46 GILICIA. 



begin with that there was such a person as Sardanapalus 

 and that he was buried in Cihcia, it is to Anchiale that 

 the evidence of the Greek writers would point as the 

 probable resting-place of his remains. Thus Strabo : 

 "Anchiale, a little way above the sea, founded by 

 Sardanapalus, says Aristobulus, who also says there is 

 there a tomb ^ of Sardanapalus, and a stone figure joining 

 the fingers of his right hand as if snapping them, and 

 an inscription in Assyrian writing to the following 

 effect : ' Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxis, built 

 Anchiale and Tarsus in one day. Eat, drink, play, 

 nothing else is worth even that — i.e., a snap of the 

 finger.'" Another inconvenient objection to such a 

 pretension is to be found in the fact that the hard 

 concrete, of which the building is composed, is un- 

 doubtedly Koman, while the practical will find a still 

 more cogent reason for disbelief in the almost certain 

 knowledge that no such person as Sardanapalus ever 

 existed. His name, it is true, has been identified with 

 that of Ashurbanipal, one of the greatest of the later 

 Assyrian kings; but the luxurious and effeminate 

 character given him by the Greeks in no way cor- 

 responds to what is known of that monarch, and it is 

 fairly safe to assume that Sardanapalus, as such, may 

 be put aside as the creation of a too lively imagination. 

 The most probable conjecture with regard to the Dinek 

 Tash is, that it is the core of a Grseco-E-oman temple 

 from which the marble and stone facings have been 

 removed. 



That it is only necessary to dig anywhere in the 

 present town to find remains of the Tarsus of old of a 

 million inhabitants is a well-known fact, and at every 

 corner large square-cut stones and portions of old stone 



1 The word used is M»"?Ma> which might equally and perhaps more probably 

 mean monument. 



