Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium, episode 137.

Celicia. Celicia had long been recognized as a valuable strategic location in the Mediterranean.

As far back as Xenophon, the Greeks were warned about the impossible Celician gates which guarded the land beyond it.

A warning taken seriously by Alexander the Great who ordered a night attack on its garrison in order to drive them off.

During the Roman era, Celicia was famously home to pirates. This unique pocket of fertile land with good access to the sea surrounded by rugged mountains made for an ideal hideout.

Those pirates though sailed too close to the eternal city and Pompey was given extraordinary powers to wipe them out.

Soon enough, Celicia was a Roman province and would remain so for the next six centuries.

It was too Celicia that Heraclius retreated in the face of the shocking defeat at the Battle of Yarmuk.

He hoped that the Amarna's mountains, the effective border with Syria, would be the front line in the new war.

However, the Arabs were far harder to stop than he'd ever imagined.

The Amarna's proved easy to navigate and for the next 70 years, the Roman population of Celicia was terrorized as waves of attack and defense swept across it.

Finally, put out of its misery in the buildup to the siege of 717, Celicia became a new province of the caliphate.

Again, its fine ports made it an ideal base for raids on the Roman capital.

The cities of Celicia, Tassas, Mopsuestia, Siciam all became barracks towns.

Their streets full of hostels for the annual influx of Gihardis.

Their mosques thronged with excitement each spring as men arrived hoping to serve their faith and make their fortune.

The collapse of the caliphate changed everything.

With central funding drying up, Celicia was suddenly left exposed.

The mighty Taurus mountains had once stood as a barrier with the House of War.

Increasingly, the rocks did little, but disguised the direction of assault from the armies of Byzantium.

The various emiers of Tassas looked on with increasing desperation as the focus family dealt one blow after another to save Addolah.

Finally, early in 964, Johns and Mesquise chased a portion of their army up a hill and massacred them.

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