Corycus

Corycus

A titular see of Cilicia Trachæa in Asia Minor. It was the port of Seleucia, where, in 191 B.C., the fleet of Antiochus the Great was defeated by the Romans. In the Roman times it preserved its ancient laws; the emperors usually kept a fleet there to watch over the pirates. Justinian restored the public baths and a hospital. Alexius Comnenus re-equipped the fortress, which had been dismantled. Soon after Corycus was conquered by the Armenians, who held it till the middle of the fourteenth century, when it was occupied temporarily by the Turks, and for a time played an important part. Peter I, King of Cyprus, captured it in 1361. From 1448 or 1454 it belonged alternately to the Karamanlis, the Egyptians, the Karamanlis a second time, and finally to the Osmanlis. The ruins of the city are at Ghorghos, twenty-eight miles north-east of Selefke (Seleucia), in the vilayet of Adana. Among them are a triumphal arch, a beautiful Christian tomb, sarcophagi, etc. The two medieval castles, one on the shore, the other in an islet, connected by a ruined pier, are partially preserved; the former was reputed impregnable. Three churches are also found, one decorated with frescoes. About two miles from the cape is the famous Corycian cavern, 886 feet long, 65 wide, from 98 to 228 high. Near this castle are many other smaller but curious grottoes, a temple of Zeus, and a little church with Byzantine paintings, converted into a mosque. About ten miles north of Ghorghos exists another large grotto with thirteen curious bas-reliefs hewn in the rock. The city figures in the "Synecdemus" of Hierocles, and about 840 in Parthey's "Notitia Prima"; it was suffragan of Tarsus. Lequien (II, 879) mentions five Greek bishops from 381 to 680; another is known from an inscription (Waddington, Inscriptions . . . d'Asie mineure, 341). One Latin Bishop, Gerardus, was present at a council of Antioch about 1136; four are known in the fourteenth century (Lequien, III, 1197; Eubel, I, 218).

CUINET, Turquie d'Asie, II, 73; ALISHAN, Sissouan (Venice, 1899), 393-409.

S. VAILHÉ