CALYCADNUS
CALYCADNUS (
Καλύκαδνος), one of the largest rivers of Cilicia. (Strab. p. 670.)
It rises in the range of Taurus, and after a general eastern course between the range of Taurus and the high land which borders this part of the coast of Cilicia, it passes
Selefkieh, the remains of Seleuceia, and enters
[p. 1.484]the Mediterranean north-east of the promontory of Sarpedon. “The most fertile and the only extensive level in (Cilicia) Tracheiotis is the valley of the Calycadnus, a district which was sometimes called Citis” (Leake,
Asia Minor, p. 116.) The Calycadnus is about 180 feet wide, opposite to Seleuceia, where there is a bridge of six arches.
The river is now called the
Ghiuk-Su. It enters the sea through a low sandy beach.
In the treaty between Antiochus and the Romans (
Plb. 22.26) the Syrian king was not to navigate west of the promontory Calycadnum, except in certain cases. Livy (
38.38) mentions the same terms, but he speaks both of Calycadnum and the Sarpedon (promontoria); and Appian (
App. Syr. 39) also mentions the two promontories Calycadnum and Sarpedonium, and in the same order. Now if the Sarpedon of Strabo were the lofty promontory of
Cape Cavaliere, as Beaufort supposed (
Karamania, p. 235), the Calycadnum, which we may fairly infer to be near Sarpedon, and near the river, might be the long sandy point of
Lissan el Kahpeh, which is between
Cape Cavaliere, and the mouth of the river Calycadnus. Beaufort supposes this long sandy point to be the Zephyrium of Strabo.
It is correctly described in the Stadiasmus “as a sandy narrow spit, 80 stadia from the Calycadnus,” which is about the true distance; but in the Stadiasmus it is called Sarpedonia.
According to the Stadiasmus then the cape called Calycadnum must be, as Leake supposes, the projection of the sandy coast at the mouth of the Calycadnus.
This identification of Sarpedon with
Lissan el Kahpeh, and the position of Zephyrium at the mouth of the Calycadnus, agree very well with Strabo's words; and the Zephyrium of Strabo and Calycadnum of Livy and Polybius and Appian, may be the same. Ptolemy going from west to east mentions Sarpedon, the river Calycadnus and Zephyrium; but his Zephyrium may still be at the mouth of the Calycadnus.
[
G.L]
