Thapsacus

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Thapsacus (Hebrew: Tiphsah [תִּפְסַח]), meaning ford or passage) was an ancient town along the western bank of the Euphrates river that would now lie in modern Syria. Thapsacus was the Greek and Roman name for the town. The town was important and prosperous due to its river crossing, which allowed east-west land traffic to pass through it.

1 Location
2 References to Thapsacus
3 Notes
4 References

[edit] Location

Its exact location is unknown but is said to be 100 miles north-east of Tadmor. This is most commonly associated with the modern town of Deir; however the only ford in the region is at Suriyeh where the town is now assumed to have been. Another possible location described by Conder in Easton's Bible Dictionary of 1897, however, identifies this place with Khurbet Tafsah, some 6 miles west of Shechem; this however is unlikely. There is further suggestion that the town may be associated with Carchemish ^[1]; however this may be unlikely as the towns referenced as Europus and Amphipolis are separate and there is no other indication that the cities could be the same as Thapsacus. Another reference does suggest that the town was near "Jarablos", another name for Carchemish ^[2] .

The town has also been linked with Dibse/Al-Dibsi ^[3] . Further it has been linked with the town of Balis in Halab district in Syria ^[4] ^[5] ^[6] .

[edit] References to Thapsacus

[edit] Classical References

Thapsacus is mentioned in Xenophon's Anabasis as the a "large and prosperous city" where Cyrus the Younger's armies stayed five days and where Cyrus revealed to his generals that they would be marching on Babylon.
Arrian's Anabasis of Alexander mentions that Darius Codomannus "made a forced march toward the city of Thapsacus and the river Euphrates" and later that Alexander arrived there to find two boat-bridges had been erected across the river.
Strabo's Geographika states that there was a bridge over the Euphrates at Thapsacus, and postulates that the width of Mesopotamia may have been measured from this point to a bridge on the Tigris.
Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia states that Thapsacus later became known as Amphipolis. In their 1855 translation of this text, John Bostock and H.T. Riley note that Amphipolis' "ruins are to be seen at the ford of El Hamman, near the modern Rakkah."

[edit] Biblical References

There are two references to Tiphsah in the Bible, both of which are the subject of debate over whether or not they refer to Thapsacus:

In 1 Kings 4:24, Tiphsah is mentioned as one of the boundaries of Solomon's dominions. Easton's Bible Dictionary holds that this is probably a reference to Thapsacus, but the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica relates that "it is impossible to determine whether the one phrase 'from Tiphsah to Gaza', where the name seems to occur, is as early as the Persian Period: the Greek text is quite discrepant."
Menahem, King of Israel, undertook an expedition and "smote Tiphsah and all that were therein" (2 Kings 15:16). Easton's states that this expedition implied a march of some 300-400 miles from Tirzah , apparently indicating their belief that this Tiphsah also refers to Thapsacus. They acknowledge, however, that some scholars identify this as a reference to Khurbet Tafsah, six miles west of Shechem. The 1911 Britannica states that this verse "cannot possible refer to any place on the Euphrates."

[edit] Babylonian References

A town called Tapsuhu is mentioned in two Babylonian clay tablets dating in the reigns of Nabonidus and Cyrus the Great. It has been recently argued that it could be identified with Tapsacus.^[7]

[edit] Modern References

The 1911 Britannica notes that "after various attempts at identification, it has apparently been correctly identified by J. P. Peters (Nation, May 23, 1889) and B. Moritz (Sitz.-Ber. d. Berl. Akad., July 25, 1889). The name may survive in Kal'at Dibse, "a small ruin 8 m[iles] below Meskene, and 6 m[iles] below the ancient Barbalissus."