The Hellenistic Settlements in the East from Armenia and Mesopotamia to Bactria and India. Getzel M. Cohen

(Pliny NH 6.119) or Seleukos Nikator (Appian Syr. 57). For Kallinikon the Chronicon Paschale specified Seleukos II Kallinikos. One, of course, might suspect the Chronicon of ex post facto reasoning in assigning the settlement to Kallinikos. One should note, however, that Bar Hebraeus (Chron. 38) also placed it in the period of Kallinikos’s reign. On the other hand, Bar Hebraeus equated Kallinikon with Raqqah. Musil also believed the two towns were separate and that Nikephorion was destroyed as a town in the third century a.d., remaining only as a suburb of Kallinikon. In support of this he noted the following (Middle Euphrates 327): “the Arabic writers, especially the poets of the era before the Abbassides, . . . mention two towns of the name ar-Rakkatan, calling one the ‘black’ or ‘burnt’, the other the ‘white’ ar-Rakka. The white town of ar-Rakka they call also by the name Callinicus, from which I conclude that the ‘black’ or ‘burnt’ town was ancient Nicephorium.”

      I have noted elsewhere (NIKEPHORION Contantina/Constantia) that Ouranios (in Stephanos, s.v. “Nikephorion”) equated Nikephorion with Constantina (the modern Viranshehir) and that Hierokles (714.2, 715.1) and George of Cyprus (894, 897; see H. Gelzer’s comment in his edition, p. 153) distinguished Constantina from Kallinikon but located both in Osrhoene. In short, there were two different cities named Nikephorion: a southern one in Mesopotamia (modern Raqqah) near the Euphrates and a northern one in Mygdonia (Constantina) on the Edessa-Nisibis road at modern Viranshehir. Kallinikon cannot be equated with the northern Nikephorion. Whether it can be equated with the southern city remains unclear.

      3. For the renaming of Kallinikon as Leontopolis see, for example, Hierokles 715.1; George of Cyprus 897; Chronica Edessenum LXX (CSCO Scriptores Syri Versio III.4, p. 8, trans. Guidi); Chapot, Frontière 288 n. 5; Honigmann, RE s.v. “Leontopolis 6.”

      KARRHAI

      From Diodorus (19.91.1) we learn that in 312 B.C. there were Macedonians settled in Karrhai.¹ It is not clear whether Alexander or Antigonos I Monophthalmos had settled them.² Antigonos may have minted Alexander coinage at Karrhai. Coins continued to be produced under Seleukos I Nikator.³ In 65 B.C. the inhabitants of Karrhai, whom Cassius Dio (37.5.5) described as Μακεδóνων τε ἄποικοι ὄντες καὶ ἐνταῦθά που οἰκοῦντες, gave assistance to Pompey’s general, L. Afranius.⁴ Dio’s Greek, incidentally, appears to suggest that in the first century B.C. there were Macedonians living both in Karrhai and in the surrounding region. Karrhai was located south of Urfa (EDESSA) at modern (and ancient) Harran.⁵

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      In general see Weissbach, RE s.v. “Karrai”; Tcherikover, HS 89; Sinclair, Eastern Turkey 4:29–43; Billows, Antigonos 295–96.

      1. Nota bene that the text of Diodorus reads ἐπεὶ δὲ (sc. Seleukos) προάγων κατῳντησεν εές Μεσοποταμίαν, τῶν ἐν Κάραις κατῳκισμένων Μακεδóνων. Diodorus was certainly refering to Karrhai in Mesopotamia rather than Karai or the villages of the Karai in Babylonia (Diod. 17. 110.3, 19.12.1; Weissbach, RE s.v. “Karai”; see also Bosworth, Legacy 231–33 against J. K. Winnicki, AS 20 [1989] 77–78).

      2. For Alexander as founder see Berve, Alexanderreich 1:296, 2:669; for Antigonos, see Billows, Antigonos 295f.

      Some coins of Caracalla from Karrhai bear the legend COL(onia) MET(ropolis) ANTONINIANA AUR(elia) ALEX (andriana) (e.g., Eckhel, Doctrina 1.3:508; Cohen, Médailles Imperiales² 4:239, no. 926; BMC Arabia, etc. 85, nos. 16–70), a reflection of Caracalla’s veneration of the Macedonian king (Herodian 4.8.1). See also, for example, Levick in Hommages à Marcel Renard 2:426–46 (but cf. A. Johnston, Historia 32 [1983] 58–76); Espinosa in Alejandro Magno 37–51. The question is whether the ALEX(andriana) on the coinage of Karrhai refers to a personal name or a toponym; i.e., should it be understood to refer to Alexander or to Alexandreia? Some scholars have suggested that the reference is to Alexander; thus, Leschhorn and Franke, Lexikon AGM 1:321.

