johns Hopkins University; Millar Burrows, Yale University. Subscription Price: $1.00 per year, payable to the American Schools of Oriental Research, Drawer 93A, Yale Station, New Haven, Conn. Ten or more subscriptions for group use, mailed and billed to one address, $0.50 per year for each. Subscriptions run for the calendar year. IN ENGLAND: seven shillings, six pence per year, payable to B. H. Blackwell, Ltd., Broad St., Oxford. BACK NUMBERS: Available at $1 per volume, 25c per copy Entered as second-class matter, October 2, 1942, at the Post Office at New h-tven, Connecticut, under the Act of March 3, 1879. ment. One of the Apostle Paul's letters was addressed to the church at Colossae and in it he mentions the other cities (Col. 2:1; 4:13-16). The church of Laodicea is addressed in such scathing terms in one of the letters to the seven churches (Rev. 3:14-22) that it has been a by-word ever since; yet in the fourth century Laodicea was the meeting place of an important regional council. Hierapolis, nearby, was the home of the Christian writer Papias, and here, according to tradition, the evangelist Philip (Acts 21:8 f.) spent his last days. These well- known facts do not, however, tell the whole story. The full signifi- cance of the Lycus valley for the development of early Christianity emerges only when all the relevant information from archaeology and early Christian literature is brought together. I. THE LYCUS VALLEY AND THE ROMAN ROADS The Maeander river (now called Menderes), which has contributed a verb to the English language, rises in the Phrygian highlands and flows into the Aegean not far from the site of ancient Miletus. More than a hundred miles east of its mouth the Maeander is joined by the Lycus (Churuk su), one of its principal tributaries. The junction is near the modern town of Seraikoi, about 12 miles from the site of Laodicea. From Ephesus, near the lower end of the Maeander valley, it is an eight hour trip by train to Denizli, the modern successor of Laodicea. The valley presents a striking aspect, with the winding and continually shifting river, the fields marked out by mud walls topped by brush and roads and ditches between the walls at a lower level than the fields. Olives, figs, grapes and broad beans grow in profusion, and stacks of licorice root are piled everywhere. This typical vegetation of the Mediterranean littoral is gradually left behind as one ascends the Maeander. Beyond Seraikoi the railroad comes out from between two mountain ranges into the broad plain of the Lycus, which runs from southeast to northwest, a distance of about 24 miles. The Lycus valley has a maximum breadth of a little more than 1. A Philippson, Reiseln und Forschungen im westlichen Kleinasien, IV (Petermanns Mit- teilungen, Ergaenzungsheft Nr. 180. Gotha, 1914), pp. 85 f. This work is the finest geograph- ical description of the region and includes a magnificent map, scale 1:300.000. 1950, 1) THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST 3 six miles, and its elevation above sea level varies from 500 to 820 feet. Highlands hem it in on the northeast; to the west is Mt. Mes- sogis, which runs along the north side of the lower Maeander; and on the south are the great mountains Salbacus (Baba-dagh, 7590 ft.) and Cadmus (Honaz-dagh, 8250 ft.), approached by gradual steps and foothills.' The Lycus valley is the meeting point of ancient Caria, Lydia and Phrygia, and it looks like the gateway that it is. On the one hand / t ,t((,r lrot, .?(cid:127)""!t,(cid:127)zL o's 5 YCa Ofb4SE#JcNlaK ,, IfL l/ l flt ? dcor' DEA',fZL, LLIF~ILLOLJS~ M-r. -r,43IPAC C- 4 CA CAV"tk$ Fig. 2. Sketch Map of the Lycus Valley (after Philippson). it is closely connected with the lowlands. The olive grows only as far east as Denizli. The region produces sesame, vegetables, fruits and almonds. Where water is plentiful there are groves of trees. But east of here trees are infrequent. The Lycus is on the edge of the steppe land, the lonely sheep country. The ravines of the upper Maeander and Lycus lead northeast and southeast into Phrygia. At the northwest end there is an easy pass over the hills, probably not more than 2000 feet high, into the Hermus valley. The valley was accordingly the junction point of several important roads. Two main routes - now followed by the railroads - led from the Aegean coast to the Anatolian hinterland. One ran from Ephesus up the 4 THE BIBLICALA RCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XIII, Maeander valley, past Magnesia and Tralles, to Laodicea; then it turned southeast to follow the Lycus and went to Apamea, Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Tyana, and, through the pass in the Taurus known as the Cilician gates, to Tarsus. The south gate of Laodicea was significantly called the Syrian gate. The second route eastward followed the Hermus valley from Smyrna to Sardis and Philadelphia, then ascended the Phry- gian mountains in the direction of Ancyra (the modern Ankara). Laodicea was the first and most important junction point in the system. The two main routes were connected by a road from Laodicea and Hierapolis to Tripolis and Philadelphia. In addition roads ran south over the mountains to Attalia and Perga on the Pamphylian coast, and northeast across Phrygia to Lounda and Brouzos.- The exact itinerary of St. Paul's travels in Asia Minor has often been debated and probably can never be settled. According to Acts the apostle certainly passed through Phrygia on his "second" and "third" missionary journeys. The question is whether "the region of Phrygia and Galatia" (Acts 16:6) refers to two separate localities or should be translated "the Phrygian-and-Galatic region," as Sir William Ramsay thought. In the latter case the apostle may have come through the part of Phrygia which belonged to the Roman province of Galatia and did not go into Galatia proper at all.3 The route of the so-called "second" journey is obscure, but there is a good chance that Paul went through the Lycus valley on the "third". Acts 18:23 speaks of his going through "the Galatic region and Phrygia," and in 19:1 we read that "having gone through the upper country he came down to Ephesus." Most map-makers in England and America, following Ramsay, take this to mean that Paul came west from Pisidian Antioch, just north of Hierapolis, and followed a hill road across Mt. Messogis down to Ephesus.' But this is an unnatural and unlikely route. The "upper country" is simply the whole hinterland of Ephesus and refers to "the Galatic region and Phrygia" of 18:23." The most natural route for Paul to take from Syria would be from Tarsus through the Cilician gates to Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, Pisidian Antioch, Apamea, Colossae and 2. Sir William M. Ramsay, The Historical Geography of Asia Minor (London, 1890), pp. 35, 49, 59; M. Cary, The Geographic Background of Greek and Roman History (Oxford, 1949), pp. 151-64, with maps on pp. 152 and 160; W. M. Calder, "The Royal Road in Herod- otus," Classical Review, XXXIX (1925), 7-11. 3. Sir. W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Tr'aveller and the Roman Citizen (New York. 1897), pp. 104, 180 f., 210-12; E. D. Burton, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (New York, 1920), pp. xxix-xliv. 4. G. E. Wright and F. V. Filson, eds., The Westminster Historical Atlas to the Bible (Philadelphia, 1945), Plate XV. Hammond's Atlas of the Bible Lands (New York, n. d. (1949?) gives two choices. On Plate B 26, which gives routes for all of St. Paul's journeys, the third journey goes from Laodicea to Philadelphia, Sardis and Smyrna, while on Plate B 28 the third journey goes between the Maeander and Hermus valleys, as in the Westminster Historical Atlas. C. C. McCown does not commit himself to any route in A Remapping of the Bible World (New York, 1949), Plate 40. 5. K. Lake and H. J. Cadbury,The Beginnings of Christianity, IV (London, 1933), pp. 235 f. 6. Philippson, op. cit., p. 96 f.; Victor Schultze, Altchristliche Staedte und Landschaften. II. Kleinasien (Guetersloh, 1922), pp. 445-49. 1950, 1) THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST 5 Laodicea in the Lycus valley, and down the Maeander to Ephesus. From Laodicea he may have crossed the pass to Philadelphia and so have come down the Hermus valley, but this would have been far less likely. Ramsay and other geographers have no doubt been influenced in their choice of routes by the statement of Col. 2:1, "For I want you to know how great a conflict I have on behalf of you and those in Laodicea and as many as have not seen my face personally" (literally "in the flesh"). The Greek does not, however, compel us to suppose that the Christians of the Lycus do not know Paul personally; and even if most of them were later converts and did not know him by sight, he may well have passed through their cities on one of the journeys. R. t4(cid:127)tt?