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Cappadocia was known as Hatti in the late Bronze Age, and was the
homeland of the Hittite power centred at Hattusa. After the fall of the
Hittite Empire, with the decline of the Syro-Cappadocias (Mushki) after
their defeat by the Lydian king Croesus in the 6th century, Cappadocia
was left in the power of a sort of feudal aristocracy, dwelling in
strong castles and keeping the peasants in a servile condition, which
later made them apt for foreign slavery. It was included in the third
Persian satrapy in the division established by Darius, but long
continued to be governed by rulers of its own, none apparently supreme
over the whole country and all more or less tributary to the Great King.
After bringing the Persian Empire to an end, Alexander the Great met
with great resistance in Cappadocia. He tried to rule the area through
one of his commanders named Sabictus, but the ruling classes and people
resisted and declared Ariarthes, a Persian aristocrat, as king. This
sent a message to Alexander that not all Persians would submit to his
rule. Ariarthes I (332 - 322 BC) was a successful ruler, and extended
the borders of the Cappadocia Kingdom as far as the Black Sea. The
kingdom of Cappadocia lived in peace until the death of Alexander, when
the kingdom fell, in the general partition of the empire, to Eumenes.
His claims were made good in 322 BC by the regent Perdiccas, who
crucified Ariarathes; but in the dissensions which brought to Eumenes's
death, the son of Ariarathes recovered his inheritance and left it to a
line of successors, who mostly bore the name of the founder of the
dynasty.
Under Ariarathes IV Cappadocia came into relations with Rome, first as
a foe espousing the cause of Antiochus the Great, then as an ally
against Perseus of Macedon. The kings henceforward threw in their lot
with the Republic as against the Seleucids, to whom they had been from
time to time tributary. Ariarathes V marched with the Roman proconsul
Publius Licinius Crassus Mucianus against Aristonicus, a claimant to
the throne of Pergamon, and their forces were annihilated (130 BC). The
imbroglio which followed his death ultimately led to interference by
the rising power of Pontus and the intrigues and wars which ended in
the failure of the dynasty.
The Cappadocias, supported by Rome against Mithradates, elected a
native lord, Ariobarzanes, to succeed (93 BC); but it was not till Rome
had disposed at once of the Pontic and Armenian kings that his rule was
established (63 BC). In the civil wars Cappadocia was now for Pompey,
now for Caesar, now for Antony, now against him. The Ariobarzanes
dynasty came to an end and a certain Archelaus reigned in its stead, by
favour first of Antony, then of Octavian, and maintained tributary
independence till AD 17, when the emperor Tiberius, on Archelaus's
death in disgrace, reduced Cappadocia at last to a Roman province and
later to a region of the Byzantine Empire.
Cappadocia contains several underground cities, largely used by early
Christians as hiding places before they become a legitimate religion.
The Cappadocia Fathers of the fourth century were integral to much of
early Christian philosophy. It also produced, among other people,
another Patriarch of Constantinople, John of Cappadocia who held office
517–520. For most of the Byzantine era it remained relatively
undisturbed by the conflicts in the area, first with the Sassanid
Empire and later against the Islamic expansion led by Arabs.
Cappadocia shared an always changing relation with the neighbouring
Armenia, by that time a region of the Empire. The Arab historian Abu Al
Faraj purports the following about Armenian settlers in Sivas, during
the 10th century: “Sivas, in Cappadocia, was dominated by the Armenians
and their numbers became so many that they became vital members of the
imperial armies. These Armenians were used as watch-posts in strong
fortresses, taken from the Arabs. They distinguished themselves as
experienced infantry soldiers in the imperial army and were constantly
fighting with outstanding courage and success by the Side of the Romans
in other words Byzantine.” As a result of the Byzantine military
campaigns, the Armenians spread into Cappadocia and eastward from
Cilicia into the mountainous areas of northern Syria and Mesopotamia.
This immigration was increased further after the decline of the local
imperial power and the establishment of the Crusader States following
the 4th Crusade. Cappadocia became part of the Armenian Kingdom of
Cilicia, a state formed in the 12th century by Armenian refugees
fleeing the Seljuk invasion of Armenia and a close ally of the
Crusaders.
Following the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 various Turkic tribes under
the leadership of the Seljuks began settling in Anatolia. After the
rise of the Turkic power in Anatolia, Cappadocia slowly became
tributary to the Turkic empires and some of the population converted to
Islam. By the early 13th century the Seljuks had conquered the vacuum
of the shrinking Byzantine Empire and established the vassal emirate of
Karaman to control the centre-east areas. The Karamanids expanded their
land attracting the discontent of the Seljuks. This fragile peace was
interrupted frequently by open hostilities. The Karamanid dominion
survived the decline and fall of the Seljuks, who soon were replaced by
the Ottomans as the dominant Turkish emirate and leaders of Islam. A
treaty between the two dominions was made and peace existed until the
reign of Bayezid I who dissolved the semi-independent Karaman. Apart
from a brief control under the Timur empire, Cappadocia remained part
of the Ottoman Empire for the centuries to come and remains now part of
the modern state of Turkey.
Many Cappadocias shifted during that period to a Turkish dialect
(written with the Greek alphabet, Karamanlıca) and where Greek was
maintained (Sille, villages near Kayseri, Pharasa town and other nearby
villages), it became heavily influenced by the surrounding Turkish.
This dialect of Greek is known as Cappadocia Greek; following the 1923
population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the language is now only
spoken by a handful of the former population's descendants in modern
Greece.
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