Euchaïta and St Theodore ‘the Recruit’

Euchaïta is historically unknown before the Roman period. The etymology of the name is obscure. One suggestion is that it derives from the Greek χαίτη – flowing hair (as in horses’ or lions’ manes, and hence also tree foliage), and thus εὐχαίτη, implying well-wooded. Such a description is perhaps a little unlikely in view of what is known of the ancient landscape in the region.Footnote ⁸ An alternative is that it is in fact an Anatolian name, pre-Greek, which was Hellenised into Euchaïta. In either case, as the phonology of late ancient/Early Byzantine Greek changed the ‘eu-’ into ‘ef-’, this in turn made possible its Post-Turkish conquest form of ‘Avk(h)at’.Footnote ⁹ As we have seen, the ceramics suggest that it can have been no more than a small rural settlement until the fourth century, a domain or a village which gained importance only from the fact that the remains of St Theodore Tiro (‘the Recruit’), martyred at Amaseia under Maximian (Galerius) and Maximinus (Daia), were buried there. The cult flourished and was attracting visitors and pilgrims by the later fourth century CE and, along with several other sites, grew into one of the foremost pilgrimage centres in Anatolia.Footnote ¹⁰ According to the legend, which seems to have been well-established by the end of the fourth century, the body of St Theodore was taken from Amaseia by a pious woman named Eusebia, and interred at her residence at Euchaïta.Footnote ¹¹ In a panegyric composed in the late fourth or very early fifth century devoted to the saint, and attributed to Gregory of Nyssa, a richly decorated basilica is described as dedicated to Theodore, assumed (but nowhere clearly stated in the encomium) to have been at Euchaïta;Footnote ¹² a small chapel may have pre-dated this building, if one version of the tradition is to be believed, built at some point after his death.Footnote ¹³ The church of Theodore was the centre of a busy pilgrim traffic – according to Gregory, ‘[W]e celebrate this day with annual feasts and yet the stream of people arriving here because of their zeal for the martyrs never ceases.’Footnote ¹⁴ As Delehaye long ago pointed out, and as has been re-affirmed by Walter, the influence of the cult seems to have expanded quite rapidly from the fourth century – churches and chapels dedicated to the saint were to be found across the lands of the eastern Roman Empire, from Constantinople to Syria and from Armenia to the Balkans and Italy. Theodore had soon become one of the best-known soldier saints, and representations of him slaying a dragon were to be found as far afield as on the church of the holy cross at Aght’amar in Armenia as well as in other Caucasian contexts of the ninth–tenth centuries, in rock-cut churches in Cappadocia, at Isaurian Dalisandos where his shield was reported to have been hung in the church dedicated to him, or on an icon in the monastery of St Catherine on Mt Sinai.Footnote ¹⁵

The tradition of the saint’s miracles is extant in two separate collections, the major tradition represented in a group apparently originating in Jerusalem in the fifth century, another developing somewhat later, during the second half of the seventh century at Euchaïta itself, this second collection being then re-copied and reframed with an account of the saint’s martyrdom probably at some point during the first half of the eleventh century. The various episodes of the martyr’s life are probably informed by local popular traditions, as no doubt were the miracles.Footnote ¹⁶ Euchaïta was seen as deserving of imperially sponsored defences and a substantial promotion in its ecclesiastical status by the emperor Anastasius I (491–518). According to the impressive inscription erected in the emperor’s name, he had both a wall constructed and at the same time promoted the city to an archbishopric. The first securely attested bishop, however, was Epiphanius, who attended the sixth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in 680, where he signs himself as bishop of the city of Euchaïta and bishop of the metropolis of Euchaïta.Footnote ¹⁷

Saint Theodore rapidly became one of the best-known of Byzantine soldier-saints, but his cult had some regional competition, since by the later ninth century it would seem that two saints Theodore were venerated, the original saint Theodore ‘the Recruit’, and saint Theodore ‘the General’ (stratēlatēs).Footnote ¹⁸ Theodore the General first appears during the ninth century in literary sources, so his appearance in the local tradition probably pre-dates this by some years.Footnote ¹⁹ Theodore the General seems to have been especially popular among the Anatolian military elite, although in many respects – apart from his promotion to general – the second Theodore is much like the first, and accounts of his martyrdom and early life follow more-or-less closely the details of those of Theodore the Recruit. The general Nikephoros Ouranos, a member of this élite, one of Basil II’s most effective commanders, and author of a military treatise which incorporated both Late Roman and more recent practical military handbooks, composed his own encomium of the saint, based on the earlier tradition.Footnote ²⁰ Indeed in some cases churches were dedicated to ‘the two Theodores’, and John Mauropous, who wrote an epigram on two images of the (two) saint(s), appears to ignore or implicitly deny their separate identities.Footnote ²¹ Leo the Deacon reported that the emperor John I Tzimiskes invoked St Theodore the stratēlatēs in his battles, and that the mysterious figure seen on a white charger at the battle of Dorostolon in 971 was the saint come to help the emperor.Footnote ²² Theodore stratēlatēs is associated with another, nearby, city, Euchaïna/Euchaneia or even Euchaia in some sources, where Tzimiskes is reported to have reconstructed the church of St Theodore, changing the name of the town to Theodoroupolis.Footnote ²³ While some confusion about both Euchaïta-Euchaïna and the two Theodores has reigned among modern historians as well as among contemporaries, there seems no doubt that the two places are distinct, although not far from one another, since bishops of Euchaïna appear in synodal lists, along with the bishops of Euchaïta, and there is an eleventh-century seal of a bishop John of Euchaneia. Lazaros of Galesion in the eleventh century visited Euchaneia and then Euchaïta on his pilgrimage, while at a Constantinopolitan synod held in 1173 both Constantine of Euchaïta and Leo of Euchaneia were present.Footnote ²⁴ Euchaneia has been identified with Çorum, but may just as possibly be identified with the Ottoman village of Çavgan (later Çağna), now Elmapınar, lying a little to the west of Beyözü/Avkat, although the survey found nothing to confirm such an identity.Footnote ²⁵

There were several feast-days in honour of the saint: the oldest – on 17 February – appears to have been the original date of Theodore’s martyrdom; by the eleventh century there were feast-days on the first Saturday of Lent, on 8 June, referred to as the anthismos or rhodismos, and a further feast held on the Saturday of mid-PentecostFootnote ²⁶ was a special feast for an icon which represented the saint as a pezos (foot-soldier). The image was reportedly painted at the request of Theodore’s patroness Eusebia, depicting him in his military equipment.Footnote ²⁷ One of these was accompanied by a panēgyris or fair, which attracted pilgrims and merchants and brought considerable wealth into the city.Footnote ²⁸ John Mauropous’ writings suggest that the feasts were regularly observed.Footnote ²⁹ In March 1166 the emperor Manuel issued a novella stipulating that, amongst other details, the feast for Theodore Tiro was to be observed on 17 February, while those for Theodore the stratēlatēs were to be on 7 February, the date of his martyrdom, and 8 June, when the relics were translated from Euchaneia to Serres in Thrace.Footnote ³⁰

Pilgrimage and Cult Centre

The status of Euchaïta as a pilgrimage and cult centre, and the annual panēgyris which took place there, clearly attracted a considerable transient population, with the attendant service and supply trades that such a population would draw. In the eleventh century John Mauropous offers two somewhat contradictory images of the town. On the one hand, it was a flourishing pilgrimage centre at the time of the saint’s feast and the annual fair or panēgyris, attracting wealth and people to Euchaïta, while one of the later versions of the martyrdom notes that the feast of St Theodore attracted ‘almost all those under the sceptre of the Romans’.Footnote ³¹ The reportedly richly furnished basilica of the later fourth century and the presence of another church or churches certainly attracted donations from pilgrims and the pious, as the miracles make clear. In the fifth-century miracles we read of rich silver candelabrae in the church, beautiful liturgical vessels of precious metal, and various other donations, including a richly decorated sword, for example.Footnote ³² In the later collection the situation is similar: on one occasion a man travelled from Paphlagonia with an ox as a gift to the saint, which he left tied to the chancel screen (an act, incidentally, prohibited by canon 88 of the Quinisext council of 691–692, except under exceptional circumstances);Footnote ³³ while both Persian and Arab raiders knew that the church would be a source of treasure – offerings of one sort or another as well as gold and silver liturgical vessels and plate, for example.Footnote ³⁴ As noted already in Chapter 7 above, the sermon attributed to Gregory of Nyssa suggests a church with at least some pretensions to grandeur in honour of its patron saint, even if it may not match the magnificence of many:

After the serious destruction wrought by the Sasanian troops during an attack on the city in the 620s,Footnote ³⁶ the bishop Eleutherios rebuilt the church (described in a later account as ‘the most beautiful and pleasing shrine’) and deposited the saint’s relics there (along with the liturgical vessels), a good indication of its wealth;Footnote ³⁷ according to the later miracle collection, Arab raiders tried to demolish the church at some point in the later seventh century, but were unsuccessful due to the saint’s intervention;Footnote ³⁸ and as we have seen the emperor John I Tzimiskes rebuilt and refurbished the earlier basilica. Mauropous mentions that earlier emperors had bestowed a number of privileges upon the church of St Theodore at Euchaïta, and that the emperor Constantine IX renewed these privileges. An image of this emperor was to be found thereafter in the church, alongside the chrysobull in which the privileges of the church were enshrined.Footnote ³⁹ The identification by the super-intensive survey of what may have been a substantial basilican structure, in a location immediately outside the line of the Anastasian walls, may thus indicate the location of the martyr’s church and shrine.Footnote ⁴⁰ But as yet we know nothing of the details of the church rebuilt by Eleutherios, its furnishing or internal arrangement, other than that the shrine was situated in the body of the church and surrounded by a railing;Footnote ⁴¹ still less of the refurbishment or rebuilding by the emperor John I. One structure that appears in the results of the geophysical survey associated with this building (described in Appendix 1) appears to have a circular footprint – perhaps a martyrium of traditional type, although again an entirely hypothetical suggestion that must await further archaeological investigation (see Appendix 1, especially Figures A1.6–1.12).

