Skip to main content

Olba of Diocaesarea

Olba, Zeus Temple

Olba is a Roman Catholic titular see in the former Roman province of Isauria (a region of Asia Minor, in present Turkey), suffragan of Seleucia Trachea.



Olba was a city of Cetis in Cilicia Aspera, later forming part of Isauria; it had a temple of Zeus, whose priests were once kings of the country, and became a Roman colony. Strabo (XIV, 5, 10) and Ptolemy (V, 8, 6) call it Olbasa.

A coin of Diocæsarea, Olbos; Hierocles (Synecdemus, 709), Olbe; Basil of Seleucia (Mirac. S.Theclæ, 2, 8) and the Greek Notitiæ episcopatuum, Olba. The primitive name must have been Ourba or Orba, found in Theophanes the Chronographer, hence Ourbanopolis in "Acta S. Bartholomei".

Michel Le Quien, French historian and theologian, (Oriens christianus, II, 1031) gives four bishops between the fourth and seventh centuries; but the Notitiæ episcopatuum mentions the see until the thirteenth century.

Its ruins, north of Silifke in the Turkish province of Mersin, are called Oura in Turkish.

Olba, Hellenistic Tower
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Hattians - First Civilizations in Anatolia

The Hattians were an ancient people who inhabited the land of Hatti in Asia Minor in the 3rd to 2nd millennia BC. They spoke a non-Indo-European language of uncertain affiliation called Hattic (now believed by some to be related to the Northwest Caucasian language group). They eventually merged with or were replaced by the Hittites, who spoke the Indo-European Hittite language.

Read & see more »

Early Neolithic site in southeastern Turkey dated to 11000 years ago: Göbekli Tepe, Urfa

Göbekli Tepe is an early Neolithic site in Urfa, southeastern Turkey. It is famous for containing the world's oldest known stone temples (dated to before 9000 BC), and because it contradicts the long-held belief that the introduction of agriculture preceded the construction of large buildings. Göbekli Tepe was created by hunter-gatherers, yet is assumed to be a key location for understanding the origins of agriculture. (To give a timescale, remember that Stonehenge, a Neolithic and Bronze Age megalithic monument located near Amesbury in the English county of Wiltshire, about 8 miles north of Salisbury, was erected between 2500 BC and 2000 BC although the surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC.)

Read & see more »

Etruscans: Anatolian Italians?

The Etruscan civilization is the name given today to the culture and way of life of people of ancient Italy whom ancient Romans called Etrusci or Tusci. The ancient Greeks' word for them was Tyrrhenoi, or Tyrrsenoi. The Etruscans themselves used the term Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Raśna.

Read & see more »