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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
The route by which the army of Xerxes marched across the plateau of Anatolia has never been determined with certainty. On general considerations it may be stated with perfect confidence that the army crossed the Taurus by the pass of the Cilician Gates. The reasons are conclusive; there was, in fact, no other way, and the matter is so generally admitted as to need no discussion. Thereafter the great army gathered on the north side of Taurus at a place called Kritala in Cappadocia (Herodotus, vii. 26). Whether Kritala was a town or a locality (such as a plain with a river) is not stated; but, taking into consideration all the conditions, one can say with certainty that it was situated either in the fertile plain of Tyana or in the equally fertile and well-watered plain that lies between Kybistra and the lake called in modern times Ak-Gyol. The next point stated exactly by Herodotus in the route of the army is Kelainai at the source of the Maeander. The question is how the journey was performed between those points, the Cilician Pass on the east and Kelainai on the west.
1 The construction and importance of the road through the Gates, as a determining factor in very early history, and its connexion with the ‘Sons of Javan’ (the Old Ionians), marked especially by the names Mopsos, and Amphilochos, , are described in The Cities of St. Paul, pp. 113 ff.Google Scholar, and the course and the mediaeval history of the road are treated in a paper in the Geographical Journal, 1903, pp. 357–413.
2 Herod. .72.
3 Both the Byzantine Military Road and the very ancient ‘Royal Road’ used the Haimané route (H.G.A.M. ch. G and p. 31). It is true that Gelzer (and following him others) make the Byzantine Road pass right across the dry region; but they do not take note of the practical facts that determined marching possibilities.
4 The Syrian Route reaches the Central Route near Suwerik (Psebila), passing through Kybistra Kara-Bunar (Hyde?) Kanna (Kana) and Geimir (Perta).
5 Rotreni in Livy, xxxviii, 15; the district is Aurokra, Aulokra, or Aurokla.
6 If Cyrus the Younger restricted his army on the Anabasis to 10,000, that was not because he could not have collected a larger force, but because this was the known maximum for a marching force in one body.
7 Herodotus mentions only the little stream Melas as exhausted by the army, but there is some truth under the ‘lie.’
8 I have never visited these hot springs, but mention them on the authority of Hamilton, , Researches in A.M. ii. pp. 306–308Google Scholar.
9 On the Peasant-God of Ibriz see Luke the Physician and Other Studies in Religious History, p. 174.
10 Between Derbe and the Homanadeis there was a section of Isaurican land.
11 J.R.S. 1918, pp. 148 ff.
12 Class. Rev., 1910, p. 76.
13 See J.H.S. 1883, p. 23 ff.; much improved in Studies in the Eastern Roman Provinces, pp. 305–377; B.S.A. 1912, p. 54; J.H.S. 1912, pp. 151–170. Mannes Ourammoas, the old Anatolian god, became the Hellenized Men of Antioch; but his sanctuary on a peak above the city is a Hellenistic foundation. The old sanctuary was ‘in the region of the Antiochians’ (Strabo, p. 557), perhaps in the ridge called Snake's Head.
14 J.H.S. 1883, pp. 68 ff.; C.B.Phr. II. p. 480.
15 This route was certainly in use before Augustus, as it is required to connect Iconium with the west.
16 I have not traversed the second Aulon, south of Misthia; and it was only in 1909 that we traversed the first remarkable cañon, being as I believe the only explorers that have gone through it. For the Aulon from Karalis to Trogitis I depend on Sterrett's careful and detailed account and map.
17 J.H.S. 1918, p. 144.
18 It is not certain that John ever reached the Aulon: probably he did not carry his arms beyond the Limnai. Even Apameia was exposed to the roving Turkish nomads at his death.
19 Perhaps Musilos was the Pisidian or Phrygian word for serpent; and Musilokephalon was distorted to Myriokephalon to suit late Byzantine popular etymology. Opheoskephalon occurs in Hellenistic time. Compare the Anatolian or Lydian name Mursilos.
20 Ourammoa, as given in the map, is without epigraphic authority (except the personal names Ourammoas, Touranimoas).
21 Compare the case of Basil and his brothers who were spoken of sometimes as natives of Nazianzos (Nenizi), sometimes as belonging to Karbala or Kaprala, the family estate (now called Gelvere, a large Christian village).
22 Marsia, according to this conjecture, would be on the lake north shore between the way-side Khan at the N.E. end of the lake (Karbo-kome) and Genj-Ali at the N.W. of the lake (Hoiran-Gyol).
23 On the bridge see Cronin in J.H.S. 1902.
24 B.S.A. loc. cit.
25 The v is silent in popular pronunciation.
26 It may have been carried from Sizina in a glen of the Orondian mountains; but more probably belongs to the Ladik plain, and indicates that the god of the mountains was reverenced also in the valley. See J.H.S. 1918.
27 Demir-Kapn is described by Sterrett as difficult, till a new road was made by blasting the rock. He mentions no traces of an ancient road, but possibly rock-cutting (an-cient) might be distinguished from marks of blasting (as along the Cilician Gates route), if carefully examined.
28 The name Antonius is restored by M. Doublet.
29 It may fairly be described as a winding rook-staircase, a Klimax. I walked up it in 1882, leading my horse: to ascend it on horseback is difficult.
30 Diodorus indeed mentions Kretopolis, but this probably rests on a confusion between the battle and the flight of Alketas. The site of Kretopolis is uncertain.
31 Compare Acts xix. 1, 
32 Plutarch, Them. 30, has the form λεόντων κεφαλή. The place iis omitted from H.G.A.M.
33 The word Kara has often a moral significance: the strongest man in a village is often called Kara Mustafa, Kara Ahmed, or so on.
34 The ruling Mevlevi family is conceived to be a representative of the Seljuk Sultans; the chief of the Mevlevi (entitled Tchelebi Effendi), whose palace is at Konia, girds the sword on the Osmanli Sultan; and the theory is that the Osmanli Sultans are not completely invested with the power of the Sultanate until the sword has been girded on by the Tchelebi. This ceremony was performed (being revived after disuse) in 1909 for the benefit of Mehmet V., when the intention was to mark by every old ceremony the complete. ness of the authority conferred on him at the investiture while his predecessor Abd-ul-Hamid was still alive.
35 They are about six miles or more from Kara-Arslan, and lie on the direct road Kara-Hissar to Tchai. Kara-Arslan is on the road to Synnada (as Radet rightly says).
36 H.G.A.M. p. 143 f. In the usual Byzantine fashion this name was interpreted as an omen of the disaster that Leon Phokas experienced here 920 A.D., 