In the later fifth century the earliest collection of miracles makes mention of silversmiths and moneychangers and their workshops in the town, although it is difficult to know whether this reflects actual knowledge of the city by the hagiographer or simply generalised assumptions about the nature of urban life in any city in the Roman world. But the reference does imply that there was substantial wealth available, whether or not this was restricted to the ecclesiastical establishment.Footnote ⁴²

As well as the church or churches of Euchaïta, it is very probable that there were related buildings and institutions operating from the fourth or fifth century: the Anastasian inscription of ca. 515 mentions that the poor have fared well at the emperor’s hands, perhaps suggesting the foundation of an almshouse or ptochotropheion associated with the church; an inscription found at nearby Elvan Çelebi preserves the memory of a doctor, Theodore, along with his wife and children, implying also the existence of a hospital.Footnote ⁴³ Gregory of Nyssa’s homily notes that the martyr ‘turned this place into a hospital for the most diverse diseases, a harbour for those suffering from the storm of life, a well-filled warehouse for the needy, a convenient resting-pace for those who are travelling, a never-ending feast for those who are celebrating,’Footnote ⁴⁴ and while some of this may be rhetorical and a metaphor for the spiritual healing delivered by the martyr, the language certainly implies that the standard features associated with such cult centres – infirmary, almshouse, guest-house and so forth – were present around the martyr’s church at Euchaïta. In Germia in Galatia, a focus for the veneration of the archangel Michael, a pilgrimage church and a range of ancillary structures, together with a number of local monastic foundations, suggests the standard suite of buildings associated with such centres.Footnote ⁴⁵ The inscriptions certainly indicate the presence of a church with memorial stones for a presbyter, anagnōstai or readers and deacons, amongst others.Footnote ⁴⁶ Other inscriptions support the impression of a number of related religious establishments – a kellarios, a churchwarden, an abbess and a smith or metalworker, as well as a bishop.Footnote ⁴⁷ While the majority of these are roles associated with a church, the hegoumene, or abbess, and the kellarios or cellarer are associated with a monastic establishment. Whether the epitaphs represent pilgrims and visitors who died while passing through or staying at Euchaïta (as is possible for some of those commemorated at Germia, for exampleFootnote ⁴⁸), or permanent residents of the town, is of course not known, so this evidence remains ambiguous. And while none of the memorial markers can be dated with any precision, they are all clearly of Late Roman/early-middle Byzantine date, and the ceramic and tile distributions (see Chapter 3, and Maps 3.11Footnote ⁴⁹ and 3.12Footnote ⁵⁰) would appear to corroborate increasing building activity in the area at this time. That there was a pilgrimage centre at Euchaïta is clear enough. That it possessed all the usual features of such establishments seems, therefore, highly likely, both from the epigraphic as well as the written evidence. The series of unidentifiable structures located by the geophysical survey, described in Appendix 1 and in Chapter 7, and situated around the putative church identified by the super-intensive survey, may well be the other buildings associated with such a centre.

While the church of St Theodore and its clergy may have flourished, and while the annual fair may have brought in substantial wealth, Euchaïta did not occupy an especially favourable location, as we have seen in Chapter 5. Yet there are indications from written sources about the importance of the presence of a saint’s cult for the local population. In an eleventh-century document, for example, preserved in a collection of legal decisions heard in one of the higher courts in Constantinople and known as the Peira, a conflict is described that had arisen over a church in the village of St Auxentios, in ‘the land of the Chaldaeans’, that is, the thema of Chaldia. The church, dedicated to the saint of the same name, was a pilgrimage site, and the local villagers made some reasonable money from the pilgrim trade, especially since many visitors to the churches – and as described also in both sets of miracles of Theodore – left gifts, including textiles as well as items worked in gold and silver. According to the text in the Peira, a group of men, led by the local bishop, seized control of this income for themselves, upon which the villagers petitioned the provincial (thematic) judge to have their former privileges restored. When the judge ruled that the income from the church should be divided, but did not specify how or in what proportion, the villagers took their suit to Constantinople, where the judge Eustathios Rhomaios heard their case. While it is not necessary to follow the outcome of the case (the furnishings and similar gifts in precious metals were to remain in the church, the rest was to be divided, ¼ for the clergy and ¾ for the villagers), the point is that the income from such centres could clearly be considerable and worth litigation.Footnote ⁵¹

Given the references to imperial endowments and privileges noted already, there is no reason to doubt that Euchaïta was at least as well-endowed in this respect as other such pilgrimage centres. Whether it also benefitted from the patronage of wealthy locals and, much more significantly, that of members of the Constantinopolitan establishment (as Germia clearly seems to have done, for example)Footnote ⁵² remains unclear, but distance from the capital and the relative poverty of the area may have militated against this, even if not inhibiting its evolution as a place of pilgrimage and an annual fair.

Euchaïta: A Typical Small Provincial Town in North-Central Anatolia?

What sort of settlement was Euchaïta, therefore, across the period from the later fourth century until its loss to the East Roman Empire in the 1070s? As far as its urban status is concerned,Footnote ⁵³ Anastasius’ elevation of Euchaïta to ‘city’ would, according to the inscription set up under that emperor, have taken place in 515–518, the point at which the Sabir Huns were, or remained, a threat:

That the settlement was already a bishopric before this time, so that Anastasius would have raised the see to archiepiscopal status, remains a possibility: it has been pointed out that the inscription states that Anastasius was the first to found the archiepiscopal see, but says nothing about whether or not it was already a bishopric beforehand. But this is on the whole unlikely, since the inscription also clearly notes that Anastasius had ‘made this holy place into a city’, implying that he was the first to establish it as a bishopric, and Euchaïta does not appear as a see at either the council of Chalcedon in 451 or in Emperor Leo’s Encylical of 458.Footnote ⁵⁵ By the middle of the seventh century it was twenty-eighth among the autocephalous archbishoprics, although when exactly this latter status was achieved is unclear.Footnote ⁵⁶ Under Photios the see was raised to metropolitan status with four suffragan sees under its authority.Footnote ⁵⁷

Although technically a city because it was the seat of a bishop, Euchaïta nonetheless represented a middling range of settlement, possessing some defensive value and functioning as a local and possibly supra-local market. As the centre of a saint’s cult and, from the later seventh century, some military activity, its economy would undoubtedly have benefitted from the presence of soldiers and their varied needs, the episcopal establishment, and the resulting additional market activity. The presence of a small quantity of ceramics indicating luxury goods such as spiced wine, for example, and dated in the Late Roman period, may suggest the impact of the episcopal presence, while again the small scatter of glazed fineware sherds, some from the Constantinople area as well as regional imitations, implies a limited but more distant import of such products for the Early and Middle Byzantine periods (see Chapter 7). The results of the survey detailed in Chapter 3 suggest that the city never expanded much beyond its Anastasian walls but does indicate a relatively high degree of continuity in economic activity in the hinterland of the city across the Early and Middle Byzantine periods. Euchaïta reflects in every respect the numismatic picture found across Anatolia, and the limited numismatic data, all from surface survey collection or handed in by the local farmers from their land, does suggest a reasonable degree of commercial exchange activity during those periods when the regular use of the bronze coinage in the provinces was general – up to the middle of the seventh century and from the later ninth century onwards. In these respects the numismatic picture from Euchaïta is typical of much of Anatolia, and is mirrored almost exactly at the rural settlement at Çadır Höyük.Footnote ⁵⁸ But we can be no more specific than this rather generalised picture at present, and the evidence of the second miracle collection for the later seventh century at least would suggest substantial and frequent disruption in the period from the 640s–660s into the first half of the eighth century from hostile raids and destructive incursions.

There is no evidence of any military function for the city until the second half of the seventh century, and indeed, we should not expect one – until that point Euchaïta lay well away from any usual military zone, and its walls were a purely defensive (and possibly status-related) measure. City walls were as much a symbol of urban status as they were efficacious, and indeed the later history of the city suggests, as we will see, that they were of limited defensive value. During the period from the third to the sixth century the Roman world saw a generalised tendency to provide settlements of all sizes with walls and some form of defensive perimeter, where there had hitherto been no such defences. This was a reflection both of a real threat in those areas most affected by external attack, and a changing set of assumptions about what a ‘city’ should look like – walls were also monumental architecture and testified to the wealth and prestige of the city and its elite. Indeed, by the sixth century, walls were one of the indicators of urbanism, a symbol of both defence and the boundary between two different worlds.Footnote ⁵⁹ It is possible that the walls of Euchaïta might pre-date Anastasius’ work, which should thus be seen as a reconstruction or repairing at the time of the Sabir Hun incursion ca. 515, as Theophanes (or rather his source) merely reports that the Sabiri plundered Armenia, Cappadocia, Galatia and Pontus ‘so as to stand near Euchaïta at a short distance’. Since they did not take the city it may mean that it was already furnished with walls.

