Metropolis, Titular See of

Metropolis

A titular episcopal see and suffragan of Ephesus. Strabo (XIV, 1, 2; XIV, 1, 15), who speaks of its celebrated wines, places this city between Ephesus and Smyrna, at one hundred and twenty stadia (nearly fourteen miles) from the former. It is likewise mentioned in Pliny, "Historia naturalis", V, 29, and in Ptolemy (V, ii, 14) unless here the reference be to Metropolis in Phrygia. A similar allusion is made in "Corpus inscript. Latin." (III, 79, Additam., 59). Le Quien (Oriens chr., I, 709) indicates only two of its bishops: Marcellinus at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and John at the pseudo-Council of Photius in 878, but from the "Notitiæ episcopatuum" we know that in the fourteenth century the diocese was still in existence. Metropolis is now completely destroyed, its ruins being visible in a place called Tratsa in the nahié of Torbali and the vilayet (Turkish province) of Smyrna, quite close to the river Caystrus. The neighbouring village of Torbali has been built up with stone once used in the structures of ancient Metropolis and, at Tratsa, there may still be seen a portion of its wall, also its theatre and acropolis, the latter formed of huge blocks, while the olive groves are dotted with architectural ruins. This Metropolis, however, must not be confounded with two cities of the same name, one of which was in Phrygia and the other in Thessaly.

SMITH, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (London, 1870), s. v.; TEXIER, Asie Mineure (Paris, 1862), 358.

S. VAILHÉ.