      On the other hand, we may consider the evidence from ALEXANDREIA Troas. Mionnet claimed that a coin from that city (Supplément 5:529, no. 214) had the legend COL. AUR. ANTONINIANA. ALEX. On the basis of this coin B. Levick remarked (in Hommages à Marcel Renard 2:431) that during Caracalla’s reign Alexandreia Troas took the titles Aurelia Antoniniana and Alexandreia. However, if the reading is correct it is apparently a hapax: it is the only example I could find of this particular legend on the coinage of Alexandreia Troas; note, in this connection, A. Johnston, who remarked that Mionnet “appears to have . . . invented ANTONINIANA” (Historia [1983] 65 n. 16; see also her salutary warning [60]: “The early numismatic catalogues . . . tend to be inaccurate. It is extremely unwise to use Mionnet [published 1807–37] and Eckhel [published (1792–98] without checking the volumes of the British Museum Catalogue and the Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum”). The usual legend—that incorporated ALEX—from the reign of Caracalla is COL ALEX AUG TRO (and occasionally, COL ALEX AUG) and variants thereof (e.g., SNG [von A] 1462–65, 1471–74, 7559–60, 7562–63, 7575). The presence of these legends prompted Bellinger (Troy: The Coins [Princeton, N.J., 1961] 118) to conclude that the name Alexandreia was conferred on the colony by Caracalla (italics mine), probably during his visit in 214 A.D. (the Hellenistic settlement, of course, had been renamed Alexandreia by Lysimachos). If that is the case, it raises the possibility that at Karrhai, COL. MET. ANTONINIANA AUR. ALEX. on the coinage reflects the fact that the name Alexandreia was conferred on or assumed by the colony there. This would reflect the municipal claim (or conceit) that its origins went back to the Macedonian king, a claim that is also found at other Hellenistic settlements in the early third century a.d.; see, for example, discussion and references in OTROUS, n. 2; CAPITOLIAS; GERASA, nn. 2 and 3; SELEUKEIA Abila n. 2.

      3. For the coinage see, for example, WSM 4 off., nos. 1–14 (Antigonos?), 766–82 (Seleukos I); CSE 887–88 (Seleukos I); Houghton and Lorber, Seleucid Coins 1.1: 27–29 and nos. 39–47. The appearance of fish on WSM nos. 12–14 may be related to the sacred fish of Atargatis; on which see HIERAPOLIS Bambyke.

      G. Le Rider and N. Olcay, RN (1988) 47, nos. 180–87 (see also Price, Alexander and Philip nos. 3796, 3803, 3805), also tentatively assigned eight Alexander coins from a hoard buried in 317 or early 316 B.C. to Karrhai (discussion on 50–53). They suggested these particular coins were minted c. 320–317 B.C. and preceded WSM 4 off., nos. 1–14 by a decade. The hoard was found at Akçakale, which is on the Turkish-Syrian frontier, 50 km south of Karrhai. Le Rider and Olcay noted (50 and n. 10) that in antiquity Akçakale, which was on the road from Karrhai to NIKEPHORION, was probably located in the territory of the former.

      There is no extant coinage that can definitely be attributed to the mint at Karrhai under Antiochos I; coins that Newell had attributed to Karrhai under Antiochos I (nos. 783–802) have been reassigned. Thus, Waggoner reattributed WSM nos. 780–83 to SELEUKEIA on the Tigris (ANS MN 15 [1969] 24–25); Kritt reassigned WSM nos. 784–88 ( = Seleucid Coins 1.1: nos. 469–72) to AÏ KHANOUM (Bactria 48–51); Houghton and Lorber reattributed WSM nos. 789–96 to Coele Syria under Antiochos III (Seleucid Coins 1.1:27 and nos. 1089–92).

      4. Dio uses the same term, ἄποικοι, elsewhere (40.13.1) to describe the Greeks and Macedonians in Mesopotamia who welcomed M. Licinius Crassus in 54/3 B.C. (τῶν γὰρ Μακεδóνων καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν συστρατευσάντων σφίσιν ‘Eλλήνων ἄποικοι πολλοί . . . ). See also NIKEPHORION.

      5. Location. Karrhai was located at the site of modern Harran, approximately 40 km southwest of EDESSA; see Bernard in Topoi Supplément 1 (1997) 186 n. 181. On Harran see, for example, Sinclair, Eastern Turkey 4:29–43.

      KIRKESION

      Both Bar Hebraeus (Chronography 38, trans. Wallis Budge) and Michael the Syrian (5.6 [78]) claimed that Seleukos II Kallinikos founded Kirkesion. There are no other extant sources supporting this claim. Kirkesion was located in Mesopotamia at al-Baseira, where the Khabur River flows into the Euphrates.¹

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