The presence of the cult of St Theodore secured a certain pre-eminence for Euchaïta thereafter.Footnote ⁶⁰ Its relative isolation and apparently somewhat unattractive environment made it a frequent place of exile from the later fifth and early sixth century until the end of East Roman authority in the region in the later eleventh century, and this reputation is mirrored in the metaphrastic account of the martyrdom of St Theodore stratēlatēs.Footnote ⁶¹ In the 880s the patriarch Photios compelled the incumbent of the see of Euchaïta, Euphemianos, to resign, and he replaced him with his protégé Theodore Santabarenos, giving the latter in addition jurisdiction over four suffragan sees which he took from the neighbouring metroplitanates (Amaseia and Gaggra). The sees in question – Gazala, Kotziagroi, Sibikton and Bariane – have not been localised, although Gazala has been identified in an inscription from Kale Köy, some 8 km SE of Amaseia, and probably lay close by; while Bariane occurs in the form Varismorum in the Acta S. Basilisci.Footnote ⁶² Through the agency of Photios, Santabarenos became a confidant of the emperor Basil I, although he was eventually condemned, blinded and exiled by Leo VI for his involvement in a series of plots.Footnote ⁶³ It was likewise on political considerations that its more famous eleventh-century metropolitan bishop John Mauropous was appointed to the see, certainly seen as a kind of exile by John himself.Footnote ⁶⁴ Several of its archbishops are known from the lead seals they issued. One of them, a certain Philaretos, who was both metropolitan and syncellus, is the addressee of a letter from the exiled bishop Alexander of Nicaea in 945.Footnote ⁶⁵ One of its archbishops in the tenth century, a certain Philotheos according to Leo the deacon, who was probably appointed in the 950s, was a confidant of both the emperors Nikephoros II Phokas and John I Tzimiskes, acting in a diplomatic capacity in both cases.Footnote ⁶⁶ And according to a letter to Philotheos from Theodore, bishop of Nicaea (writing in the late 950s or early 960s), Philotheos had written to him because he was seriously concerned about the presence of ‘Paulianist’ (almost certainly Paulician) heretics in the see, which lay only a short distance to the north-west of what had, in the seventh–later ninth centuries, been the heartland of Paulician belief. From Theodore’s letter it would appear that the heretics were present in numbers, and that the issue of how to receive them back into orthodoxy was the major problem, apart from their potentially damaging influence.Footnote ⁶⁷ In spite of its relative isolation, however, the position of metropolitan of Euchaïta was clearly not undesirable, at least for someone whose city of origin it was: an anonymous letter of the later tenth century addressed (probably) to the emperor pleads for the appointment, partly on the grounds of his coming from there and having been promised it (presumably unofficially) for many years. In contrast, it should be noted that John Mauropous warned those who may have considered an appointment to Euchaïta against coming to such a desolate place!Footnote ⁶⁸

The position of Euchaïta after the middle of the seventh century was enhanced by a number of developments. Firstly, the transformation of the political geography of Anatolia gave it a new strategic value. The early sixth-century defensive works there, along with those of a number of other settlements, were intended as much as a symbol of urban identity and imperial beneficence as they were a protection from hostile attack. They seem to have been relatively ineffective in saving the city from Persian forces coming through Armenia or from the south in the early seventh century.Footnote ⁶⁹ But until the middle or later seventh century Euchaïta itself had never had a particularly obvious military value. The processes through which it achieved this role – the choices made by both the central government and local military commanders – remain entirely obscure, but by the early ninth century if not before it had become a significant centre of the Armeniakon army. Theophanes reports that in February 811, on the first Saturday of Lent – the date of St Theodore’s feast – an Arab raiding party surprised the general of the regional army, the future emperor Leo V, at or near Euchaïta, and captured a considerable sum in gold coin, destined to be paid as the rhoga to the local troops. Whether it was in fact the thematic headquarters as such is a moot point, since although Euchaïta is named, it is not clear whether the encounter was planned by the raiding force or whether it was good luck on their part. Indeed, Leo may well have been heading for Amaseia (even if, according to a tenth-century account, he took refuge in Euchaïta), a much more imposing and easily defended fortress, and one that was the military headquarters at a somewhat later date.Footnote ⁷⁰ In any case, with the realignment of imperial defences in Anatolia from the 640s and 650s, Euchaïta became strategically more relevant than hitherto, a fact that undoubtedly contributed to its increased importance from this time, as we will see in greater detail below.

A very different set of factors may also have played a role. As noted in Chapter 2, recent work on the medieval environment and climate of Anatolia has shown that from about the middle of the fifth century, but with what seems to be a significant intensification in the later seventh century, the established agrarian regimes in much of Anatolia receded, to be gradually replaced, at different rates according to area, either by natural vegetation or, more usually, by a more limited range of crops. Cereal production and livestock raising came to the fore, while the cultivation of vines and olives recedes dramatically from many of those areas where it had formerly been prominent and a marked reduction in the presence of pollens from fruit trees suggest at the same time a substantial decline or at least a shift away from arboriculture. Most of these changes in what farmers grew are not paralleled by climatic shifts, so it is necessary to seek other causes that might be responsible, causes that both underlie the changes but that can also account for the continuities.Footnote ⁷¹

There are many reasons why farmers might change what they produced, but three stand out: first, environmental pressure that rendered the established pattern of cultivation untenable; second, a shift in market demand; and third, pressure from a third party – a landlord or the state, for example. The first factor can probably be discounted, certainly in the second half of the seventh century since, as we have seen, there is no evidence that climate played any role in the changes. We should not discount the second factor, because as the ceramic record shows, across the course of the seventh century international markets shrank or changed and local markets redirected their focus, so that demand for some produce may have been affected.Footnote ⁷² In the third case, however, there is some evidence for some restructuring of the basic fiscal administration of the state, changes that appear to have focused in particular on the supply and management of grain, and that took place in the last 30–40 years or so of the seventh century.Footnote ⁷³

Along with much of northern Anatolia, therefore, the Euchaïta region may well have become significant for grain production from the later seventh century onwards. While the evidence indicates a downward trend demographically in the region of Pontus/Paphlagonia, it is not impossible that the region offered a ready supply of grain and livestock, and thus increased the imperial interest in and concern for the region and its defensive infrastructure. Together with other documentary evidence for the way the goverment at Constantinople responded to the military and economic threat it faced, it would not be unreasonable to ask whether what we are seeing here is a state-directed shift in resource production, specifically towards the things an army needs: grain and livestock. Such developments would certainly have enhanced the importance of the area for the government at Constantinople. Grain production was still the dominant agrarian activity in the middle of the eleventh century, according to Mauropous.Footnote ⁷⁴

Euchaïta appears only occasionally in the Middle Byzantine sources as a place of exile, as a military centre and as the seat of the cult of St Theodore.Footnote ⁷⁵ The existence of the rival cult of St Theodore the General does not seem to have reduced Euchaïta’s importance, perhaps because ‘the General’ at Euchaïna/Euchaneia may have appealed to a slightly different constituency: the provincial military elite who become prominent from the later ninth century onwards. Indeed, if St Theodore stratēlatēs was venerated at modern Elmapınar, it may well have been the proximity of the two settlements that furthered the iconographical and literary blending of the two saints, as well as merging benefactions into the two settlements. The fact that there is little indication of non-local or indeed any substantial material at Elmapınar could be an indication of such a merging. But in the present state of our knowledge that is the most that we can say.Footnote ⁷⁶ In the 1050s, Christian refugees from the first raids of the Seljuk Turks into eastern Asia Minor began to appear in Euchaïta. And although the town must have fallen into the hands of the Turkish emir Malik Danişmend sometime after the Byzantine defeat at Mantzikert in 1071, in contrast to Euchaneia, which disappears from the record entirely, Euchaïta survived as a metropolitan bishopric until at least the fourteenth century. Its history thereafter is as an unimportant, relatively poor village community.

The economy of Euchaïta remains to be fully investigated, but some broad outlines can now be attempted. The presence of St Theodore’s tomb and church had, by the end of the fifth century, led to the growth of a substantial pilgrim traffic and of a number of related facilities, likely including a hostel and associated buildings and services. The church itself seems to have been relatively well-endowed, but it is not clear how much of this traffic trickled down into the local economy to benefit the city as a whole. The very limited archaeological data from the survey, together with the written evidence from the earlier set of miracles, the collection of Chrysippos of Jerusalem, is suggestive of a flourishing small provincial town. The survey data show that economic activity in the form of a fairly well-populated rural hinterland must have been flourishing in the fifth and sixth centuries (Chapter 3 and Map 3.11),Footnote ⁷⁷ and we may assume that the presence of the pilgrimage centre, the associated monastic community probably although not certainly indicated by some of the epigraphy and an episcopal establishment of some sort would also have promoted both demand and market activity. At some point in the course of the period beginning in the second quarter of the seventh century and extending into the later eighth century, however, there took place a consolidation of settlement and rural activity, with a smaller number of foci to the south of the city (Map 3.12).Footnote ⁷⁸ Whether activity here was continuous or disrupted cannot be known from the results of the survey, but it was at this period also that intensive activity on the hill behind the city is indicated by the ceramics. It is likely that hostile raiding and the passage through the region of Arab-Islamic forces disrupted life in the Mecitözü valley, and the accounts in the second set of miracles suggests substantial dislocation and the appearance of frequent plundering expeditions, at least for a period from the 660s into the early eighth century. Thereafter, however, there is good evidence for a fairly rapid recovery, with continuing intensive activity within the citadel, further defensive features installed to expand the field of view, an extension of settlement around Euchaïta itself. No doubt the continued presence of a bishop and the pilgrimage traffic combined with the military contributed substantially to this picture, although again the chronology of settlement and economic activity within the broadly defined periods (Early and Middle Byzantine) remains unclear. With the arrival of Turkic raiders and the collapse of imperial defences in the decades after 1071, however, the survey evidence suggests a fairly marked retrenchment, the abandonment of the citadel area and by the early thirteenth century the development of a new village of some sort to the south-east of the present village and ancient city, perhaps associated also with the development and growth of both Mecitözü and Çorum.

