- Paltus may also refer to a Russian Kilo class submarine
Paltus or Paltos (Greek: Πάλτος) is was an ancient city now ruined.
It was a bishopric, a suffragan of Seleucia Pieria in the Roman province of Syria Prima,[1] that, no longer being a residential see, is included in the Catholic Church‘s list of titular sees.[2] The ruins of Paltus may be seen at Belde (Arab al-Mulk) at the south of Nahr al-Sin or Nahr al-Melek, the ancient Badan.
Strabo records a tradition, attributed to Simonides’ dithyramb Memnon (one of the Deliaca), that the hero Memnon was buried near Paltus in Syria, on the banks of the river Badas.[3]
The town was founded by a colony from Arvad or Aradus (Arrianus, Anab. II, xiii, 17). It is located in Syria by Pliny the Elder (Hist. Natur., V, xviii) and Ptolemy (V, xiv, 2); Strabo (XV, iii, 2; XVI, ii, 12) places it near the river Badan.
In 43 BC, Gaius Cassius Longinus was encamped at or near Paltus with a large force while blockading the forces of Publius Cornelius Dolabella at Laodicea in Syria.[4]
The Byzantine emperor Justinian I separated Paltus, together with Laodicea in Syria and Gabala, from the province of First Syria and combined them with Balanea to form the new province of Theodorias.[5]
From the sixth century according to the Notitia episcopatuum of Anastasius [Échos d’Orient, X, (1907), 144] it was an autocephalous archdiocese and depended on the patriarch of Antioch. In the tenth century it still existed and its precise limits are known [Échos d’Orient, X (1907), 97].
Le Quien (Oriens christianus, II, 799) mentions five of its bishops:
- Cymatius, friend of St. Athanasius, and Patricius, his successor
- Severus (381)
- Sabbas at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD
- John, exiled by the Monophysites and reinstated by Emperor Justin I in 518.
References
- ^
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). “Paltus“. Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
- ^ Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013; ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1), p. 949
- ^ Strabo, Geography, 15.3.2
- ^ Cicero, Letters to his Friends, Fam.12.13
- ^ Malalas, Chronography, 18.448
Sources
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). “Paltus“. Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.