(cid:127).~ R. rtAcA, '? SPYIAP4 J' ULET i.' Fig. 3. Sketch Map of Roman Roads in Asia Minor (after Ramsay). II. COLOSSAE The site of Colossae is toward the upper end of the Lycus valley, perhaps 11 or 12 miles east and a little south of Laodicea, not far east of the Botzeli station on the railroad. The valley, less than two miles wide and walled in by great precipices, is largely covered with traver- tine deposits through which the river has cut its bed. The city stood on a small double hill or terrace south of the Lycus, hemmed in on two sides by streams that flowed from the snows of Mt. Cadmus." Little is known of the city's history. It was, according to Herodotus (vii. 30), a great city as early as the time of Xerxes, and Xenophon marched past it with the ten thousand (Anabasis i. 2. 6). In contrast to the newer towns, Laodicea and Hierapolis, it was ancient and au- tochthonous, i.e. populated by natives of Phrygia. Although it was: a center for wool industry and dyeing, by New Testament times it had been eclipsed by its neighbors. Colossae must originally have 6 THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XIII, been of military importance, since it commanded the road eastward toward Apamea and the Cilician gates. Coins of the city show that in the Roman period Isis and Serapis were worshipped here, together with Helios, Demeter, Selene, Artemis the huntress and the Ephesian Artemis, and the native Phrygian god Men.' Paul's letter to the Colossians lifts the veil a little, and discloses a church whose members were attracted toward a curious perversion of Christianity, in which Jewish and pagan elements were mingled. The letter speaks of reverence to angels (1:16; 2:15, 18), rules or scruples about foods and holy days (2:16), and some type of asceticism Fig. 4. Upper Valley of the Lycus, looking from Laodicea in the direction of Colossae. (2:23; 3:5-10). If the obscure verse 2:18 refers to a pride produced by visions and revelations, it does not seem strange in a Phrygian background. Epaphras, Paul's disciple, had been active in the evangelization of the Lycus cities (Col. 1:7 f.; 4:12 f.; Phm. 23). Buckler and Calder 7. Schultze, op. cit., p. 447. 8. W. H. Buckler and W. M. Calder, Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua, Vol. VI. Mon- uments and Documents from Phrygia and CGria (Manchester, 1939), p. 1. Here and in W. AI. Ramsay, The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, Vol. I (Oxford, 1895), is to be found most of the important inscriptional material bearing on Colossae and Laodicea. 9. Buckler and Calder, op. cit., p. 15. The authors remark (p. xi), "To archaeological research Kolossai offers attractions similar to that of Sardis: historical renown plus an accessible site completely unoccupied." 10. W. J. Hamilton. Researches in Asia Minor, Pontus and Armenia (London, 1842), I, 509. 11. Pauly-Wissowa. Enzyklopaedie, XXIII, cols. 722-24. This article lists most of the important coins. inscriptions and literary references relating to Laodicea. 1950, 1) THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST 7 believed that they had found the name on a marble altar from Laodicea discovered at Denizli." Epaphras is, of course, a shortened form of the not uncommon name Epaphroditus, and an inscription from Colossae mentions one T. Asinius Epaphroditus." Colossae was later the site of a bishopric, but the name of only one bishop is known - Epiphanius, whose metropolitan, Nunechius of Laodicea, signed the decrees of Chalcedon in 451. Some time about the year 700 the city was deserted, no doubt because of earthquakes, and the population moved to Chonai (the modern Honaz), which lies nearer the foot of Mt. Cadmus. Fig. 5. One of the theatres of Laodicea. When Hamilton visited the site in 1835 he saw huge blocks of stone, foundations of buildings, and fragments of cornices, architraves and columns." These have since been quarried out and used for building operations in Honaz and elsewhere. Actual excavation might, however, yield interesting results because of the city's great antiquity. III. LAODICEA The history of Laodicea is much better known than that of Colossae and has been more fully studied. Before the Seleucid period the town had borne the names of Diospolis and Rhoas. Antiochus II refounded it about 250-240 B.C. as a military stronghold on the north border