1. Geographical Location

Podandos was a small fortified station on the border between south Cappadocia and Cilicia, along the curve connecting Tyana with Tarsus and Aegae.¹ Ancient Podandos or Podyandos is identified with Pozantı between Ulukışla and Adana, in the middle of the Taurus Mountains, 13 km to the northeast of the upper section of the Cilician Gates (modern Külek Boğazi), in the administrative district of Adana. Τhe altitude in the valley of Çakıt in Podandos reaches 778 m, while the mountains surrounding the city rise higher than 3,000 m.

The location of the city has been extensively discussed with regard to the etymology of the word “Podandos”. Its earlier connection with the term “Pa-du-a-tim”, found in the early Assyrian texts of Κültepe, was disproved according to a later study of the texts.² The Asia Minor suffix of the city’s name “nd”, instead of “nt”, reveals a pre-Hellenic origin. Besides, Ramsay considers that the identification of Podandos with Pozantı was a typical example of replacing “z” with “d” in eastern place-names.³

2. History

Although neither Xenophon nor the Alexandrian historians report the word Pozantı, it should not be concluded that the settlement is absent from the map in a period when other significant places are also omitted from the literary sources of that time. Ramsay identifies Podandos with the site later renamed “Cyrus’ camp”, in commemoration of the station Cyrus the Younger set up on his way from Tyana to Tarsus in 401 BC.⁴ Podandos was also the end of a road leading from the Cilician plain to Tyana through the Gates, to Develi-karahisar through Mount Gürünımaği and to Cappadocian Caesarea. The importance of the site, which is firstly described by its role in the road network, and secondly by its strategic position, was diminished in Late Antiquity. For a short period it became the administrative centre of Cilicia ΙΙ and was populated with people transferred from Caesarea when Emperor Valens partitioned Cappadocia in 371/372.⁵ However, not before long Tyana became the capital of the province. Besides, Podandos possibly became a bishopric in almost the same period.⁶

The military importance of the city was revealed in the 7^th century, when Muslims arrived in Anatolia. The city was probably involved in the raids the Islamized Cilicia launched against the Romanized inland in the Umayyad period. After the Taurus was established as the border between the two enemies, the Byzantines and the Arab Kingdom of the Abbasids, the Byzantine side made every effort to organize the border defence. Therefore, Podandos was incorporated into Cappadocia Minor, which included a tourma of the Theme of Anatolikon.⁷

It is possible that in the course of time the city was displaced in the vast valley, for neither ancient nor medieval remains have been traced on the site so far.