It is likely that this story is typical of many central Anatolian ‘cities’ such as Euchaïta, and it is unfortunate that we have as yet still so little detailed archaeological data with which to work. In particular there survives in the region no evidence for the cultural life of the city and of local society – unlike at those sites where we have the evidence from excavation (as at Germia, for example, or closer to hand, Çadιr Höyük) – or as in the evidence from the Cappadocian rock-cut churches and secular structures.Footnote ⁷⁹ But the absence of material evidence should not lead us to assume that cultural life of the urban and rural populations was impoverished, even in such a relatively isolated and poor region. Indeed, the evidence of the two collections of miracle stories, the evidence that there must have been some substantial local ceramic production in the region, that imports from far afield existed (although rare) and that pilgrims came from far and near to visit the shrine of St Theodore would suggest the reverse. But we have, as yet, little more than this to support such a conclusion.

The second set of miracle stories, probably composed soon after the 660s but re-written later, offers some interesting and important information about the physical characteristics of the town, which give some idea of both the extent of the settlement and its appearance in the period up to the original time of writing, if not beyond. We learn that the city had a single main gate, for example.Footnote ⁸⁰ Gregory of Nyssa also makes mention of the main road into the city, and as we have seen in Chapters 4 and 7 above, the topographical and archaeological evidence suggests that this was probably not the present-day road leading south-east from modern Beyözü to Mecitözü and the modern west–east highway, which was constructed in the 1970s and runs parallel and north of the old Roman and later Ottoman road. It seems more likely that the connecting road from Euchaïta to the main highway followed what is today a track from the Roman road south-west of the settlement, past a series of Roman tombs, to reach the lower town, where the corner of a substantial wall footing can be seen within the modern road surface. The Anastasian inscription, which was probably built into the wall at the main entrance to the city, was reported by local residents to have been taken from this area, near the proposed line of the city walls discussed in Chapter 7.

The walls (or wall, since – although this may be to place too much emphasis on the language of the text – it is often referred to in the singular)Footnote ⁸¹ would have remained a significant defensive feature in the Persian attack of the 620s. They were still an obstacle to attack in the 660s.Footnote ⁸² The basilica of St Theodore lay just outside the city walls (now identified tentatively with F1726);Footnote ⁸³ and there was a tetrapylon in the town from which the major streets of the settlement radiated.Footnote ⁸⁴ The text mentions streets, alleys and houses (plateiai, rhymai, oikoi) within the city, which is referred to as polis or asty;Footnote ⁸⁵ there may have been another church in the town itself: an older mosque seen by Hamilton included a large number of ashlar blocks, some with Greek funerary inscriptions; the present mosque in the centre of the village includes a smaller but still substantial number of such blocks (e.g. F1302, F1303), and their number and location may suggest that the mosque may possibly occupy the site of an earlier church. The epigraphic and textual evidence noted already would support the contention that there were a number of buildings associated with St Theodore, probably located outside the Anastasian wall, near to the church: a monastic foundation of some sort, a hospital and an almshouse. The substantial structural remains represented by F0204 may reflect one of these, while the other associated indications would suggest a number of associated buildings, although the proportions of these buildings remain to be determined.

As the nineteenth-century travellers to the region noted (discussed in Chapters 1 and 7), there was a very substantial number of structural remains within and around the modern village, almost all of which have now been removed, primarily for use in the construction of dwellings. Much of this material survived into the 1960s and early 1970s, but seems then, according to local eyewitness accounts, to have been incorporated into the new mosque, completed in 1979. A good deal of incised architectural spolia was sold ‘many years ago’ by one current resident to a nearby local mosque (Fatih Ahmet Cami, some 10 km distant); another reported the existence of a colonnade-like structure, since removed for building, roughly along the line of the hypothesised Anastasian wall and running east–west from the modern road into the village, above the ‘church field’.Footnote ⁸⁶ In general, the accumulated reports corroborated the picture of a relatively dense distribution of spolia until the 1970s; the surviving material would certainly support this image.Footnote ⁸⁷

Given the location of the Anastasian wall suggested by the survey and the likely position of the gate, it is apparent that the walled settlement was not extensive, indeed it seems to have been roughly coterminous with the modern village. On the basis of the remains of elements of the wall foundation and footing at various points, this measured some 600 m in length from the western escarpment across to its eastern end where it meets the base of the ridge on which the later fortifications were constructed (see below), although it may have extended beyond this and up the steep higher ground on either side – the current degree of erosion makes it impossible to trace further (possible associated watch- or defensive-towers are discussed in Chapters 3 and 7). The occupied area within the walls was enclosed thus by the main defensive wall and the escarpment and cliffs to the side and rear of the city, representing a trapezoidal area of between 1.5 and 2 hectares. The range of as yet unidentified structures outside the main settlement already noted extends away from the walls in a band some 250 m wide and are for the most part grouped along the putative track of the main road leading into the settlement through the main gate. Their function remains unclear. It is important to emphasise, therefore, that this is by no means an extensive settlement, even if it may have been fairly densely populated at times. By way of comparison, it seems to represent under 50% of the area of the contemporary city of Amorion. And until the middle of the seventh century, probably, there was no other fortified area associated with the town. That seems to have followed from the devastating raid of 640 which saw the city sacked and much of its population carried off into captivity.

According to the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian, in a passage summarised also by Bar Hebraeus, an Arab raiding party was able to surprise the defenders of Euchaïta in 640, probably sometime after July (which is the harvest season for this region),Footnote ⁸⁸ slaughter many of the defenders, take the rest – men, women and children – captive, seize the wealth of the citizens and perpetrate great destruction before making good their march back to Syria.Footnote ⁸⁹ Trombley has quite plausibly argued that this event was most likely the catalyst for the construction of the defences on the hill behind the city, the vestiges of which have been revealed by the geophysical survey carried out by the AAP. The defences were substantial: the wall across the most easily approached northern side of the promontory was fronted by a ditch and possibly a proteichisma, and the ruins of some 60 m of its length are still visible; at least four towers or bastions can be distinguished, two grouped together at what appears to have been the main entrance. Erosion has carried evidence of the remaining part of the circuit around the promontory away, but the intensive survey indicated a substantial number of structures, and as can be seen from Appendix 1 and the discussion in Chapters 3 and 7, the geophysical survey showed that a substantial rectangular emplacement abutted the inside of the northern defensive wall. In terms of the ceramic and tile evidence it is impossible to be more precise chronologically than that these were constructed in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine period, but historically the seventh century offers the most likely context.

That this system was constructed in the reign of Constans II, after 641 and before 663/664, accords well with the text of the miracles, which begin to refer to the ochyromata or the kastron only in relation to the Arab attacks of the 660s, to which the population of Euchaïta henceforth retired when danger threatened. The city wall was clearly not abandoned, since in Miracle 4 the gate is miraculously defended for a while by the saint, suggesting that the wall was still a major obstacle to any raiding party at this time.Footnote ⁹⁰ The attacks themselves, of course, gave the saint the opportunity to intervene on behalf of ‘his’ city several times. When the city, with its fortified ridge and associated military installations, became an element in the government’s defensive strategy in the region is difficult to say. The miracles recounting events of the early 660s make no reference to Roman military involvement; if they are in fact to be dated in the middle of the seventh century, then even at this stage Euchaïta still had no recognised military role, even if its strategic value and the need to provide it with effective defences had been recognised. All that can be said with certainty is that by the early ninth century it had also become a military base for the Armeniakon army, although as noted already, that it was the military headquarters of the army remains uncertain. In either case, its strategic situation, at a location near to which Arab forces tended to concentrate in order to mount raids both westwards and eastwards into the heart of the empire, would only have become obvious after the first raids themselves, thus from the 640s at the very earliest, and probably only from the 660s (Map 8.1).Footnote ⁹¹

Since it is unlikely that the imperial government would have left this hole in its defensive organisation for long after the threat was repeated and had become a reality, and given that the first raid, in 640/641, may well have been seen at the time as an exception, it seems reasonable to suggest that the raids of the 660s served to galvanise an imperial strategic response. It is indicative that, as discussed in Chapter 3, a good deal of the activity that was detected on and around Kale Tepe in the ceramic and tile survey was focused in the Early Byzantine period (as defined by the project, thus between 626 and 799), suggesting a considerably heightened level of occupation and use. This would, of course, also militate against the miracle collection, as we have it in its extant form, belonging in the middle of the eighth century, by which time Euchaïta would have had a military presence of some sort that would surely have appeared in the accounts of the Arab attacks.Footnote ⁹²

Location and Communications

The local and intra-regional routes and tracks employed by the population of Euchaïta in their daily lives have been discussed in Chapter 4, but a brief summary of the nature and direction of the Arab raids that are known to have penetrated as far as Euchaïta, and of the major military routes employed by armies of both sides, will demonstrate the new-found strategic value of Euchaïta from the later seventh and eighth centuries, an importance associated with both east–west as well as south–north axial routes.Footnote ⁹³ While, as we have seen, Euchaïta does not lie on the major Roman-Byzantine military road running west–east, it does lie a little to the north of one loop of an alternate route from Ankyra via Gangra to Amaseia and onwardsFootnote ⁹⁴ – either south-eastwards via Dazimon and Dokeia to Sebasteia, thence to Satala and beyond; or eastwards to Neokaisareia (Niksar), Koloneia, Satala and Theodosioupolis (Erzerum).

