Tyana

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Tyana was an ancient city of Anatolia, in modern south-central Turkey, capital of a Hittite kingdom in the 2d millennium B.C., Xenophon mentions it in his book Anabasis, under the name of Dana, as a large and prosperous city.

The ruins of Tyana are at Kemerhisar, three miles south of Nigde; there are remains of a Roman aqueduct and of cave cemetries. The surrounding plain was known as Tyanitis. It was in a strategic position on the road to Syria via the Cilician Gates. It is the reputed birthplace of Apollonius of Tyana.

Tyana is probably the city referred to in Hittite archives as Tuwanuwa. In Greek legend the city was first called Thoana, because Thoas, a Thracian king, was its founder (Arrian, "Periplus Ponti Euxini", vi); it was in Cappadocia, at the foot of Taurus Mountains and near the Cilician Gates (Strabo, XII, 537; XIII, 587). Under Caracalla the city became Antoniana colonia Tyana. After having sided with Queen Zenobia of Palmyra it was captured by Aurelian in 272, who would not allow his soldiers to sack it, allegedly because Apollonius appeared to him, pleading for its safety. In 371, Valens created a second province of Cappadocia, of which Tyana became the metropolis.

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