HIERAPOLIS

modern Pamukkale ancient Phrygian city in southwestern Turkey, about 6 miles (10 km) north of the ruins of Laodicea. Situated on the Coruh River, a tributary of the Buyuk Menderes (Maeander) River, it was probably established by Eumenes II of Pergamum in 190 BC. It became a sacred city (hieron), its chief religious festival being the Letoia, named after the goddess Leto, a local variant of the Great Mother of the Gods, who was honoured with orgiastic rites. There was also a worship of Apollo Lairbenos. Hierapolis was rebuilt during the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius in approximately AD 14-37 and survived until 1334, when it was abandoned after an earthquake. Extensive ruins, excavated since the 19th century, include baths, a gymnasium, an agora, and a Byzantine church. ancient Syrian city, now partly occupied by Manbij (Membij), about 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Aleppo. The place first appears in Greek as Bambyce, but its Syrian name was probably Mabbog. The Seleucids made it the chief station on their main road between Antioch and Seleucia-on-Tigris. As a centre of the worship of the Syrian nature goddess Atargatis, it became known to the Greeks as the Holy City (Hierapolis). In the 3rd century AD, Hierapolis was one of the great cities of Syria, but it thereafter declined. Harun ar-Rashid restored it at the end of the 8th century, and the crusaders captured it in the 12th century; but Saladin retook it (1175), and later it became the headquarters of Hleg and his Mongols, who completed its ruin. The remains of the city are extensive but are almost wholly of late date.