Commagene in the context of "Armenian highland"

Cilicia (/sɪˈlɪʃə/ sil-ISH-ə) is a geographical region of southern Anatolia in West Asia, extending inland from the northeastern coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Cilicia borders Pamphylia to the west, Lycaonia and Cappadocia to the north, Commagene to the north-east, Syria to the east and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Cilicia has a population ranging over six million, concentrated mostly at the Cilician plain (Turkish: Çukurova). The region includes the provinces of Mersin, Adana, Osmaniye and Hatay.

The Orontid dynasty, also known as the Eruandids or Eruandunis, ruled the Satrapy of Armenia until 330 BC and the Kingdom of Armenia from 321 BC to 200 BC. The Orontids ruled first as client kings or satraps of the Achaemenid Empire and after the collapse of the Achaemenid Empire established an independent kingdom. Later, a branch of the Orontids ruled as kings of Sophene and Commagene. They are the first of the three royal dynasties that successively ruled the ancient Kingdom of Armenia (321 BC–428 AD). Although the overthrow of Orontes IV and the accession of Artaxias I to the throne of Armenia in the early 2nd century BC is traditionally treated as the start of a new dynasty, Artaxias probably belonged to a branch of the Orontid dynasty. His descendants ruled Armenia until the 1st century AD.

Germanicus Julius Caesar (24 May 15 BC – 10 October AD 19) was a Roman general and politician most famously known for his campaigns against Arminius in Germania. The son of Nero Claudius Drusus and Antonia the Younger, Germanicus was born into an influential branch of the patrician gens Claudia. The agnomen Germanicus was added to his full name in 9 BC when it was posthumously awarded to his father in honor of his victories in Germania. In AD 4 he was adopted by his paternal uncle Tiberius, himself the stepson and heir of Germanicus' great-uncle Augustus; ten years later, Tiberius succeeded Augustus as Roman emperor. As a result of his adoption, Germanicus became an official member of the gens Julia, another prominent family, to which he was related on his mother's side. His connection to the Julii Caesares was further consolidated through a marriage between him and Agrippina the Elder, a granddaughter of Augustus. He was also the father of Caligula, the maternal grandfather of Nero, and the older brother of Claudius.

During the reign of Augustus, Germanicus enjoyed an accelerated political career, entering the office of quaestor five years before the legal age in AD 7. He held that office until AD 9 where he was made praetor after the Pannonian war, and was elected consul for the first time in AD 12. The year after, he was made proconsul of Germania Inferior, Germania Superior, and all of Gaul. From there he commanded eight legions, about one-third of the entire Roman army at the time, which he led against the Germanic tribes in his campaigns from AD 14 to 16. He avenged the Roman Empire's defeat in the Teutoburg Forest and retrieved two of the three legionary eagles that had been lost during the battle. In AD 17, he returned to Rome, where he received a triumph before leaving to reorganize the provinces of Asia Minor, whereby he incorporated the provinces of Cappadocia and Commagene in AD 18.

Jupiter Dolichenus was a Roman god whose mystery cult was widespread in the Roman Empire from the early-2nd to mid-3rd centuries AD. Like several other figures of the mystery cults, Jupiter Dolichenus was one of the so-called 'oriental' gods; that is Roman re-inventions of ostensibly foreign figures in order to give their cults legitimacy and to distinguish them from the cults of the traditional Roman gods. assumed to have really been a Roman continuation of an oriental figure. In the case of Jupiter Dolichenus, the cult's exoticism was attributed to an interpretatio romana derivation from a semitic Hadad-Baal-Teshub cult, which had its cult center on a hill (37°07′40″N 37°20′43″E / 37.12778°N 37.34528°E / 37.12778; 37.34528 (Excavation site of the temple of Hadad-Baal-Teshub, Baba Tepesi, Turkey)) near Doliche, 30 Roman Miles west of Samosata on the Euphrates, in the Commagene in eastern Asia Minor.

Like the other mystery cults (including the other pseudo-oriental ones), the cult of Jupiter Dolichenus gained popularity in the Roman Empire as a complement of the open 'public' religion of mainstream Roman society. Unlike the Roman public cults, but like the other mysteries, the temples of the cult of Jupiter Dolichenus were nominally closed to outsiders and followers had to undergo rites of initiation before they could be accepted as devotees. As a result, very little is known about the cult's beliefs and practices from the few clues that can be obtained from the sparse iconographic, archaeological or epigraphic evidence.

Zeugma (Ancient Greek: Ζεῦγμα; Syriac: ܙܘܓܡܐ) was an ancient Hellenistic era Greek and then Roman city of Commagene; located in modern Gaziantep Province, Turkey. It was named for the bridge of boats, or zeugma, that crossed the Euphrates at that location. Zeugma Mosaic Museum contains mosaics from the site, and is one of the largest mosaic museums in the world.