mnemosyne 70 (2017) 281-289
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Miscellanea ∵
Lost in Cappadocia Reconsidering Xerxes’ visit to Kritalla (Hdt. 7.26)
Jan Zacharias van Rookhuijzen Radboud University, Department of Classics [email protected]
Received November 2015 | Accepted January 2016
The mysterious Cappadocian place of Kritalla is the first and easternmost loca- tion that features in Herodotus’ account of Xerxes’ invasion after his departure from Persia:
ἐν ᾧ δὲ οὗτοι τὸν προκείμενον πόνον ἐργάζοντο, ἐν τούτῳ ὁ πεζὸς ἅπας συλλελεγμένος ἅμα Ξέρξῃ ἐπορεύετο ἐς Σάρδις, ἐκ Κριτάλλων ὁρμηθεὶς τῶν ἐν Καππαδοκίῃ· ἐνθαῦτα γὰρ εἴρητο συλλέγεσθαι πάντα τὸν κατ᾽ ἤπειρον μέλοντα ἅμα αὐτῷ Ξέρξῃ πορεύεσθαι στρατόν. (7.26)
At the moment when these men were working on the ordered task, all the assembled infantry together with Xerxes marched to Sardis, setting out from Kritalla in Cappadocia, as it was there that the entire army that would march together overland, together with Xerxes himself, was ordered to assemble.
It is remarkable that Kritalla, the muster point of Xerxes’ army, and the only place between Sousa and the Halys River which Herodotus records, has not been securely identified so far. This is unfortunate, because the location of this place could be a keystone in our conception of the historical road network of Anatolia and the much-debated route which Xerxes took to Greece.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi 10.1163/1568525X-12342222 282 van Rookhuijzen
Herodotus is the only ancient author who mentions Kritalla, and the only inference we can make from his text is that it was situated in Cappadocia, in what is now central Turkey. It may have constituted a junction in the Cappadocian road system.1 While most commentators have labeled its loca- tion as ‘unknown’, suggestions for the identification include the areas of Sivas, Archelais (modern Erekli on the Halys), Heraclea Cybistra (modern Ereğli), Tyana (modern Kemerhisar), and Caesarea-Mazaca (modern Kayseri).2 These suggestions depend on assumptions about the route of the Royal Road, the size of Xerxes’ army and the size of the plain needed to accommodate this army. None of these suggestions is particularly convincing. The size of the army is a matter of debate and belief; the precise extent of Cappadocia in the fifth century BC is difficult to establish;3 and Herodotus makes it clear that the Royal Road passed the Cilician Gates (see below; this disqualifies Sivas and Caesarea-Mazaca); furthermore, the above suggestions share the assumption that Kritalla was a completely obscure place, in accordance with the unicity of the attestation: not even the faintest trace of it appears in later authors, nor in inscriptions, which is unusual for a city referred to by Herodotus. However, this assumption may be reconsidered for several reasons. First, would Xerxes, based in Sousa at some 1,400 km from Cappadocia, really have assembled his forces at a minor Cappadocian town that is not known from any other source? Although this cannot be excluded, this does not seem very likely. Second, can we expect Herodotus to have referred to an obscure town in the area of one of the above-mentioned cities, without mentioning the city itself? Again, this is possible, but unlikely.4 What Herodotus referred to is therefore unlikely to have been an ‘insignificant’ place. But if it was significant, it is strange that Kritalla appears only once in our material.
1 Macan 1908, II, 129; How and Wells 1912, 37. 2 Sivas: Calder 1925, 9; Archelais: Rennell 1800, 319; Mazaca: Müller 1997, 167; Tyana: Macan 1908, 129; Cybistra: Zgusta 1984, 305; near Tyana or Cybistra: Ramsay 1920, 89. 3 Herodotus defined Cappadocia as lying between Cilicia and the Halys river, beyond which lay Phrygia (5.49, 5.52); however, we know that his conception of this river was not geograph- ically accurate: his descriptions of the Halys river (1.72, 7.26) show that in his mind, this river ran much further south than it actually does. Note that ancient Cappadocia is not to be confused with the modern tourist attraction, which has appropriated the name and encom- passes only a small area around the town of Göreme. 4 It is in theory possible to see Kritalla as an alternative (older?) name of one of these cities; but this cannot be substantiated. In the case of Mazaka and Tyana (Hittite Tuwanuwa), it is certain that these were known under those names already in the Bronze Age, so it is nearly excluded that Herodotus would have referred to one of these as Kritalla.
mnemosyne 70 (2017) 281-289