Note 218 — Chapter IX · DIYÂRBEKR TO KONIA June 4—July 1

Melitene does not appear to have been in existence in Strabo’s time, for he says that there were no towns in the fruitful plain, but only strongholds upon the mountains (Bk. XII. ii. 6). Procopius states that it was raised by Trajan to the dignity of a city, whereas before it had been nothing but a square fortification on low ground (Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society Edition, p. 82). Diocletian made it the capital of Armenia Secunda (Ramsay: Historical Geography, p. 313); it was the centre of the military roads guarding the frontiers of the Roman empire towards the Euphrates, and the standing camp of the XII Legion, Fulminata (id. p. 55). With this increase of importance it outgrew, according to Procopius, its former limits, so that the people built over the plain “their churches, the dwellings of their magistrates, the market-place and the shops of their merchants, the streets, porticoes, baths and theatres, and all the other ornaments of a large city.” Melitene was thus composed mostly of suburbs until Justinian surrounded it with a wall. There must, however, have been cities in the plain, of which Strabo knew nothing, long before Trajan’s time, as is proved by existing mounds, and Pliny seems to have preserved a dim memory of these when he speaks of Melitene as having been founded by Semiramis (Bk. VI. ch. iii.).