Cilicie

The Cilicie is an old Roman province located in the Eastern half of the south of the minor Asia in Turkey. It was bordered in north by the Cappadoce and the Lycaonie, in the east by the Pisidie and the Pamphylie, in the south by the the Mediterranean and in south-east by the Syria.

It corresponds roughly today to the province of Adana: area ranging between the Mounts Taurus, the Mounts Amanos and the the Mediterranean.

History

Antiquity

In Iliade , Ciliciens, which gave their name to the country, live in the south of the Troade, but after the Trojan War, of the Greek led by the soothsayer Mopsos gave the name of Cilicie to the new area where they settled.

The Western part was broken and mountainous, but the east was occupied by a large very fertile plain.

At second century BC, Cilicie became a bastion of Pirate S, and to counter this threat, Rome did of them one of its provinces in 102. The pirates were eliminated only in 67, after a campaign of Pompée.

Cicéron was governor of Cilicie in 51 - 50.

The most important city of Cilicie, autonomous until the annexation of Pumped in 66, was Tarse, which sheltered a school of Philosophie considered and where the apostle Paul was born.

The Middle Ages

Many a Armenian came, under the impulse of the Byzantine Empire, to take refuge in Cilicie after the Arab invasion of the Arménie. These Armenians are at the beginning of the supposed military colonists to bar the chain of Taurus.

About 1070, the Philarète Armenian dominates a principality which includes Cilicie, Antioche and Édesse. For the period of the Crusade S, the small Armenian State of Cilicie succeeds in taking its independence (1198). Thus the Armenian kingdom of Cilicie with at its head its first king constitutes;: Lévon II Large the, recognized by the Pope and the sovereigns of Occident. The thirteenth century is the most flourishing century for the kingdom. In the first third of the century, the king allows himself to enter the problems of succession of the Principauté of Antioche. The arrival of the Mongolian into Large Arménie, in the years 1230, will push the kingdom to be put under the protection of the Mongols. The king Héthoum itself will make the voyage towards the Mongolian Khan to conclude a military alliance in the years 1250. In 1258, the Mongols seize Baghdad. This event announces the attacks on Syria which will stress the end of the thirteenth century. The first attack takes place in 1260. The Armenian kingdom sends quotas which take part in the catch of Alep and of Damas. The king succeeds in increasing his territory thanks to the catch of several fortified towns of Syria of North by the Mongols. In 1266, the Mamelouks carry out their first incursion into the Armenian kingdom. Their attacks follow one another and little by little exhaust the kingdom. The royalty passes finally to the family of the Lusignans, then with Cyprus. The last king Leon V is captured in his capital of Sis in 1375, and is taken along captive to the Cairo. He dictates his account and that of his kingdom to the monk Jean Dardel.

Ottoman Empire with the Turkey

At the 16th century, the Othoman invade the area. At the beginning of the 19th century, the success of the revolt of the pasha d' Égypte, Mehemet Ali, against the Othoman Sultan made it possible his/her son Ibrahim Pasha to conquer Syria and Cilicie in 1832. Less than one decade later, the British Diplomacy of the drain-hole, helped by the Neutrality of the France, imposed to the pasha the abandonment these Conquête S against the recognition of the autonomy of the Egypt. This period marks the beginning of the Armenian genocide of the S in Turkey.

After the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, the area was incorporated in the French Mandat in Syria before being yielded to the Turkey incipient as of 1920.

See too

Roman Governor

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