Padyandus or PodyandosPadyandus or Podyandos , and appearing corrupted in ancient sources as Opodanda, Opodandum, and Rhegepodandos, was an ancient town in Cataonia

Cataonia

Cataonia was one of the divisions of ancient Cappadocia.It is described by Strabo, who had visited it, as a level plain surrounded by mountains: on the south by the Amanus, and on the west by the Antitaurus, which branches off from the Cilician Taurus and contains deep narrow valleys Cataonia was...

, the southernmost part of Cappadocia

Cappadocia

Cappadocia is a historical region in Central Anatolia, largely in Nevşehir Province.In the time of Herodotus, the Cappadocians were reported as occupying the whole region from Mount Taurus to the vicinity of the Euxine...

, in what is today 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...

. The town was located about 40 km to the southeast of Faustinopolis

Faustinopolis

Faustinopolis was an ancient city in the south of Cappadocia, about 20 km south of Tyana. It was named after the empress Faustina, the wife of Marcus Aurelius, who died there in a village, which her husband, by establishing a colony in it, raised to the rank of a town under the name of...

, near the pass of Mount Taurus

Taurus Mountains

Taurus Mountains are a mountain complex in southern Turkey, dividing the Mediterranean coastal region of southern Turkey from the central Anatolian Plateau. The system extends along a curve from Lake Eğirdir in the west to the upper reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in the east...

 known by the name of the Cilician Gates

Cilician Gates

The Cilician Gates or Gülek Pass is a pass through the Taurus Mountains connecting the low plains of Cilicia to the Anatolian Plateau, by way of the narrow gorge of the Gökoluk River. Its highest elevation is about 1000m....

 (Ptol.

Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...

 v. 7. § 7.). Extended by the emperor Valens

Valens

Valens was the Eastern Roman Emperor from 364 to 378. He was given the eastern half of the empire by his brother Valentinian I after the latter's accession to the throne...

 (364-378), the town is mentioned in the itineraria

Itinerarium

An itinerarium was an Ancient Roman road map in the form of a listing of cities, villages and other stops, with the intervening distances. One surviving example is the Peutinger Table; another is the Antonine Itinerary....

, but its name assumes different forms; as Paduandus (Tab. Peut.

Tabula Peutingeriana

The Tabula Peutingeriana is an itinerarium showing the cursus publicus, the road network in the Roman Empire. The original map of which this is a unique copy was last revised in the fourth or early fifth century. It covers Europe, parts of Asia and North Africa...

), Podandos (It. Ant.

Antonine Itinerary

The Antonine Itinerary is a register of the stations and distances along the various roads of the Roman empire, containing directions how to get from one Roman settlement to another...

 p. 145), Mansio Opodanda (It. Hieros. p. 578), and Rhegepodandos (Hierocl.

Hierocles (author of Synecdemus)

Hierocles or Hierokles was a Byzantine geographer of the sixth century and the attributed author of the Synecdemus or Synekdemos, which contains a table of administrative divisions of the Byzantine Empire and lists of the cities of each...

 p 699). The place is described by Basilius (Epist. 74) as one of the most wretched holes on earth. It is said to have derived its name from a small stream in the neighborhood. (Const. Porphyr. Vit. Basil. 36; comp. Cedren. p. 575; Jo. Scylitz. Hist. pp. 829, 844.) Due to similarity of name, tradition assigns the location of Padyandus to that of Pozantı

Pozanti

Pozantı is a small city and a large district in Adana Province of Turkey, on the main road from the city of Adana up across the Taurus Mountains. Pozantı stands in the foothills, at the bottom of a rare pass through these high mountains...

, a position that modern scholars only tentatively accept.