Mount Casius
Incredibly, pinning down the Egyptian coastline on the very stretch of East Mediterranean seaboard currently occupied by Syria and a portion of Turkey, is yet another immovable landmark that is readily identifiable. Herodotus writes, “The length of the country along shore, according to the bounds that we assign to Egypt, namely from the Plinthinetic gulf to Lake Serbonis, which extends along the base of Mount Casius, is sixty schoene.”
Herodotus has always been very fastidious with his triangulations. He wanted readily identifiable landmarks at the two extreme ends of Egypt’s extended coastline to demarcate it for posterity. Therefore, he chose the Plinthinetic Gulf at one end and the Lake Serbonis at the base of Mount Casius at the other, to do the job of anchoring this eventful coastline.
Now, gulfs are notoriously difficult to identify. At least I have trouble with them. Fortunately, my luck with the mountain in this scenario is much better. Indeed, someone had already identified a Mount Casius for me on the Syrian coast very near Samandagi. All I has to do was look at a map.
It is not there anymore though. For some reason, modern-day scholars are now shying away from mentioning or locating the Syrian Mount Casius on a map. Even so, Mount Casius’ original position on the coast of Syria would be known to all students of history. Furthermore, any ancient world map or text would readily identify it for you. For instance, Thomas Milner from the distant past, in his book ‘Geography of the World’ written in 1868, mentions Mount Casius, along with other recognizable landmarks, such as the ancient city of Antioch and the river Orontes.
He writes, “Antakia, on the left bank of the Orontes, about twenty miles from the sea is the poor modern representative of the vast and splendid Antioch of former times.” Thomas Milner goes on to add, “This city, for several centuries, the favorite residence of the Syro-Macedonian Kings and afterwards of Roman governors, was built partly on the plains through which the river winds its way and partly on the rugged ascent towards Mt. Casius, the slopes of which were once covered with vineyards.” [Thomas Milner, Geography of the World]
Antakya in modern Turkey, located on the East-Mediterranean coast, can of course be easily located on the map. It was formerly known as Antioch and figures prominently in the history of Christianity. Incidentally, the very name ‘Christian’ originated here and Antioch had become a prominent centre of the Eastern Church. Earlier to that, the Jews were partial to this city owing to the ‘jus civitatum’ or right to citizenship offered by Seleucus. We may therefore be reasonably sure that Mount Casius was near Antakya.
But where exactly? Now, Herodotus also informs us that Mount Casius, apart from having a lake at its base, jutted out into the sea. He writes:
...after Jenysus the Syrians again come in and extend to Lake Serbonis, near the place where Mount Casius juts out into the sea. At Lake Serbonis, where the tale goes that Typhon hid himself, Egypt begins. [Herodotus 3.5]
As for the Typhon reference, it may interest readers to know that the River Orontes that passes through this region was formerly called the Typhon. And, as mentioned before, Mount Casius jutted out into the sea.
The Syrian Casius of old, the one that was known to Thomas Milner, Sir Leonard Woolley and their contemporaries, was I believe on the sea shore, and not entirely to my satisfaction. I believe it to be correct in the broad sense, but am not so sure if the mount jutted out into the Mediterranean Sea. I do not know how it came to be identified, but my guess is, its placement was largely determined by early-date modern-day scholars and that it is entirely based on Antioch’s history.
So, where would I place my Casius? Into which sea did the Mount Casius intrude? This being the specific criteria, I scanned the Antakya region and was able to find a mountain that was an astonishing fit. However, I am unable to find the local name by which to identify it! The coordinates are: 36.0354 E, 36.0914N and it appears that the ruin called ‘St. Simon’s Monastery’ is located upon it.
But where is the sea? Well, my Mount Casius stands in a low-lying and wide passageway of sorts that lies approximately between Samandagi (at the coast) and Antakya in modern-day Turkey. Formerly, this corridor was occupied by a long sea intrusion called the ‘Tongue of the Egyptian Sea’ (read chapter, ‘Tongue of the Egyptian Sea’ for more on this subject). Thus, Mount Casius’ rude stance right in the midst of this passageway cannot but be considered an intrusion upon this now extinct sea.
Actually, this particular detail of the mountain ‘jutting out into the sea,’ I feel, had to have been something as distinctive as this to have found mention in books of history. Meaning, there you are sailing calmly down the sea and suddenly this lone mount looms large, standing insolently right in the pathway like a titanic iceberg. This perhaps is how one should picture Mount Casius.
