City
Mazaca Caesarea
Kayseri und Eskişehir
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Mazaca Caesarea carries two names at once: Mazaca, the native name already found in cuneiform texts and perhaps meaning 'great', and Caesarea, added around AD 17 when Tiberius made the town capital of the new Roman province of Cappadocia. It is Kayseri in Turkey, at the foot of Mount Argaeus. The Greek geographer Strabo complained about its marshy, volcanic site, yet the Roman writer Solinus called it the mother of cities. On the map several roads meet here, reflecting its role as a traffic hub. Emperor Julian later stripped it of the imperial name after Christians destroyed its temples.