Ayas is a small town in Yumurtalık district

Yumurtalik

Yumurtalık is a small city and a district in Adana Province of Turkey. It is a Mediterranean port at a distance of about from Adana center. Yumurtalık's population does not exceed 5,000 in winter, but in summer, it rises to 30 to 40,000 people since many inhabitants of Adana have holiday homes here...

, Adana Province

Adana Province

Adana Province is a province of Turkey located in south-central Anatolia. With a population of 2,085,225, it is the fifth most populous province in Turkey. The administrative seat of the province is the city of Adana, home to 78% of the residents of the province...

, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, located east of the mouth of the Ceyhan River. It was the ancient Aegea and medieval Ajazzo or Lajazzo. It passed between the Mamluks and the Armenians several times in the 13th and 14th centuries, and was definitively taken by the Mamluks in 1347. Under the Ottomans, it was a kaza in the Eyalet of Adana.

History

The Cilicia

Cilicia

In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...

n port city of Aegea or Aegeae is mentioned in Pausanias

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...

, v.21.11. On its coinage, it is called Aigai like the archaic capital of Macedon

Macedon

Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south....

. It was located on the Gulf of Issus (modern Gulf of İskenderun

Gulf of Iskenderun

The Gulf of İskenderun is a gulf or inlet of the Levantine Sea, the easternmost part of Mediterranean Sea, of which it forms the easternmost tip, on the southern coast of Turkey near its border with Syria. It also contains the northernmost point of the Levantine Sea...

). The city was mentioned in Tacitus

Tacitus

Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...

' Annals

Annals (Tacitus)

The Annals by Tacitus is a history of the reigns of the four Roman Emperors succeeding Caesar Augustus. The surviving parts of the Annals extensively cover most of the reigns of Tiberius and Nero. The title Annals was probably not given by Tacitus, but derives from the fact that he treated this...

XIII:8: War between Armenia/Rome

Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...

 and Iberia

Caucasian Iberia

Iberia , also known as Iveria , was a name given by the ancient Greeks and Romans to the ancient Georgian kingdom of Kartli , corresponding roughly to the eastern and southern parts of the present day Georgia...

/Parthia

Parthia

Parthia is a region of north-eastern Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Arsacid dynasty, rulers of the Parthian Empire....

. At Aegeae Apollonius of Tyana

Apollonius of Tyana

Apollonius of Tyana was a Greek Neopythagorean philosopher from the town of Tyana in the Roman province of Cappadocia in Asia Minor. Little is certainly known about him...

 made his early studies in the 1st century CE, when the city was at its cultural height. The city of Aegea was the site of the martyrdom of Thallelaios during the reign of Numerian

Numerian

Numerian , was a Roman Emperor from 282 to 284 with his older brother Carinus. They were sons of Carus, a general raised to the office of praetorian prefect under Emperor Probus in 282.-Reign:...

 (283-284 CE). The Orthodox Church celebrates his feast on May 20. In Aegea, probably their natal city, Saints Cosmas and Damian performed their legendary cures in the 3rd century.

Ayas became an important harbour city of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia

Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia

The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia , also known as the Cilician Armenia, Kingdom of Cilician Armenia or New Armenia, was an independent principality formed during the High Middle Ages by Armenian refugees fleeing the Seljuk invasion of Armenia...

 in the second half of the 13th century, when with the fall of Acre and the silting up of the harbor of Tarsus

Tarsus (city)

Tarsus is a historic city in south-central Turkey, 20 km inland from the Mediterranean Sea. It is part of the Adana-Mersin Metropolitan Area, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Turkey with a population of 2.75 million...

, it became the center of trade between the West and the East, benefitting from its good roads east. Marco Polo

Marco Polo

Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...

 disembarked here to begin his trip to China in 1271.

The naval Battle of Ayas (also known as Battle of Laiazzo) was fought near the city in 1294 and resulted in a victory of the Genoese

Republic of Genoa

The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....

fleet over the Venetians. Some scholars believe that Marco Polo was taken prisoner on that occasion.