David Pierce, Matematik Bölümü, Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar Üniversitesi

Clive F. W. Foss, Annabel Jane Wharton
"Cappadocia" The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium.
Ed. Alexander P. Kazhdan.
© 1991, 2005 by Oxford University Press, Inc..
The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium: (e-reference edition).
Oxford University Press.
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17 January 2006
http://www.oxford-byzantium.com/entry?entry=t174.e0901

Cappadocia (Καππαδοκία), the hilly and mountainous region of central Asia Minor stretching from the Pontic mountains to the Taurus and from the Salt Lake to the Euphrates. Except for a few fertile plains (the best around Melitene), Cappadocia is not very productive and never supported a large population or extensive urban life. In antiquity, it had only three cities—Caesarea, Melitene, and Tyana; the emperor owned most of the land and its population was his tenants. Cappadocia is rich in minerals and was famed for cattle, sheep, and esp. horses. It gained importance from its command of the main highways across Anatolia and from its proximity to the frontier.

The wars of the 3rd C. depleted the population. Diocletian reduced the area of Cappadocia by forming the provinces of Armenia from its eastern regions. The remaining area, with its capital at Caesarea, was assigned to the diocese of Pontos. Hannibalianus, nephew of Constantine I, however, was briefly king (rex regum) of Cappadocia, Pontos, and Armenia (335–37). When Constantine confiscated the treasures of the temples, the imperial estates grew. They became the domus divina per Cappadociam; their revenues supported the imperial bedchamber. In 371, Valens detached the southern half, making a new province, Cappadocia II, with its capital at Tyana.

The writings of the Cappadocian Fathers provide considerable information about Cappadocia in the late 4th C., a time of great prosperity. After 363, when the region east of the Euphrates was ceded to Persia, Cappadocia gained in strategic importance and became more exposed. Tzannoi, Isaurians, and Huns ravaged Cappadocia in the 5th C., provoking a program of fortification continued by Justinian I, who rebuilt Caesarea and established a new fortified center at Mokissos. Vainly hoping to repress widespread civil disturbance and revolts by imperial tenants, he appointed a proconsul with full civil and military powers in 535, but the old system was restored by 553. The Persians destroyed Sebasteia in 575 and Caesarea in 611, introducing a period of great turmoil.

Arab attacks began with the temporary capture of Caesarea in 646 and intensified after they gained control of the Cilician Gates and Tyana in 708. The long wars led to major changes: the country was covered with strong, usually remote fortresses; large areas, esp. in the east, were depopulated; and Slavs were transported from the Balkans to strengthen the defenses.

In the regime of Themes, Cappadocia was divided between Anatolikon and Armeniakon. When these were reduced in the early 9th C., the two new themes of Charsianon and Cappadocia occupied the ancient geographical area, which continued to bear the name Cappadocia for unofficial and ecclesiastical purposes. In Byz. administrative parlance, however, Cappadocia came to denote a smaller area, the highly exposed southern region. First mentioned (by Ibn Khurdadhbeh) as a Kleisoura of Anatolikon, it became a separate theme by ca.830. It extended from the Taurus to the Halys and had its headquarters at Korone in the mountains above the main invasion route of the Arabs. Its strategos, who drew a salary of 20 pounds of gold, commanded 4,000 men and numerous fortresses. Leo VI extended Cappadocia to the northwest by adding the region adjacent to the Salt Lake.

In the mid-9th C., the Paulicians attacked from their base of Tephrike just east of the frontier. That threat was removed in 878, but Arab raids continued until the capture of Melitene by the Byz. in 934 and the displacement of the frontier eastward brought renewed security. Major problems remained, however: notably depopulation from the long wars and the concomitant growth of the estates of the military aristocracy, many of whom were Cappadocian. Syrian and Armenian settlers helped to repopulate the country. The increasing power of the magnates sparked a series of revolts led by Bardas Phokas and Bardas Skleros that spread from Cappadocia to afflict most of Anatolia from 963 to 989. After finally gaining control, Basil II moved against the Cappadocian aristocracy, confiscating the wealth of such families as the Maleinoi. He gained victories in the east and then annexed much of Armenia; in compensation, Armenian princes and their followers received lands and offices in Cappadocia. Large parts of the country became Armenian, and hostility between the newcomers and the native population grew. In 1057, the deteriorating military situation produced by increasing Turkish attacks provoked Bryennios, general of Cappadocia, to revolt. In the same year the Turks destroyed Melitene and in 1059 Sebasteia; defense of such cities had long been neglected. After the devastation of Caesarea in 1067, Romanos IV strove to restore the military situation in Cappadocia and the east. In 1071, he passed through Cappadocia en route to the fatal battle of Mantzikert, after which Cappadocia was permanently lost to the empire. A province of Cappadocia is last mentioned in 1081, when Alexios I summoned the toparches of "Cappadocia and Choma" to Constantinople (An.Komn. 1:131.16–17). This probably indicates either that imperial authority had survived in the westernmost parts of Cappadocia or that the name, perhaps together with troops, had been moved into Phrygia.

Bibliography

TIB pp.2.
F. Hild, Das byzantinische Strassensystem in Kappadokien (Vienna 1977).

Clive F. W. Foss

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