“I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no ignoble city.”
With these Words Paul of Tarsus, the apostle of the Lord, introduced himself to a Roman commander as he requested to be allowed to address a mob of Jerusalemites persecuting him (Acts 21:27-40).
Tarsus was located in the province of Cilicia, on the Cydnus River, and not far inland from the northeast coast of the Mediterranean Sea (about 10 miles inland, actually). It was also located about thirty miles outh of the beautiful Tarsus mountain range, out ow which the Cydnus river flowed. It stood on a large fertile plain and, about six miles down the river the rivder broadened into a large lake named Rhegma. This allowed Mediterranean seacraft to anchor there in safety. This rich, fertile plain meant food was abundant. The lake/harbor meant an influx of ancient world travelers. These two facts combined to make Tarsus an important and large commercial center.
The origins of the city’s founding are obscure, but it dates back at least to 2300 BC. According to the ancient writer Strabo there was a tomb of King Sardanaplus of Assyria located in Anchiale, a city about 12 miles southeast of Tarsus. This same writer tells us that the tomb bore and inscription stating that the king, “built Anchiale and Tarsus in a single day.” Needless to say, modern scholars find this claim worthless.
The Greeks also laid claim to founding the city. Strabo states that it was founded by the Argives, while others attribute it to Heracles or Perseus. Again, modern scholars reject this. The oldest extant writing to refer to the city is the Famed “Black Obelisk of King Shalmaneser of Assyria which records his conquest of the city (circa 850 BC).
For many centuries it remained an oriental rather than a hellenistic city, and its history is almost blank. After the fall of the Assyrian Empire, Cilicia may have regained its independence, at least partially, but it subsequently became a province of the Persian Empire, paying to the Great King an annual tribute of 260 white horses and 500 talents of silver (According to Herodotus) and contributing considerable fleets, when required, to the Persian navy. From time to time we hear of rulers called Syennesis, who appear to have been vassal princes in a greater or lesser degree of dependence upon the oriental empires. Two clear glimpses of the city are afforded us, thanks to the passage through it of Hellenistic troops engaged upon eastern expeditions. Xenophon tells how, in 401 BC, Cyrus the Younger entered Cilicia on his famous march against his brother Artaxerxes, and how some of his Greek mercenaries plundered Tarsus, which is described as a great and prosperous city, in which was the palace of King Syennesis…Again, in 333 BC, Alexander the Great passed through the Cilician Gates on his way to the Battle of Issus, where he met and routed the Persian army under Darius III. Arsames, the satrap of Cilicia, failed to post a sufficient force at the pass, the garrison fled without resistance and Alexander thus entered the province without striking a blow. The Persians thereupon set fire to Tarsus (to keep it from being occupied?), but the timely arrival of Alexander’s Macedonian advance guard under Parmenio saved the city from destruction…(THE INTERNATIONAL STANDARD BIBLE ENCYCLOPEDIA. this text is in th public domain.)
With the overthrow of Persian power Cilicia and the city of Tarsus began a slow evolution from oriental to Hellenic culture. With the death of Alexander in 323 BC, the empire he carved out became divided up among his many generals. This meant that Cilicia fell under the influence of the Seleucid Kings of Syria, who made their capital the city of Antioch, on the Orontes River.
The city is first mentioned in the Bible in 2 Maccabees 4:30 which mentions a revolt of the city against its king Antiochus IV Epiphanes. This revolt took place in 171 BC and caused the king to rename the city Antioch on the Cydnus. Strabo records that at this time the library in the city held over 200,00 books. As an intellectual center, he saw the city as rivaling both Athens and Alexandria. No ignoble city indeed!
Cilicia and the city of Tarsus came under Roman authority under Pompey the Great, who made Tarsus the capital of Cilicia, now a Roman province. It was in Tarsus that the Roman governor of the province resided. About this time the people of the city were granted Roman citizenship. The famed Cicero resided there as Governor from the Summer of 51, to 50, BC. In 47 BC Julius Caesar passed through the city during his march from Egypt to Pontus. The city honored him by temporarily changing its name to Juliopolis (the City of Julius). During his stay Cleopatra came to be with him. This was immortalized in Shakespeare’s famous play:
She’s a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her.
When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his heart, upon the river Cydnus.
I will tell you.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burn’d on the water: th poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of the flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar’d all description: she did lie
In her pavillion-cloth-of-gold tissue-
O’er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling cupids,
With divers-colour’d fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.
O,rare for Antony!
In St Paul’s day the city was magnificent, containing palaces, fountains, a gymnasium, and a stadium.
Strabo, writing around 19 AD tells us the inhabitants of the city were renowned for their learning, especially as regards philosophy, and, as already noted, he thought it surpassed Athens and Alexandria as a center of learning and philosophy. Some of the famous people who were educated or taught in the schools of Tarsus include Antipater, Archedemus, Nestor, Athenodorus, and, possibly, Marcus Cato. These were all Stoic philosophers. It should be noted that St Paul sometimes employs in his letters a method of argumentation known as Stoic diatribe. Famous grammarians and poets were also known to have lived and learned in the city. The city may have had a dark side; at least that’s what Apollonius ofTyana thought when he came to study in the city. According to Philostratus, Apollonius found the city decadent, and its citizens insolent. Most scholars discount this late third century AD testimony of Apollonius’ view, for Philostratus had a nasty habit of fudging his facts.
St Paul, it seems, was proud of both his Jewish and Tarsian heritage, for he was “a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, no ignoble city.”
Thus, Paul’s pride in his native city was indeed justified, even as his Roman citizenship was ample reason for boasting. He was a citizen in an empire at the apogee of its long-lasting glory. He was born a jew in the complex and teeming world of a period in history designated by historians as “Hellenism.” It is indeed arguable whether anything less than that rich and variegated background could have equipped him so admirably to carry out the task he undertook and the mission to which he was called. God’s grace, after all, does not operate in a cultural vacuum. (PAUL, HIS LETTERS AND HIS THEOLOGY, Stanley B. Marrow)
For more on the life of St Paul:
The Catholic Encyclopedia
The Journeys of Paul (protestant)
Paul’s life (protestant. This is part of a audio documentary series. You can also read the transcripts of the documentary)
A brief article from The Catholic Herald
Another brief article from EWTN
Father Mitch Pacwa (An audio series of 13 one-half hour shows)
Here is an article from Scripture From Scratch: Travel in biblical Times
