George Syncellus, Chronographic Selection 584.8-584.16
created: This entry is taken from Chronographic Selection 584.8-584.16 written by George
edition published: 2023-06-30-05:00
language: grc; grc
availability: Except for materials quoted from other sources, this entry is copyright 2023 by the contributors (Joseph L. Rife, et al.) and the Caesarea City and Port Exploration Project. It is licensed under the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. Some texts quoted in this entry may be in the public domain in the United States. No copyright is asserted for these quotations. Some texts quoted in this entry may have copyright restrictions and are reused under Section 107 of the Copyright Act of (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)

https://caesarea-maritima.org/testimonia/350

Στράτωνος πύργον

,

Καισάρειαν

,

Straton’s Tower

, and

Caesarea

are directly attested at George Syncellus, Chronographic Selection 584.8-584.16. This passage was written ca. 808-815 C.E. possibly in Constantinople. George Syncellus (“cellmate”), whose career spanned the late 8th to very early 9th centuries, was a Palestinian monk before his appointment as the assistant to Tarasius, Patriarch of Contantinople. Apparently facing hostility from the emperor Nicephorus I, he retired to monastic solitude in ca. 808, where he devoted himself to writing his Chronographic Selection (Ἐκλογὴ Χρονογραφίας). This work was a universal history in the form of a synchronic tabulation by year, following the chronographic models of the Late Antique Near East and Egypt that were rooted in the works of Sextus Julius Africanus and Eusebius of Caesarea. In his entry under the 188th Olympiad (28 B.C.E.), George listed the foundation of cities by Herod the Great, including Caesarea.

Μετὰ Ἀλεξανδρείας ἅλωσιν ὀλυμπιὰς ἤχθη ρπηʹ Ἡρώδης ἐπικτίσας τῶν Γαβινίων πόλιν τήν ποτε Σαμάρειαν, Σεβαστὴν αὐτὴν προσηγόρευσε· τὸ δὲ ἐπίνειον αὐτῆς τὸν Στράτωνος πύργον πολίσας ἀπὸ τοῦ αὐτοῦ Καισάρειαν ἐκάλεσεν, ἐφ’ ἑκάτερα ναὸν ἐγείρας Ὀκταουίῳ. ὕστερον δὲ καὶ Ἀντιπατρίδα κτίζει ἐν τῷ Λυδῷ πεδίῳ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἑαυτοῦ πατρός, καὶ τοὺς περὶ τὴν Σεβαστὴν οἰκοῦντας, ὧν ἀφείλατο τὴν γῆν, ἐγκατῴκισεν ἐν αὐτῇ. ἔκτισε δὲ καὶ ἑτέρας πόλεις, καὶ τοῖς μὲν Ἰουδαίοις βαρὺς ἦν, τοῖς δὲ ἄλλοις ἔθνεσι δεξιώτατος.

[Ed. Dindorf 1829] [Minor corr. J. L. Rife with ref. to Mosshammer 1984]

After the conquest of Alexandria, the 188th Olympiad began. Herod re-established the city of the Gabinioi, formerly Samaria, giving it the name Sebaste. After building its port, Straton’s Tower, into a city, he called it Caesarea after the same person, and erected in each city a temple to Octavius. Later he built Antipatris in the Lyddian plain, named after his father; those dwelling around Sebaste, whose land he had taken, he resettled in this city. He also founded other cities, and, while oppressive to the Jews, he was most benevolent to the other peoples.

[Adapted from Adler and Tuffin 2002 with ref. to Dindorf 1829]

Works Cited

[...] 584.8-584.16
[...] 444-445

Additional Bibliography

[...] 373.1-373.8

[Eusebius, Canons 166a

Eusebius, Canons 167de

George Syncellus, Chronographic Selection 594.5-595.14]

[Alexandria

Antipatris

Lydda (Diospolis)

Samaria Sebaste]

[Augustus, emperor

Gabinioi

Herod I, king]

[Family

Government and Law

Herodian Dynasty

History of Israel

Judaism

Military

Paganism

Roman History

Urban Topography]