Road station

Castabola

? Kanlıkavak bei Göksun ?

Castabola is probably a medieval slip for Castabala, with one a misread as o. The Greek geographer Strabo places a Kastabala not far from Tyana, close to the mountains, with a sanctuary of Artemis Perasia where the priestesses were said to walk barefoot over glowing coals unharmed. Scholars disagree whether the map means that town or the better-known Kastabala in Cilicia, shifted here by the mapmaker; since both Strabo and Pliny name a Kastabala inside Cappadocia, a separate town seems likely, perhaps at Kanlıkavak near Göksun, where Roman milestones were found. Strabo may simply have borrowed the fire-walking cult from the Cilician town by mistake.

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