HIERAPOLIS, (Lat., from Ck.
'Iepdroiqr, :sacred city, from lepoc, hicros, sacred rb/tc, ',ohs, city). (1) A city in Southwest Plirygia, about six miles north of 1,aodieen. It was the religious ..titre of the native worship of the district, and was an important seat, of the mysteries of the Phrygian nature-goddess, who was here called Leto. her daughter. Cora, a male deity, and a son. It possessed warm springs which had. and still have, a remarkable power of forming incrustations. Its religious fame was also increased by the Plutonium or Charoninni, a narrow but deep chasm, from whieli issued a noxious vapor, supposed to be fatal to all except the eunuch priests of the goddess. This chasm had disappeared in the fourth century A.n. Con sult: Ramsay, and Bishoprics of Phrygia, vol. i. (Oxford. Ilermann and others, :I/ter/hunter roil Micropolis (Berlin, 189S).
(2) .1 city in th• Claucits Valley in Central ( now Noteli-1 I issa r ) . which RPM,: to Have been the 0111 centre of a pentapolis, and is known in early Christian history from the life of Saint Abereins, or (better) .1vircius, a leader in the second century A.D., vita caused a remarkable
protest against Alontanisiii to be inscribed on his tomb. The original document has survived and is now in Rome. It is so drawn up that it bears a double meaning. and the •sot•ric Chris tian sense was clear only to 'him who eonipre bends.' It has also been interpreted as a heathen document. Consult : (;:unsays Cities and Bishoprics, vol. ii. (Oxford. I897): and Dietrich, ]tit Grabschrift firs .11,crkins (Leipzig, ISM I).
( I) city of Syria Cerrliestiea, known also as Rambyee (Ck. situated about twenty five miles south of the ancient Careliemish, on the bills southwest of the meeting of the Euphrates and Sajur rivers. It is now in ruins, but in the times of the S•len•ids was a city of numb coin men.ial importance. in the reorganization of the thyrnan Empire under 1)ioch.tian it became the capital of the province of Euphratensis or Com magene. In the of Justinian it had retro gressed, hut the fortifications were restored the 1rabs, and it endured many vicissitudes during the Crusades.