Its significance was thus restricted before the later seventh century to its immediate locality, apart from its function as the seat of St Theodore. And again by the middle of the eleventh century John Mauropous notes that the city was visited only rarely by anyone, ‘unless perhaps he is some scourge-bearing official or tax-collector or army recruiter or herald of some other new kind of devilment’.Footnote ⁹⁵ Indeed, as was long ago noted by Ramsay,Footnote ⁹⁶ the major route to the east from Bithynia ran through Dorylaion (Eskişehir), where it branches off along the valley of the Tembris river (mod. Porsuk Su) via Trikomia, Gorbeous, Saniana (near mod. Keşikköprü) and then on to Timios Stavros, Basilika Therma (mod. Terzili Hamam), on to the north of Charsianon Kastron (Muşalem Kale), and across to Bathys Ryax and Sebasteia (Sivas) (see Map 8.2). Thence it can be taken south-west to Caesarea (Kayseri), north to Dazimon (in the Kaz Ova near Tokat), east to Koloneia (Kara Hisar) and Satala, or south-east to Melitene (Malatya). A second branch turns off to the south-east at Saniana, proceeding via Mokissos (mod. Viranşehir) and Ioustinianoupolis to Caesarea. Significantly, these routes do not always follow the major paved Roman roads, but lesser (and in some cases much older) routes which provided better opportunities for watering and pasturing animals and provisioning armies. Their use probably also reflects the difficulties of trying to move along the older but greatly dilapidated paved roads.Footnote ⁹⁷ In any case, Euchaïta was set off from such routes.

Map 8.2 Major centres in Byzantine Anatolia seventh–eleventh centuries CE

In contrast, for raiding parties travelling north from Syria, via Kaisareia or attempting to access imperial territory from the north-easterly sector of what by the 660s had become the frontier zone, via Theodosioupolis, Euchaïta came to occupy a crucially important position because of its relation to one sector of the network of routes emanating from both these nodal points. There were several major routes of access from the Cilician and north Syrian regions into Asia Minor. North of Tarsos, in the gorge of the Yeşiloluk, the defile of the Cilician Gates led through the Taurus to Podandos and either westwards to Loulon, Herakleia and eventually, turning off to the North, Ikonion; or northwards, either directly, or via Tyana, to Caesarea. A second route led northwards from Germanikeia (Kahramanmaraş) to Koukousos and then westwards via the Kuru Çay pass to Caesarea; other routes led from Adata (mod. Başpınar), to the north-east of Germanikeia, across the Anti-Taurus past Zapetra to Melitene; from Melitene via a series of defiles and passes either to Caesarea via the pass of Gödilli Dağ (the Byzantine kleisoura, or frontier pass, of Lykandos), or to Sebasteia via the valley of the Kuru Çay. In addition, there were a number of minor routes through mountain passes which were covered by Arab and Byzantine forts and were the scene of frequent clashes. That from Mopsouestia up to Anazarba (anc. Anazarbos) and through the defile to Sision, thence north to Caesarea or, further to the east, the routes which led from Melitene eastwards to Arsamosata and on to Chliat/Ahlat on Lake Van, as well as northwards.Footnote ⁹⁸ In strategic terms, therefore, and while it was located off the major routes, Euchaïta was close enough to several of them to play a role watching over the network of roads giving access to the central Pontic regions and areas to the west. It is in consequence not surprising that by the early ninth century, and probably much earlier, it had come to serve as a military base from which imperial troops could be despatched either southwards or eastwards to meet an incoming threat.

Arab sources describe in some detail the two major routes which an invader could follow across the Taurus and Anti-Taurus mountains (Map 8.1). From Caesarea, several alternative roads were taken – north-west up to Ankyra/Ankara, north to Basilika Therma and on up to Tabion (at the crossroads of this north–south route and the major west–east military road), and thence to the road running between Gaggra and Amaseia, just to the north of which Euchaïta was located; or north-east up to Sebasteia, then west and north to Dazimon and Amaseia. Alternatively, a series of easterly routes leads from Sebasteia across to either Kamacha, or to Koloneia and Satala. Again, while not actually situated at the junction of the Gaggra-Amaseia road and the road up from Tabion, Euchaïta represented a potential target and a potential obstacle for Arab raiders moving northwards and then turning east, or coming from the east and wishing to proceed further west or turn back to the south. From there they could branch out to north, east and west to conduct further raids and attacks.Footnote ⁹⁹ By the same token, an active defence of the city and the presence of a garrison presented an immediate challenge to raiders or larger forces which attempted to pass it by.

This is borne out by the catalogue of Arab incursions between the years 660 and 800, approximately. As Lilie and others have shown, a number of raiding parties used the north–south route from Kaisareia to approach Euchaïta and from there to expand their raiding and pillaging activities to east and west and, on occasion, up to the Black Sea coast. The raids of the 640s seem on the whole to have taken the Byzantines off-guard. Between the 640s and the 680s Arab attacks into north-eastern Asia Minor succeeded in pushing the frontier ever more westward so that by about 700, Theodosioupolis/Erzurum was in Arab hands and Kamachon continually contested by both sides. Arab forces attacked Armenia in 661 and 664, for example, taking Koloneia and putting Neokaisareia and Amaseia nearer the front line.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ In 711 Kamachon fell again, while in 712 Amaseia fell and the region around Gaggra was devastated. In 727 Gaggra fell a second time, and the raiding force moved westwards through Helenopontus into Paphlagonia, a route seemingly followed again in 732. Invasions affected different regions of Anatolia at different times and to varying degrees of intensity. It has been suggested on the basis of the presence or absence of bishops at the councils of 680–681 and 691–692, for example, that western Anatolia suffered more heavily than the north and east at this time, although the region had recovered by the later eighth century. Indeed, on the basis of this evidence it would appear that northern and north-central Anatolia were far less badly affected, with all their bishops journeying to Constantinople for the councils, compared with numbers varying from 39% to a mere 12% in the western dioceses.Footnote ¹⁰¹ Throughout this period there were Byzantine counter-attacks and raids and some successes, but the overall impact on the landscape and population was clearly dramatic, as imperial efforts to repopulate some districts in the later seventh and eighth centuries demonstrate.Footnote ¹⁰² In these attacks and raids the position of Euchaïta itself is not always clear, but many Arab forces passed along this east–west corridor (although it is not clear whether they used the southerly or the northerly route more frequently) and several must have passed close to Euchaïta on their way through from the Armenian border into Helenopontus and Paphlagonia. Euchaïta itself is rarely mentioned – the sack of 641 is referred to only in the Syriac tradition, that of (probably) 663/664 does not appear in any of the chronicles of the period, although as noted above the Arabic tradition records a major overwintering raid which reached Koloneia in that year and may reflect the attack on Euchaïta.Footnote ¹⁰³ The town reappears in the Chronographia of Theophanes, as we have seen, in 811, when it was the setting for a surprise Arab attack on the general Leo and his retinue, along with the provincial military pay chest. The latter along with a considerable number of troops were captured.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Although this relative silence regarding Euchaïta may not signify much, it would suggest that raiders had bigger and better targets in mind, or that the relative gains to be achieved by investing it were too small to make it worthwhile. If the account in Miracles 4 and 5 is an indication, the latter may be the more likely.

The raid of 811 is interesting for several other reasons also. It was clearly an unusual time for such an attack and it is not surprising that the general and his retinue were surprised: indeed, winter campaigning was universally regarded as difficult and dangerous, and both Byzantine and Arab sources comment on this. In 627 the emperor Heraclius opened a campaign in September, as winter set in the mountainous region of north-west Iran, which the historians themselves note was unusual, and took the Persian forces by surprise. Michael Psellos makes particular mention of the fact that Basil II was often successful in war because he launched attacks in the winter when the enemy were least expecting it.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ It is significant that when Amorion was taken in 669, the successful Byzantine counter-attack was launched during the winter of the same year, when the Arabs were least expecting it and when re-supplying their troops and relieving them was most difficult.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ This particular raid took place in February, when there would have been very little pasturage available and indeed when much of the higher ground would still have been covered in snow.

According to the Arab geographers, winter raids were the most difficult to undertake, and the troops in question could stay in enemy territory for only a very limited period. The geographer Kudama b. Ja’far notes that a winter raid (in February/March) into Byzantine territory should not spend more than twenty days there and back, since that is the maximum time for which they can carry supplies with them (and the pack-animals whose loads had been consumed could then be used to carry the booty). This was in strong contrast to the spring raid, which lasted about thirty days, and the summer raid, lasting up to sixty days. In the second and third cases, fodder and grain for the animals and provisions for the soldiers and camp attendants will have been extracted from the areas through which the army marched. Similar points are made, but from the Byzantine perspective, by the emperor Leo VI in his Taktika, written in the first decade of the tenth century, and by later military writers.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ For these logistical reasons, the numbers involved in the raid of 811 must have been quite small; and since the Arabs clearly won a small victory, it suggests likewise that the forces they were fighting were also relatively small in number.

The results of the geophysical survey of the Kale Tepe – ‘castle hill’ – at Beyözü revealed a substantial defensive wall across the neck of the ridge, with several bastions and a defended entrance (see Appendix 1, and Chapters 3 and 7 above). Inside this area and built up against the wall the large rectangular area marked by a lesser wall and a series of buildings within the space thus created suggest a defensive enclosure, perhaps the home of the military commander and/or the bishop of the city in times of danger. A relatively abundant scatter of roof tiles both within this area and distributed across the rest of the ridge also suggested a large number of smaller structures. Possible indications of a cistern remain to be further investigated. The total area (ca. 1.5 hectares) enclosed by the defended part of the ridge is not large, however, and could probably house the small city’s population and a small military garrison for a very limited period. The ceramic material offered only very general chronological indications for the occupation and structures on the hill, but as noted above, supports the historical context, which points most clearly to the period from the sixth–seventh centuries and afterwards as the focus.