of his realm, and named it for his sister-wife Laodice." Not long afterward it was able to erect with its own funds a meeting hall for its strategoi, 8 THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XIII, or magistrates." After Laodicea passed into Roman hands as part of the province of Asia, it developed greatly in wealth and importance. Al- though suffering severe damage from earthquakes in the reigns of Tiberius and Nero, the city was able to rebuild without imperial or provincial help. Its chief source of wealth was the world-famous black glossy wool of the region." It is not certain whether the color came from a special breed of black sheep, for which there is some evidence, or from dyes. The water of the Lycus was in any event well suited for dyeing. The wool was not woven into bolts of cloth, as in modern times, but directly into garments of the shapes and sizes required - dalmatics, paragaudae with purple borders, chlamydes or short cloaks, and the paenulae (II Tim. 4:13) or seamless overcoats with a hole for the head, woven to resist rain, which later became popular in Rome and finally developed into the ecclesiastical chasuble. The city was also a center for banking; in fact Cicero planned to cash drafts there on his way through Asia Minor (ad Fam. iii. 5). Laodicea apparently included in its population a large colony of Jews. When the pro-praetor Flaccus seized the gold collected there for the Jerusalem temple in 62 or 61 B. C. he found that it amounted to more than twenty pounds in weight. Josephus tells of a letter sent by the Laodiceans a few years later to Gaius Rabirius, proconsul of Asia, informing him that in obedience to his command they will permit the Jews to keep the Sabbath and their sacred rites and that the Jews will be regarded as their friends and confederates (Ant. xiv. 10. 20) - this although the citizens of Tralles, farther down the Maeander valley, were opposed to the decree. Thus there is evidence for oppres- sion of the Jews in this region. Political life in the province of Asia centered in the koinon or council of the province, one of the chief functions of which was main- tenance of the worship of the emperor. The imperial cultus was intro- duced early into Laodicea, and the city proudly participated in the koinon. The coins bear witness to several treaties of homonoia or friend- ship between Laodicea and other cities of the province such as Smyrna, Pergamum and Ephesus. But there is no evidence that the city received the honor of neokoros or temple-keeper of the imperial cult, on which 12. Buckler and Calder, op. cit., p. x. 13. Buckler and Calder, Ibid., p. 11, publish an inscription which seems to refer to a guild of graziers in Laodicea. There was a similar organization at Hierapolis. 14. Acts 19:35 refers to Ephesus as neokoros of Artemis; the worship of the local god- dess ,nd the emperor was, however, closely intertwined. 15. Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, pp. 51-55; The Letters to the Seven Churches (New York. 1904), pp. 417-19. By the year 150, joint worship of Zeus Laodicenus and the emperor had been established. 16. E. J. Goodspeed, An Introduction to the New Testament (Chicago, 1937), pp. 109-24, adopts and develops the earlier theory of K. G. Wieseler. It ought also to be remembered that the. second-century heretic Marcion regarded the epistle to the Ephesians as a letter to the Laodiceans. Ernst Percy, Die Probleme der Kolosser- und Epheserbriefe (Lund, 1946), pp. 451-58, identifies the "letter from Laodicea" of Col. 4:16 as Ephesians, and believes that it was originally sent to several churches in inner Asia Minor. 1950, 1) THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST 9 Ephesus prided itself (Acts 19:35), before the reign of Commodus." Other gods worshipped in Laodicea were Zeus Laodicenus (perhaps a native Phrygian god later Hellenized), a goddess, who figures rather little on coins, and Asclepius. The last-named may have been identified with Men Karou, a healing deity whose temple was at Attouda, a few miles to the west. The famous medical school of Laodicea may have been under his aegis." The names of a number of famous Laodiceans of the period from 100 B. C. to 200 A. D. are known to us. Most of them were members of the family of Zenon, the orator who encouraged the people to defend their city when the Parthians under Labienus and Pacorus invaded Asia Fig. 6. The travertine