Αιγαί (Γιουμουρταλίκ)

 πόλη  Προσθήκη κατηγορίας

 Ανέβασμα φωτογραφίας

This Cilician port city is mentioned by Pausanias under the name Aegeae (Greek: Αἰγέαι).[5] a name that appears also in its coinage,[6] It was located on the Gulf of Issus (modern Gulf of İskenderun). Tacitus' Annals XIII:8 also mentions it in its account of the war between Armenia/Rome and Iberia/Parthia. Apollonius of Tyana (c. 15 – c. 100) made his early studies at Aegeae, when the city was at its cultural height.

Under Rome, it was in the Roman province of Cilicia. The Saints Cosmas and Damian are mentionined in Christian hagiography to have been twin brothers, physicians who practiced their profession in Aegeae, accepting no payment for their services, and who eventually suffered martyrdom under Diocletian.[7]


A view of the busy port of Laiazzo when Marco Polo visited it in 1271, as presented in Le Livre des Merveilles
In the Middle Ages, and particularly in the 13th century, Aegeae grew to become an important harbour city of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. The Venetians called Aegeae Aiazzo or (incorporating the initial of the definite article) Laiazzo, and it became known locally as Ayas (Armenian: Այաս).[8] The fall of Acre[9] and the silting up of the harbour of Tarsus, together with the advantage of Ayas's good roads eastward, led to the city's becoming the principal centre of trade between West and East.[10] Numerous treaties were negotiated in which the Armenian kings granted various trade privileges to several Italian city-states.[11]