In 653/654 Constans II led a major expedition to enforce imperial authority in Armenia, marching via Derxene/TercanFootnote ¹⁰⁸ to Theodosioupolis and thence to Dvin; but on his withdrawal a joint Armenian rebel and Arab counter-attack pushed into the Pontus and succeeded in taking Trapezus (Trebizond), although it quickly withdrew.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ It must have been clear to the imperial government from this time on that this area was very exposed, and it is likely that it was during these years, and possibly in the course of this campaign, that Euchaïta was furnished with its defended citadel on the hill behind the town. Constans is widely credited with defensive building works during his reign, in particular the defences of Sardis, Ephesos, Pergamon and Ankyra, although several others can be ascribed, by style and construction technique, to the same period very approximately. The expedition of 654 would have been a good opportunity to strengthen the empire’s defences in this region, even if the imperial army did not itself use this road on its way to Theodosioupolis – Sebeos is specific that the bulk of Constans’ army was dispersed to winter quarters west of Armenia, and this might easily be taken to include regions along the Neokaisareia – Amaseia – Gangra route.

Given the fact that such defences appear not to have been available to the inhabitants of Euchaïta in 641 but are clearly there, and in good order, in 663/664, construction during the 653/654 campaign seems a reasonable hypothesis. Since Miracle 5 also notes that the city gate was defended (albeit by the saint on his horse), it seems reasonable also to infer that the main walls were still in good condition and if defended would present a serious obstacle to the invader. It is likely that Constans II or one of his commanders therefore also restored or repaired the lower city defences as well.Footnote ¹¹⁰

It was thus as a direct consequence of the warfare of the second half of the seventh century that Euchaïta’s importance grew. With Euchaïta garrisoned and defended, or even serving merely as a suitable assembly point for imperial troops, it could no longer be bypassed without potentially serious repercussions. Raiders would henceforth be obliged to take the fortress and put it out of action for at least the duration of their stay on East Roman soil, and deal with any garrison or other military force in the area it covered, in order to protect their own activities. The very presence of a military force here would thus drastically inhibit Arab raiding activities. This transformed strategic role may well have given new impetus to the economy of the city and its immediate hinterland and this may be what we seem to see in both the pattern of ceramic densities detected by the intensive survey in and around the settlement – see Chapters 3 and 7 – and in the occasional references in the sources to Euchaïta’s role in the region.

In particular, we would underline the continued presence of ceramic material dateable from the later seventh century and afterwards and the continued occupation or at least functional use of a number of sites identified as farmsteads in the immediate hinterland of the city across this period. In contrast to many other sites in central Anatolia, it would appear that Euchaïta retained importance as a focus of settlement and achieved a raised profile as a centre of state (military and possibly fiscal) activity. The pattern of ceramic distribution on the one hand and of settlement on the other is not too different from that noted around the Middle Byzantine fortified settlement at Asartepe (anc. Kimistene) in south-western Paphlagonia (possibly a successor to Late Roman Hadrianoupolis), although here we know of no other functions for the settlement (military or otherwise).Footnote ¹¹¹ In contrast, at the small non-military Late Roman and Byzantine settlement at Çadır Höyük, near Peyniryemez in central Turkey, the ceramic record is quite different, with the period from the seventh to ninth centuries representing a low point in the fortunes of the site, which recovered from the later ninth through to the later eleventh century – although as at Euchaïta, the arrival of the Seljuks in the 1070s transformed the situation and fortunes of the site.Footnote ¹¹² While the status of Euchaïta as an autocephalous archbishopric, along with the presence of the cult of St Theodore, secured for the city a continuing importance, its new strategic role brought it new prominence, until this began to change yet again in the later ninth and tenth centuries, and as the overall strategic situation of the empire shifted.Footnote ¹¹³

The Broader Picture: Settlement Context and Function

In the following, and basing the discussion on Chapters 3 and 4, we will look at this issue from two perspectives: first, in respect of the overall strategic situation which evolved in Anatolia from the seventh to eleventh centuries; and second, in terms of the settlement hierarchy of its catchment area and hinterland, in the context of a broader regional discussion. This is not the place to go into detail about the evolution of urbanism in Asia Minor from the fifth into the seventh century, which provides the context and background for understanding the particular trajectories of certain types of settlement.Footnote ¹¹⁴ But some prefaratory remarks will be useful. The classical city, the polis or civitas, had held during the Roman period a central role both in the social and economic structure of Mediterranean society, as well as in the administrative machinery of the empire. Cities might be centres of market-exchange, of regional agricultural activity, occasionally of small-scale commodity production or, where ports were concerned, major foci of long-distance commerce. Such urban centres were generally dependent on the countryside around them for any market and industrial functions as well as for the foodstuffs to supply their resident population. As the social and economic structure of the empire evolved away from the relationships and conditions which gave rise to and maintained such settlements, so the cities became the first key institution of the classical world to feel the effects of these changes.Footnote ¹¹⁵ The changes were complex and involved a transformation in the role of cities with regard to the government and fisc as well as in respect of local elite society and culture.Footnote ¹¹⁶ Some of these changes have been ascribed to a withdrawal of elite interest in provincial centres. Regardless of the causes, however, by the early years of the seventh century, most cities as corporate bodies were less well-off than they had been before about the middle of the sixth century. But this did not necessarily mean that there was less wealth focused in urban contexts, nor that urban life did not continue in many cities to flourish. Local elites began during the fifth century to invest their wealth differently, less in urban infrastructure, more in the church and in securing their position within the apparatus of the imperial state. Cities continued to operate as centres of exchange and small-scale industry, as well as for the social activity for the landowners and the wealthy of their districts. But there were important changes, both in the layout of towns, the use of public and private space and the relationship between them, and in the extent of urban settlement. While the archaeology of early Byzantine urbanism suggests a range of responses to change – shrinkage in the occupied areas, reorientation of the use of public and private space and the refocusing of centres of population within urban settings, for exampleFootnote ¹¹⁷ – their ideological and symbolic importance, expressed through imperial involvement in urban building and renewal in several cases, meant that they continued to play an important role culturally. Cities such as Euchaïta, particularly associated with a local saint’s cult, or those fulfilling other cult functions within the Christian world view, enhanced their chances of flourishing where they did not already possess a primary economic character.Footnote ¹¹⁸

The effects of warfare in the seventh century proved too much for many of the more fragile provincial urban economies, and with some exceptions, civic building in the traditional sense ceased, although the state and the Church built, for their own use (churches, granaries, walls, arms-depots), even if cities had few if any resources of their own as corporate entities. Wealthy local landowners could invest in building, although there is little evidence before the eleventh century. In many cases cities retained their Late Roman walls and defences and were fully occupied. This was particularly the case with major centres that retained an administrative and military significance, such as has now been shown for Ankyra, for example, as well as for Amorion; although many structures evolved different functions over time.Footnote ¹¹⁹ In other cases the area of the city was fragmented into a series of separate village-like suburbs within the Late Roman enceinte, with separate localities continuing to be inhabited, functioning as communities whose inhabitants regarded themselves as ‘citizens’ of the city within whose walls their settlement was located. Many cities developed fortified or defensible refuges to which the population might retire when threatened, yet the archaeological evidence from some sites such as Ephesos, occasionally attacked but for the most part away from the most exposed zones, appears to show also that suburban settlement could survive, even where the internal space of the city was re-organised around different needs.Footnote ¹²⁰ The pattern of urban life clearly varied from region to region according to local circumstances and the different localised responses to the range of pressures and threats that urban life had to confront. Where cities developed a kastron or citadel the latter generally retained the name of the ancient polis, although the evidence for such places having any permanent residents or military presence is very slender.Footnote ¹²¹ Many of the poleis of the seventh to ninth centuries survived as ‘cities’ because their inhabitants, living effectively in distinct communities within the area delineated by the walls, saw themselves as belonging to the polis itself, rather than to a village. But regional differentiation in respect of climate should also be borne in mind, and it is entirely possible that settlements in what was, in the course of the sixth–seventh centuries, becoming a cooler and wetter belt of northern Asia Minor, across Paphlagonia and the Pontic regions, for example, were able to maintain or even develop a more dynamic agrarian economy than those to the south. While climate should not be seen as the prime determinant of change, what we can see in the archaeological record may not all have been a result of hostile activity.Footnote ¹²² One feature of this period that the Euchaïta region does not share with many others is a reduction in the number of settlements and the consolidation of the population in fewer locations, as suggested by the results of the survey. The relatively large number of new features indicating occupation or related activity, almost certainly agricultural, in the vicinity of the city perhaps reflects its new strategic value as well as the presence of the cult of St Theodore (see Maps 3.11 and 3.12).Footnote ¹²³

In the period from the middle of the seventh century into the tenth century Anatolia fell into three broad zones, reflecting the differential effects of hostile activity in the regions in question, zones within which the nature of towns and their relationship to the surrounding rural communities varied according to local and broader regional conditions. Since the effects of warfare changed over the period in question as the empire was able to establish a more effective resistance, thus relieving the pressure on many areas, and as the broader economic environment across the eastern Mediterranean basin evolved, the role and fortunes of urban settlements also changed.Footnote ¹²⁴ The first zone, the ‘inner zone’ around Constantinople itself, was important because it was the source of much of the food which supplied the capital,Footnote ¹²⁵ and by the 730s and 740s the defensive arrangements which had evolved were beginning to offer a more effective resistance to invasion, so that hostile action thereafter only rarely affected this zone. The southern Pontic region, including Helenopontus and Paphlagonia, should also be included as a part of this heartland. The evidence, limited though it is, for cities such as Amastris, Sinope and Trebizond, located at well-situated harbours with good facilities for shipping, suggests that while they also focused on a defensible citadel, they continued to occupy the Late Roman lower town and to maintain a degree of commercial and exchange activity not sustainable in more exposed regions. Some of these centres continued also to function as entrepôts for longer-distance commerce; and we should not forget that the government also obtained much of the ore it required (for the imperial coinage, as well as for weapons), from mines, or through other means such as panning, in the mountains of Bithynia, the Pontic Alps or western Caucasus.Footnote ¹²⁶

