gains considerably in effect from its magnificent cathedral, one of the noblest examples of early Spanish art. It is 300 feet in length and 100 feet in breadth, and consisted originally of a nave, aisles, transepts with an octagonal lantern at the crossing, and an apsidal chancel. Several exterior chapels have been added in later times, and on the south-east stands a 14th-century steeple raised on a Romanesque tower. The east end was probably begun in 1131 on the ruins of an earlier church, but the main body of the building dates from the end of the 12th century and the first half of the 13th, and is of transitional character,—the exuberant richness of the sculptured capitals being admirably kept in subordination by the Romanesque simplicity of the masses. Considerable changes were introduced at a later date; and the present west end of the nave cannot have been completed till late in the 14th century. On the north-east side is a cloister contemporary with the church, with which it communicates by a very fine doorway. The cloister contains much remarkable work, and the tracery of the windows bears interesting marks of Moorish influence. Two other noteworthy churches in the city are San Pablo and Santa Tecla la Vieja, both of the 12th century. The mole, begun in 1491, was chiefly constructed out of the Roman amphitheatre, of which a few rows of seats can still be seen on the sea-shore. The remains of a Roman aqueduct form a picturesque feature in the landscape. The Carcel de Pilatos is said to have been the palace of Augustus Cæsar; it was partly destroyed by Suchet, and now serves as a prison. The museum contains a collection of the Roman antiquities which are continually being discovered during excavations.
The trade is steadily increasing. During 1885 the vessels cleared amounted to 377,250 tons (45,795 tons British, 47,181 French, and 42,617 Swedish and Norwegian). The exports were valued at £1,289,533 (wine £1,023,847), and the imports at £1,237,012. The exports were mostly to France, Great Britain, and the River Plate; the imports were chiefly from Germany, Russia, France, and Sweden. There is communication by rail with Barcelona, Valencia, and Lerida, and by steamer with other ports of Spain.
Tarraco was one of the earliest strongholds of the Romans in Spain, and became a colony (of Julius Cæsar), the capital of Hispania Citerior, and the richest town on the coast. To the Romans the Visigoths under Euric succeeded in 467, but on their expulsion by the Moors in 710 the city was razed to the ground. It was long before the ruins were again inhabited, but by 1089, when the Moors were driven out by Raymond IV, of Barcelona, there must have been a certain revival of prosperity, for the primacy, which had been removed to Vich, was in that year restored to Tarragona. In 1118 a grant of the fief was made to the Norman Robert Burdet, who converted the town into a frontier fortress against the Moors. In 1705 the city was taken and burned by the English, and a century later, after being partly fortified by them, it was captured and sacked by the French in 1811 under Suchet.
TARSHISH. See Phœnicia, vol. xviii. p. 806.
TARSUS, now Ṭarsús, an ancient city in the fertile plain of Cilicia, lay on both sides of the Cydnus, whose cool and swift waters were the pride of the city (Dio Chrys., vol. ii. p. 2, Reiske’s ed.; Vita Apollon., i. 7), and bore traffic to and from the port of Rhegma, In the time of Xenophon (Anab., i. 2. 23) Tarsus was already great and flourishing, and was the residence of the vassal king of Cilicia. Its civilization at this time seems to have been mainly Semitic, as was to be expected from the geographical relations of Cilicia, which have generally associated its history with that of Syria. We have coins of Tarsus (תרז) of the Persian period, bearing Aramaic inscriptions; and the deities of the town, known in later times as Heracles, Perseus, Apollo, Athena (Dio Chr., ii. 22), seem to have been akin to those of the Phœnicians and Syrians (see below). The Semitic influence was doubtless very ancient; indeed, the Assyrians invaded Cilicia in the 9th century B.C., at which date Tarsus is perhaps mentioned on the monuments under the name of Tarzi (Schrader, Keilinschr. und Gesch., 1878, p. 240; the reading is not certain). After Tarsus was Hellenized the citizens learned to boast that they were Argives sprung from the companions of Triptolemus (Strabo, xiv. 5. 