deposits of Hierapolis. Minor. Zenon's son became king of Lycaonia, Pontus and part of Cilicia in the first century B. C. M. Antonius Polemo, a noted literary figure who lived about 90-146 A. D., belonged to this family. The city produced a few intellectuals such as the skeptics Antiochus and The- iodas of the school of Zeuxis (Diogenes Laertius, ix. 116). But Laodicea does not appear to have been particularly distinguished as a center of culture. It was rather a bustling, ambitious mercantile center, loyal to the empire, proudly situated at the road-junction, on the very edge of the barbarian highlands. Christianity spread to Laodicea within a generation of Jesus' death, as we know from the letter to the Colossians. It is an attractive hypothe- sis that Paul addressed the little letter to Philemon to the Laodicean church, and intended it to be sent on to Colossae and read there also." 10 THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XIII, It was a natural place for a wealthy slave-owner to live. Lightfoot remarks that the name Philemon, though borne by a famous Phrygian, that husband of Baucis who offered hospitality to Zeus, is not dis- tinctively Phrygian, and that while it is found in inscriptions of the country, it does not occur with any special frequency." But Ramsay publishes an inscription from Laodicea, evidently erected by a freed- man to one Marcus Sestius Philemon.'" While it would be fanciful to identify this with our Philemon, it is clear that the city had at least one prominent citizen of this name who owned slaves. The Apphia of Phm. 2 is usually taken to be Philemon's wife. The masculine form of this Phrygian name, Apphios or Apphianos, is attested from Hier- apolis."' One is even tempted to wonder if Luke the physician, who joins in the salutations (Phm. 24; Col. 4:14), and who may or may not be the author of Luke-Acts, did not at one time study medicine at the Laodicean school." In the last decade of the first century, when the Book of Revelation was written, the Laodicean church was reproved by the prophet John: it was neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm; it boasted that it was rich and in need of nothing, not knowing that it was poor, blind and naked; therefore let it buy of the risen Christ gold refined by fire, white gar- ments and salve for the blind eyes (Rev. 3:14-22). Sir William Ramsay saw local references in this - Laodicea was rich, famous for its garments, and perhaps the "Phrygian powder" for diseases of the eyes was com- pounded here." One might go on in the same vein and suppose that the city water of Laodicea was literally lukewarm. This has been suggested by commentators," and it is not impossible. One of the few remaining monuments of the city is the water tower, the terra cotta pipes of which are completely choked by lime deposits. The water came, not from Hierapolis, but from the south, first by aqueduct and then, nearer the city, through stone barrel pipes.2" All of this was seen by Hamilton more than a hundred years ago, but the stones have since disappeared, along with most of the other ruins of Laodicea - some of them un- 17. J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, 3rd ed. (Londoin, 1879), p. 302. 18. Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, p. 72. 19. Ibid., p. 88; Lightfoot, op. cit., p. 305. 20. The school was established by Zeuxis and later carried on by Alexander Philalethes of Laodicea (Strabo xii. 8. 20). I must make it clear that this suggestion, like some of Sir William Ramsay, is no more than guess-work. 21. Cities and Bishoprics, pp. 39 f., 52; Letters to the Seven Churches, pp. 428 f. 22. H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John, 3rd ed. (London, 1907), saw in the statement of Rev. 3:16 an illusion to the water of Hierapolis, which becomes lukewarm by the time it has fallen over the cliff. "The allusion is the more apposite since the letter for Laodlcea was practically addressed to the other Churches of the Lycus valley." Unfortunately a later commentator speaks of these springs as becoming lukwarm by the time they reach Laodicea and form a waterfall! 23. Hamilton, op. cit., p. 515. 24. Th. Zahn, Geschichte des neutestamentliche Kanons (Erlangen, 1890), II, 193-202. An English translation of the canon, is given in C. J. Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church (Edinburgh, 1876), II, 295-325, together with comments.