The second zone included major fortresses such as Chonai, Sozopolis, Akroinon, Amorion, Ankyra, Gangra and Amaseia, and can be understood as a defence in depth for the capital, Constantinople. It also included secondary centres such as Euchaïta, situated on the eastern edge of this defensive zone, towns that had a strategic role but were not always very heavily fortified. These acted as a defensive line of obstacles to hostile advances into the inner region, as well as important elements in the state’s administrative, fiscal and military infrastructure. The third or outer zone was most exposed to hostile activity, and while major fortified centres remained more-or-less continuously in imperial hands, their hinterlands suffered substantial disruption and damage from hostile military action up to the middle of the eighth century, less frequently thereafter.Footnote ¹²⁷ Many smaller urban centres were reduced to simple fortresses with only a residual service populace of non-military or non-administrative people; some, such as Tyana, Phaustinoupolis or Lykandos, were abandoned.Footnote ¹²⁸ There never seems to have been a totally emptied ‘no-man’s land’, at least not on a longer-term basis, as recent archaeological surveys of the frontier region are beginning to show, even if the pattern of settlement was dramatically affected and inflected by the warfare of the times.Footnote ¹²⁹

Euchaïta, which lay on the fringes of the second zone, seems to have been spared the worst of this hostile activity after the attack and over-wintering of 663/664, and as noted already, it is probably from then that its useful strategic situation was recognised. The results of a series of broad surveys across various regions of Asia Minor suggest a very preliminary model of the ways in which the settlement geography and physical characteristics of the period were configured. Strategic and local tactical demands clearly came to dominate the location and density of defended centres, as well as their size and cultural character, but it is also the case that the relationship between government policy, the militarisation of the countryside which the billeting of troops across Asia Minor from the later seventh century entailed, and the development of new strategic arrangements, are all very problematic. Many sites could fulfill a variety of potential functions, not necessarily all at the same time; and whether a site offered the facilities of a fortress, town or a refuge for an administrative, military or agrarian centre, or a combination of some or all of these, could vary according to local political and economic conditions as well as broader background context. This is important when considering the refuges, smaller settlements and kastra of the Early and Middle Byzantine periods.Footnote ¹³⁰

The settlement hierarchy across Asia Minor during the Byzantine period is strongly inflected by these characteristics. Many provincial sites which fulfilled military, administrative or ecclesiastical functions were not descended from the traditional ‘cities’ of the Late Roman period, having their origins rather in quasi- or non-urban settlements selected for their particular conjunctural relevance, and possibly relatively short-lived. There were a number of factors that played a role in this process of settlement differentiation,Footnote ¹³¹ including strategic location, markets and so forth, and along with the smaller forts and outposts of a purely military nature, such fortified or semi-fortified locations, often situated on rocky outcrops and prominences, typified the East Roman provincial countryside after the later seventh century.Footnote ¹³² One key point to which archaeologists and historians have increasingly given emphasis is the high degree of regional variation in the forms and characteristics of Early and Middle Byzantine urban settlement, not only between major regions – the Balkans, southern Italy, the major zones of Anatolia – but also within these, between micro-regions and localities. Generalisation is possible, in broad terms, but it is essential to bear in mind the numerous ways in which local factors – geographical, topographical, climatic, social and economic – nuanced and inflected patterns of settlement, urban–rural relations and the physical structure of towns.

Recent archaeological work is beginning to make it possible to differentiate within these categories. The settlement at Euchaïta (a small semi-rural/semi-urban centre with both urban and military/defensive characteristics), that at Asartepe in Paphlagonia (a similar defended settlement but likely having more limited urban characteristics/functions) and that at Çadιr Höyük (rural steading with defensive potential but no urban characteristics) already offer the possibility of establishing a more sophisticated or complex and regionalised typology by location and function, for example. Larger and more substantial urban centres generally also came to be associated with a citadel or fortified acropolis which could serve both as a refuge as well as an administrative and military centre, usually protected by natural features, adequately supplied with water and positioned to control the region around it together with the main routes or means of access and egress serving the district. Euchaïta fits into this pattern as an example of one of the smaller settlements, which retained a defended fortress above the town, which seems to have maintained its walls, and in which the non-military population continued to occupy the small lower town while a military establishment occupied the upper defended area, at least when a military presence was required. Interestingly, at Euchaïta the citizens and ecclesiastical establishment chose to place their hopes of safety in the smaller but much closer ridge immediately overlooking the town, as opposed to the more distant larger hill behind it, which was defended by a prehistoric ring ditch. This may have been simply to do with visibility and exposure. The town has low exposure; lying in a fold in the ground it is well hidden. So is the kale. The much more exposed and higher Kabak Tepesi has a watchtower, which would have communicated visually with the lower, more fortified hill, which would in turn have afforded more direct protection to the town. The continued existence of such towns assured both the survival of the Roman or Hellenistic name for the site as well as the survival of the identity of the residents with their ‘city’.Footnote ¹³³ On occasion the written sources distinguish clearly between the two – as in the miracles of Theodore, for example, where the lower walled town is still the polis and the defended hill overlooking the town is the kastron or ochyrōmata.Footnote ¹³⁴

As well as these types of settlement there was a considerable number of minor forts and fortresses situated at or near key points of access and the approaches to the more important fortified towns. These often included a single or double wall protected and reinforced by towers, defended gateways and natural location, and it is likely that many, perhaps the majority, were probably occupied only on an occasional basis, when the situation demanded it. How such emplacements were maintained remains unclear, although local military and possibly church administrators were the most likely to have been involved. Many pre-Roman Iron Age defensive emplacements in such locations are likely to have been re-used during this period, although the dating evidence is negligible for the majority.Footnote ¹³⁵ They are often associated also with more important centres which attracted hostile attention – a good example is the case of the removal of the non-military populace of Amorion to nearby mountain refuges (in the Emirdağ, to the south) at the approach of the Arab armies before the siege of 715/716;Footnote ¹³⁶ the towers in the surrounding hills, although not securely dated, may well be associated with Amorion and this strategy, and similar arrangements probably existed for other urban centres.Footnote ¹³⁷ As we have seen, around Euchaïta itself the possible sites of at least three watchtowers have been identified, and a short distance to the south, overlooking the Çorum river valley and with outstanding views across the whole surrounding area, the remains of a tower and associated Late Roman and Early-Middle Byzantine sherds on the prominence of Hisarkavak shows evidence of medieval occupation and its likely function as both a lookout post and a refuge, almost certainly associated with Euchaïta.Footnote ¹³⁸

Looked at from the broader perspective, it seems evident that Euchaïta never achieved first-rate status, either as a city or as a military centre. Regardless of the local fluctuations in its situation, it remained throughout its history, and in spite of its autocephalous ecclesiastical position, dependent on the nearest major urban settlement at Amaseia. But it did evolve a very different character as a result of the development of its role as a centre of pilgrimage, and then again as its strategic situation made it, for two and a half centuries, a focus of imperial military interest. Its shifting status in the settlement hierarchy of its region reflects the ways in which the transformed political conditions of the period from the 640s onwards impacted upon both the communications of Anatolia and the pattern of rural–urban relations and exploitation of the landscape. And it readily explains the nature of the medieval Byzantine city of Euchaïta, which evolved in a particular political-historical context to meet the specific needs of both East Roman strategic organisation and the local populace. While it appears from the limited results of the surface survey to have flourished across the period of economic disruption and dislocation brought by the Arab-Islamic warfare of the period ca. 660–740, although it is not possible to identify specific moments of disruption or crisis, the city never seems to have evolved the commercial and manufacturing facilities that many urban centres experienced in the Byzantine world in the eleventh century.Footnote ¹³⁹ Relatively isolated, with no port, with no major centre of consumption to supply, on a route which attracted only very limited and largely non-commercial traffic, and with only limited agrarian potential, its location and ecological environment condemned it to remain always a relative backwater, a situation relieved only briefly during the period in which it played a military and strategic role. It served as the local central place for its immediate hinterland, which consisted, as far as the results of the survey can currently tell us, of a scatter of isolated centres of agricultural production, all within half a day’s walk of the town itself, and none of which show any signs of more than local rural characteristics throughout the period from the sixth to the eleventh century and beyond.Footnote ¹⁴⁰

Euchaïta was the only non-rural centre in the district and along the route between Amaseia and Gangra on the west–east axis, serving also as a market for the district, a market that must have been enhanced by the episcopal establishment and, even if only seasonally and temporarily, by both the annual fair and, more importantly during the seventh–ninth centuries, by the presence of soldiers.Footnote ¹⁴¹ But only the cult of St Theodore raised its international profile, from the middle of the fourth century, and only the short-term strategic situation that prevailed from the later seventh into the later ninth century made it valuable to the state. By the eleventh century the latter had already developed new priorities elsewhere, and John Mauropous’ apparently contradictory remarks about his see in fact describe the economy and character of the city quite accurately – an isolated and commercially unimportant town for most of each year, with its role as a centre of pilgrimage providing a (probably limited) additional income for the townspeople, the monastery and the church, it became a thriving market centre for a few weeks at most each year during the festivities accompanying the feasts of St Theodore.

