Soli (Cilicia)

[1] This, coupled with the city's good harbor and proximity to the Cilician Gates ensured that Soli was consistently of strategic importance throughout ancient history.

[1] Achaean and Rhodian colonists[5] reestablished a permanent human presence at Soli between 700 and 690 BCE,[6] leaving behind geometric pottery characteristic of the Archaic period.

Cilicia became a vassal state to and satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire after the reign of Cyrus the Great, assisting the Persians in multiple military campaigns.

[15] Tigranes the Great of Armenia sacked Soli during the Seleucid Empire's collapse (83 BCE), and took the city's citizens to inhabit Tigranocerta, his newly founded capital.

[16] In 67 BCE, the lex Gabinia was passed by the Roman Senate, endowing Pompeius Magnus (Pompey) with proconsular powers to combat piracy in the Eastern Mediterranean.

[1] The harbor was renovated again by 130 CE under the aegis of Antoninus Pius (though the project may have been begun by Hadrian),[20] and the port city flourished under Roman rule.

It has been suggested that Soli corresponds to the coastal city Sallusa in the later Annals of Ḫattušili III, which indicates that some Luwian variant of the classical name may have predated Hellenic settlement of the area.