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Alabanda – also hê Alabanda, ta Alabanda, Alabandeus, Alabandensis, Alabandenus, and for a time, Antiochia of the Chrysaorians – was an ancient city of Caria, Anatolia, the site of which is now located near Doğanyurt (also called Araphisar), Aydin Province, in the Asian part of Turkey. The city is located in the saddle between two heights. The area is noted for its dark marble and for gemstones that resembled garnets. Stephanus of Byzantium claims that there were two cities named Alabanda (Alabandeus) in Caria, but no other ancient source corroborates this. According to legend, the city was founded by a Carian hero Alabandus. In the Carian language, the name is a combination of the words for horse ala and victory banda. In the early Seleucid period, the city was part of the Chrysaorian League, a loose federation of nearby cities linked by economic and defensive ties and, perhaps, by ethnic ties. The city was renamed Antiochia of the Chrysaorians in honor of Seleucid king Antiochus III who preserved the city's peace. It was captured by Philip V of Macedon in 201 BC. The name reverted to Alabanda after the Seleucid defeat at the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BC. The Romans occupied the city shortly thereafter. In 40 BC, the rebel Labienus at the head of a Parthian army took the city. After Labienus's garrison was slaughtered by the city's inhabitants, the Parthian army stripped the city of its treasures. Under the Roman Empire, the city became a conventus (Pliny, V, xxix, 105) and Strabo reports on its reputation for high-living and decadence. The city minted its own coins down to the mid-third century. During the Byzantine Empire, the city was a created a bishopric.
Famous residents included the orators Menecles and Hierocles, who were brothers.
The ruins of Alabanda are a few km west of Çine and consist of the remains of a theatre and a number of other buildings, but excavations have yielded very few inscriptions.
References
- Blue Guide, Turkey, The Aegean and Mediterranean Coasts, (ISBN 0393304892), pp. 349-50.
- J. Ma, Antiochos III and the Cities of Western Asia Minor, (ISBN 0198152191), p. 175
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