The above reconstruction is wonderfully supported by Lake Serbonis situated at the base of Mount Casius. I say this because a lake situated in a passage wherein the sea intrudes, is certain to be overwhelmed by it. And, this indeed is the ever-changing picture documented of the Lake Serbonis by ancient world scholars. We see it documented as a lake; we see it being overwhelmed by the sea; we see it struggling to retain its integrity and its waters when the sea pulls out and finally, we see it as a bog, broken and defeated, licked by the Tongue of the Egyptian Sea.
Comment
A shocking bit of skullduggery in connection with the Mount Casius has been resorted to by archaeologists, this time the very strident group who call themselves Egyptologists, and it needs to be exposed here. Did you know that they actually have gone and identified a low hillock as the Mount Casius in their Egypt-in-Africa reconstruction? This would explain their deliberate silence regarding the Syrian Casius. Although the Syrian Casius served invaluably as a sheet anchor in the Ancient Near Eastern arena for the earlier generation of scholars such as Thomas Milner and Leonard Woolley, modern-day scholars seem to be making a conscious effort to erase it from memory. Clearly, one can sense a house-cleaning happening here.
At any rate, I assumed that they had at least a low hillock to label as their Mount Casius at the new site. A cursory Google Earth search though, did not reveal one in the said region.
Déjà vu Syndrome
Every once in a while, an easily recognizable tract of land disconcertingly appears in textual sources in entirely different settings. Earlier, I had highlighted the reoccurring of a known topographical scenario in two different eras or settings that were seen in Josephus’ text. The island Saba-Rabbah with the confluence of rivers appears twice, documented once in an Ethiopian setting and the second time in a Canaanite setting.
Similarly, Strabo too documents a particular landmark in two different settings. This time it is the Mount Casius. Here that a look:
And it is on this account that the Antiocheians worship him as a hero and celebrate a festival in his honour on Mt. Casius in the neighbourhood of Seleuceia. [Strabo 7.15.2.5]
Thence to Mt. Casius near Pelusium the distance is a little more than one thousand stadia; and, three hundred stadia farther, one comes to Pelusium itself. [Strabo 7.16.2.28]
In the first extract, we may note that the Mt. Casius mentioned is in the ‘neighbourhood of Seleuceia’ and Antioch in Syria. In the second, it is near Pelusium in Egypt. The reason for this duplication may be explained as such: to write the history of ancient Egypt, Strabo had to rely wholly on previously documented text by early historians, such as the 450 BC Herodotus and others and therefore laid the geographical foundation of Ancient Egypt as was given there. Later, he went on to document Seleucus’ Syria, little realizing that its territories were formerly that of Ancient Egypt.
But how did that happen, you might ask. The fact is, ancient Egypt, had ceased to exist as before. The Persians and Greeks, into who hands it passed on, portioned it into various satrapies and these became part of two different later-date empires. Seleucus’ Syria, which extended from Babylonia, got the Delta region of ancient Egypt. Ptolemy’s Egypt retained a portion of ancient Egypt, primarily along the East Mediterranean Coast (including parts currently occupied by modern-day Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, southern Syria, etc) and included portions of Ancient Canaan-Ethiopia’s territory (Israel, Philistine, Sidon, etc).
Needless to add, the picture got further obscured and complicated when modern-day scholars removed Egypt and Canaan-Ethiopia from this arena and placed it on the African continent. Translators on their part, busy little bees, invariably massaged the text to reflect the modern-day reconstruction and completed the processes of creating mass confusion. It is thus that we now have two Mount Casiuses. One in Syria and the other in Egypt. In truth there was but one. Formerly, it was in Ancient Egypt and later, when that portion of its territories was hived off to Seleucus’ Syria, it appeared there as well.
Of course, now that this gargantuan mystery has being split wide open, the anomaly regarding Mount Casius merely serves to confirm my new reconstruction.
Diagram: Mt. Casius. Yet another anchor point for Egypt on this very same coastal stretch is Mt. Casius near Antakya. Mt. Casius is an important Egyptian landmark that anchored Egypt’s northernmost point along the coast. The anomaly of finding Mt. Casius in Ancient Egypt as well as in Seleucus’ Syria is explained by the fact that a portion of ancient Egypt had indeed become that Seleucus’ Syria at a later date. The above diagram also suggests how perhaps Ptolemy’s Egypt fitted into the scenario.
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