The End of Euchaïta

In 1071 the defeat of the emperor Romanos IV at Mantzikert resulted in a disastrous civil war within the empire. While – in spite of modern assumptions to the contrary – the defeat did not result in the destruction of the imperial army, the emperor’s forces were scattered, although many units fell back in order, to retreat either to their bases in the west or to await the emperor on his release from captivity.Footnote ¹⁴² But the break-up of a unified command and the absence of any organised response to the defeat did open up the central and northern regions of Asia Minor to Seljuk and Turkmen raids and occupation, and within a very short time the major cities and fortress along the main military road across the plateau from east to west, as well as subsidiary centres along the parallel northerly route through Amaseia had fallen to Turkish forces. Indeed, the area had already been subject to serious dislocation before this, with Turkic raiders penetrating as far as Koloneia in the 1050s and Neokaisareia, which was sacked in 1068,Footnote ¹⁴³ and with the depredations of the Normans and Franks under Roussel de Bailleul between 1073 and 1074, based in his headquarters at Amaseia. The betrayal of Roussel by his Turkish allies led to his capture by Alexios Komnenos, the future emperor, but appears also to have resulted in the Turkish seizure of the city shortly thereafter.Footnote ¹⁴⁴

One clear result of this general dislocation and disruption may have been the abandonment of their homes and settlements of much of the rural populace, at least for a period. Unfortunately, the ceramic evidence is too imprecise to help here. As noted already, there are indications in the field survey of an expansion of activity that likely belongs to the period pre-dating the Turkish raiding of the 1050s onwards, but unfortunately the results of this work shed no light on the exact chronology of settlement outside the walls of the city during the Middle Byzantine period. What it does suggest is the abandonment of the citadel area at some point before the later twelfth century and the growth of a new settlement around one of the areas identified in the Middle Byzantine period as a farmstead (see Chapter 3, Maps 3.13Footnote ¹⁴⁵ and 3.15Footnote ¹⁴⁶). The archbishop of Euchaïta John Mauropous reports the presence of Christian refugees there, although the date at which this sermon was delivered is not known, and may be from the 1060s or early 1070s.Footnote ¹⁴⁷ John himself seems to have retained his position as metropolitan bishop of the see after 1071, possibly until 1075, and was replaced upon his return to Constantinople, although this may not necessarily mean that the new incumbent was resident in his diocese.Footnote ¹⁴⁸ It may possibly have been shortly before this that, according to John, the saint’s relics were distributed among the faithful; while some time – but probably quite soon – afterwards the relics of Theodore the general were removed to Serres in Thrace.Footnote ¹⁴⁹ The somewhat later Dānişmendnāme reports the flight of rural populations to the mountains and hilltop refuges, along with the capture of important towns such as Paipert, Argyroupolis, Koloneia, Neokaisareia, Dokeia, Komana, Amaseia, Euchaïta and Gaggra. But it does not suggest that these populations stayed away permanently. The process by which the Turks came to dominate this region (as well as others) was probably far less rapid than has often been thought, since the invaders rarely had the capacity for long sieges, and in the eastern Pontic region the Byzantine resistance, led by Theodore Gabras, became legendary. The ability to resist was often compromised by the absence of effective fortifications in areas – including the region around Euchaïta – which had long been at peace. Thus the walls of Caesarea in Cappadocia were in a poor state of repair in 1073 and had been so since an earlier earthquake. It is unlikely that the defences of Euchaïta, which by this time, and unlike Caesarea, was of virtually no military or strategic significance, were any better.Footnote ¹⁵⁰ Sinope fell in 1084–1085 (although it was soon retaken, in 1086, by Alexios I Komnenos) showing that the Turks were well able to push up to the Pontic coast. Euchaïta lay almost directly in the path of any raid or attack from the plateau towards Sinop and the coast, and would most probably have been abandoned or fallen at some point in the later 1070s.Footnote ¹⁵¹ In 1101 the districts along the route from Gaggra to Amaseia were described by Albert of Aachen as more-or-less deserted,Footnote ¹⁵² and although it is clear that larger towns were reoccupied when conditions settled, the fact that this whole region was contested throughout the later eleventh and much of the twelfth century between rival Turkic lords – Danişmendids, Seljuks from the plateau, for example – as well as Byzantine forces attempting to regain control of the region during the reigns of the Komnenoi, meant the end of many smaller towns and their satellite village communities.Footnote ¹⁵³ Yet we should be careful not to generalise from this evidence. Very preliminary results from Çadır Höyük to the south, already mentioned, suggest that a symbiotic relationship between the newly arrived pastoralists and the indigenous sedentary populations may have evolved, at least in some areas. Whether this was the case at Euchaïta is the subject of future investigation.

Under the Danişmendid emirs, who occupied and controlled the Pontic region from this time, Euchaïta effectively disappears from the literary record for a while. In 1318 Andronikos II Palaiologos bestowed on Apros in Thrace the rank formerly belonging to Euchaïta, implying that the see was itself effectively defunct.Footnote ¹⁵⁴ According to an imperial document of 1327 concerning ecclesiastical matters Euchaïta (along with Sebasteia, Ikonion, Mokissos and Nazianzos) had been deprived of its church leaders for a long time, and authority for the metropolitanate, along with that for the other Anatolian sees listed, was handed to the see of Kaisareia.Footnote ¹⁵⁵ But in a document renewing this arrangement on behalf of Kaisareia in 1365 Euchaïta itself is not mentioned, and may be assumed to have either no or very few Christian households at all.Footnote ¹⁵⁶ None of this tells us anything about the place itself, the region, or its people, of course, but the fact that the name survives in the Turkish Avkat (or variants, such as ‘Evhud’, in the Ottoman tax-records) suggests a continuity of occupation of the site. In the intervening period the town of Çorum evolved.Footnote ¹⁵⁷ A castle was constructed there, probably dating originally to the thirteenth century, incorporating Byzantine tombstones and much spolia, as was the nearby Elvançelebi türbe (from 1283), about half-way between Euchaïta and Çorum.

At some point after the later eleventh century the centre of the immediate locality moved from Euchaïta/Avkat to Mecitözü, known in much later sources as Avkat Haci-köy or Mecit-özü Haci-köy, although it does not appear in the fifteenth-century tax-record. In 1398, and after the incorporation of the region under Ottoman control in the later fourteenth century, the Ottoman sancak of Çorum was part of the vilayet of Sivas. In 1423 it was attached to the vilayet of Amasya, and then in 1591/1595 to the vilayet of Ankara. In the 1640s and afterwards it was once more under Sivas.Footnote ¹⁵⁸ We have an occasional reference to the community in Ottoman fiscal registers. A defter of 1530 records that it consisted of some 29 households, none of whom were Christians, and paid a total of 4,064 akçes in tax.Footnote ¹⁵⁹ Whether Christian communities in the region had entirely disappeared by this time is not known. A Vakıfname (register of charitable endowments) of AH 737/1336 CE for a series of properties in the neighbouring region of Osmancık refers to a Rum köyü, a Greek or Christian village. There are no mentions of such settlements in the Mecitözü region, however, although the documentation is lacunose and may conceal the actual situation.Footnote ¹⁶⁰ Avkat may have been included within a region designated as a vakıf dependent on Çorum in AH 893/1487 CE, although it is not named specifically and was therefore unlikely to have been part of the endowed lands.Footnote ¹⁶¹ We learn of the continued existence of Euchaïta/Avkat, and its general situation, also from passing travellers such as Dernschwam and Busbecq.

By the time Euchaïta reappears, as the small village of Evhud in the Ottoman tax-register of 1530, it belongs to the kaza of Mecitözü within the vilayet of Amasya.Footnote ¹⁶² The region was moved administratively several times in the nineteenth century before the sancak of Çorum was made independent in 1921 and was promoted to a vilayet in 1924. Haciköy (Mecitözü) itself was attached to the sancak of Amasya in the vilayet of the same name until 1916. Avkat became a separate kaza in 1866 and appears to have retained this name (sometimes also spelled as Avkhat or Avukat) until sometime between 1967 and 1973, when it was renamed Beyözü in a more general administrative re-shuffling of sub-provincial arrangements.Footnote ¹⁶³ The village today shows some evidence of its later Ottoman past, both in respect of the architecture and structure of some of the older houses as well as in the occasional piece of visual art or inscription. Such is, for example, a brief painted notice above a door dated AH 1144/1731 CE, in the names of Ibrahim and Mustafa (F1043); or the probably early twentieth-century inscription of the master craftsmen Sadiiq of Çorum, and Hasan, in honour of Ahmad Ağa, son of Hadji Mohammad of the sons of Tatar, from the village of Avkat (F1045). A painting on the plaster above a doorway in one deserted nineteenth-century house, now used as a storehouse and referred to by the villagers as the ‘Osmanlı house’, depicts images of warships sailing through a strait with large guns on either side, in view of the date of the building intended possibly to represent the British naval attempt to force the Dardanelles in 1915 (Figures 8.1,Footnote ¹⁶⁴ 8.2Footnote ¹⁶⁵).

In the last decades of the Ottoman state Avkat, like many other rural communities, experienced both immigration and emigration. The movement of Krim Tatars under Russian pressure after the Crimean war (1851–1854) affected the village, as the arrival of families, one of which still bears the name Atar, derived by local tradition from this origin, changed the population – note the inscription referring to ‘the sons of Tatar’, above. By the same token, Armenian families left during the period 1905–1917, although the record is problematic in respect of both numbers and causes and local memory recalls the presence of Armenian craftsmen (shoemakers) and itinerant workers in Mecitözü in the 1950s. Otherwise the history of the settlement remains obscure, deserving mention as a poor village in the travellers’ accounts of the sixteenth century we have already encountered, notably Dernschwam and Busbecq, and notable chiefly because of the impressive ruins. As Dernschwam writes, ‘sol ein grosse stadt gewesen sein’ (‘It must have been a great city’).Footnote ¹⁶⁶ A touching epitaph, perhaps.