The maps differ very considerably in this respect, nor do the statements of travellers always agree. The direction of the river, as given in the text, accords with the maps of Hamilton and Tchihatcheff, and with the accounts of the most accurate writers.
_Anton. Itin._ p. 337 (Wesseling) gives the distance as 6 miles. See also Fellows _Asia Minor_ p. 283, Hamilton I. p. 514. The relative position of the two cities appears in Laborde’s view, pl. xxxix.
I do not find any distinct notice of the distance; but, to judge from the maps and itineraries of modern travellers, this estimate will probably be found not very far wrong.
[Sidenote: Their neighbourhood and intercourse.]
Thus situated, they would necessarily hold constant intercourse with each other. We are not surprised therefore to find them so closely connected in the earliest ages of Christianity. It was the consequence of their position that they owed their knowledge of the Gospel to the same evangelist, that the same phases of thought prevailed in them, and that they were exposed to the same temptations, moral as well as intellectual.
The physical features of the neighbourhood are very striking. Two potent forces of nature are actively at work to change the face of the country, the one destroying old land-marks, the other creating fresh ground.
On the one hand, the valley of the Lycus was and is especially liable to violent earthquakes. The same danger indeed extends over large portions of Asia Minor, but this district is singled out by ancient writers[5] (and the testimony of modern travellers confirms the statement[6]), as the chief theatre of these catastrophes. Not once or twice only in the history of Laodicea do we read of such visitations laying waste the city itself or some flourishing town in the neighbourhood[7]. Though the exterior surface of the earth shows no traces of recent volcanoes, still the cavernous nature of the soil and the hot springs and mephitic vapours abounding here indicate the presence of those subterranean fires, which from time to time have manifested themselves in this work of destruction.
See especially Strabo xii. 8. 16 (p. 578) τὸ πολύτρητον τῆς χώρας καὶ _τὸ εὔσειστον_· εἰ γάρ τις ἄλλη, καὶ ἡ Λαοδίκεια εὔσειστος, καὶ τῆς πλησιοχώρου δὲ Κάρουρα.