Seleucia Pieria is a seaside city about an hour's drive away from Antioch, right on the Mediterranean coast. It was founded after the death of Alexander the Great by one of his generals, Selecus Nicator. On the way from Antioch, one passes hillside villages of Armenian people who have never left the region even in the times of the Turkish-Armenian troubles. Villagers sell honey, jams and handmade soap by the roadside.
Seleucia Pieria must have been a prosperous city judging from the number and size of the Roman tombs in the hills surrounding the city. In one instance, there is a half-opened carved sarcophagus lying on a cliff along the road near the ruins of Doric temple. By 1thC AD though, water flowing into the harbour was causing it to silt up. The Roman emperors (there were co-emperors at that time) then ordered a vast water channel to be cut through the hills to divert the water away from the harbour. By the 5thC however, after a devastating earthquake in the region (which apparently killed a quarter of a million people), the water tunnel was destroyed in one section and today, the tunnel is dry. One can enter the tunnel from a series of stone steps near the old waterfront. The new waterfront of Seleucia Pieria lies further out now as the silting has resulted in sufficient new land for a seaside road and a beach.
One can now walk along the bottom of the water tunnel which, in the initial section, is open-air and is about 10 feet wide. Both sides of the tunnel are smooth manmade stone walls that stretch a good thirty or forty feet upwards, now with plenty of vegetation growing over it. The feeling is not unlike walking along the path that leads to the ancient Nabatean city in Petra, in Jordan. On one wall is a still visible inscription from the Roman emperors to commemorate the building of the tunnel. The path then goes back upwards and then one is no longer walking at the bottom of the tunnel but along the top of one of its flanking walls. Parts of the path circle around village plots growing onions and fruit trees. Then, quite suddenly, the path stops but a few rocky steps lead downwards into the tunnel proper which is now a true tunnel and no longer opens above. The path inside the tunnel is very wide at this stretch but a bit rocky. damp and dark. Moving forward, the tunnel narrows and a shaft opens up ahead. With the little light from the open shaft, you can see that the walls are in a pink and brown stone. The thought occurs to me that if water were to suddenly rush down the tunnel for whatever reason, I would be swept away. With that thought, I reverse of the tunnel. Further along the path that has been built alongside the ancient water tunnel, some old Roman tombs that had been built into the hills have been excavated. They are now gaping caves on a cliff side but the arches and the pits inside are still visible. These look like tombs of rich Romans.
Today, Seleucia Pieria is only a shadow of its former glory. It is a sleepy and shabby beach town with a brownish sandy beach and a refuge for the plastic bags and other garbage that has washed down from other cities along the Mediterranean. The only point of interest is the ancient Roman water tuinnel. Away from Seleucia Pieria on the way back to Antioch, one passes by clusters of wind turbines on the hillside, resembling giant crosses. It seems appropriate as those hills are the site of the remains of the monastery of St. Simeon the Younger. St. Simeon was a member of an order of monks known as the Stylites. They were ascetics that sat on top of tall pillars sometimes for decades. The monastery itself has crumbled into rocks and even the famous pillar on top of which St. Simeon sat is now just a short stump. The giant wind turbines on the surrounding hills have become the symbol of Christianity.