12; Dio Chr., ii. 20), and the town became the seat of a famous school of philosophy which was frequented almost exclusively by natives, but sent forth teachers as far as Rome itself.[1] More than one of these philosophers, notably Athenodorus the teacher of Augustus, and Nestor the teacher of Marcellus, held the chief magistracy of the city. Athenodorus and his predecessors were Stoics, but Nestor was an Academic (Strabo, xiv. 5. 14),[2] so that the Platonic philosophy is that with which Paul would probably have come in contact if he gave heed to the Greek wisdom of his native city. Presumably, however, he formed no higher opinion of the culture of Tarsus than did his contemporary Apollonius of Tyana, whose testimony as to the character of the citizens (Vit. Ap., i. 7) is confirmed by Dio Chrysostom. Tarsus had made rapid material progress since Cilicia became Roman (66 B.C.). It was the capital of a rich province, and had received freedom from Antony, and from Augustus the dignity of a metropolis and important immunities for its commerce (Dio Chr., ii. 36). The inhabitants were vain, effeminate, and luxurious, more like Phœnicians than Greeks. Their sensuous Eastern religion in these golden days of affluence had more attraction for them than the grave philosophy of the Porch; and the legend supposed to be graven on the statue of Sardanapalus, at the neighbour city of Anchiale, “let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,” which Paul quotes in 1 Cor. xv. 32, might have been the motto of the mass of the townsmen.[3] At Tarsus the emperor Tacitus died, and Julian was buried. The city was deserted and lay waste during the frontier wars of Greeks and Arabs in the first century of Islam; a Moslem general, who saw the ruins, estimated its former population at 100,000 (Beladhorí, p. 169). It was rebuilt and settled as a military colony and frontier post by Hárún al-Rashíd in 787 A.D., and became a starting point of forays against the Christians. On such a campaign the caliph Ma'mún died, and was buried at Tarsus (833), having caught a fever, like Alexander the Great, by bathing in the cold Cilician waters. Tarsus was temporarily recovered to Christendom by Nicephorus Phocas, and again by the crusaders under Baldwin. Finally it remained in the hands of the Turks.
The Heracles of Tarsus was the Cilician god Sandan. Dio Chrysostom calls him the ἀρχηγός of the Tarsians (ii. 23), and he may be identified with the Baal of Tarsus named on the coins already spoken of. He was worshipped by the periodical erection of “a very fair pyre” (ibid.), a rite presumably analogous to that described in the De Dea Syria, ,ch. 49; and the remarkable ruin of Dönük-tash, a vast court with massive walls enclosing two lofty platforms of concrete, probably marks the site of his sanctuary (see Perrot and Chipiez, Hist, de l'Art, iv. 536 sq., and Langlois, Voyage dans la Cilicie, p. 266 sq.). A tradition making Sandan the founder of Tarsus is given by Ammianus (xiv. 8. 3); and, as the Greeks appear to have taken elements of the myth of Sandan (including the pyre) into their legend of Sardanapalus, this explains the current story that Sardanapalus founded Anchiale and Tarsus in one day (Arrian, ii. 5, 2; Athen., xii. p. 629 sq.). On Sandan, see K. O. Müller, in Rhein. Mus., 1829, and E. Meyer, in Z. D. M. G., 1877, p. 736 sq. Another account in Ammianus makes Perseus the founder of Tarsus, and it appears from Dio Chr. that he was almost or quite as much honoured. The footprint of Pegasus was shown at Tarsus (Avienus, 1031 sq.; comp. Dio, ii. 24), and his ταρσός (wing?) was said to have fallen there (Alex. Polyh. in Steph. Byz., s.v.). This worship reappears at Joppa. Apollo "with the trident” had a sacred sword at Tarsus, which could be cleansed only by the water of the Cydnus (Plut., Def. Orac., 41), and is probably the same as the harpe shown on coins of Hadrian’s time; if so, he is presumably a differentiated form of Perseus.
- ↑ To Strabo’s list must be added Zeno, the successor of Chrysippus.
- ↑ Lucian, Macrob., 21, makes him a Stoic and teacher of Tiberius.
- ↑ Athensæus, v. p. 216, tells of an Epicurean philosopher, Lysias, who, becoming priest of Heracles, became tyrant of the city, taxing the rich to provide largesses for the poor. The fact is probable, the date quite uncertain.
