Tarsus (/ˈtɑːrsəs/; Hittite: 𒋫𒅈𒊭 Tārša; Greek: Ταρσός Tarsós; Tarson; Arabic: طَرسُوس Ṭarsūs) is a municipality and district of Mersin Province, Turkey.

Tarsus forms an administrative district in the eastern part of Mersin Province and lies at the heart of the Çukurova region.

An oracle told him to found a city in the place where the flat (ταρσός) of his foot would touch the earth while he was dismounting from his horse after the victory.

Agriculture is an important source of income with half the local land area farmland (1,050 km2 [410 sq mi]) and most of the remainder forest or orchard.

Excavations conducted under Princeton University archaeologist Hetty Goldman in the 1930’s and 1940’s at the mound found evidence that the site was occupied from Neolithic to Islamic times.

Other candidates for legendary founder of the city include the hero Perseus and Triptolemus, son of the earth-goddess Demeter, doubtless because the countryside around Tarsus is such good farmland.

Later the coins of Tarsus bore the image of Hercules due to another tale in which the hero was held prisoner here by the local god Sandon.

Indeed, Xenophon records that in 401 BC, when Cyrus the Younger marched against Babylon, the city was governed by King Syennesis in the name of the Persian monarch.

One of its leading lights, the philosopher Athenodorus Cananites, was the tutor of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, a fact which secured continuous imperial patronage for the city.

Several Roman emperors were interred here: Marcus Claudius Tacitus, Maximinus II and Julian the Apostate, who planned to move his capital here from Antioch if he returned from his Persian expedition.

[14] Following his death during his campaign against Sassanid Persia, he was buried next to the city walls, opposite the earlier tomb of the Tetrarch Maximinus Daza.

It is unclear when the town was first captured by the Arabs, but it is clear that it, and the wider region of Cilicia, remained contested between the Byzantines and the new Caliphate for several decades, up to the early 8th century.

According to Muslim sources, as he was retreating the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641) deliberately withdrew the population and devastated the region between Antioch and Tarsus, creating a no man's land between the two empires.

[17] The first attempt was undertaken by al-Hasan ibn Qahtaba al-Ta'i in 778/9 but was apparently unsuccessful and the city was not fully restored until 787/8, by Abu Sulaym Faraj on the orders of Caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809).

These raids were mounted by the local garrisons, maintained by the taxation not only of the frontier zone of the al-ʿAwāṣim but also by generous subsidies from the caliphal government, and large numbers of volunteer warriors of the faith (mujahidun or ghazis).

[20] Tarsus remained under direct Abbasid control until 878/9, when it and the wider Cilician border zone were given to the autonomous ruler of Egypt, Ahmad ibn Tulun.

Tulunid possession of the border zone lasted until the death of Ibn Tulun's heir Khumarawayh in 896, after which Caliph al-Mu'tadid (r. 892–902) re-asserted direct control.

After a brief period when the border zone was under Ikhshidid control, in 946/7, Tarsus recognised the overlordship of the Hamdanid emir Sayf al-Dawla of Aleppo, who had become the new master of northern Syria and the Byzantine borderlands.

Facing a resurgent Byzantium, he was able to stem the tide for a while, but in 965,the Byzantine emperor Nikephoros II Phokas (r. 963–969) captured the city, ending Muslim rule there.

Despite its excellent defences, Tarsus was captured from the Ottomans in 1832 by the Mamluks of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, son of Muhammad Ali, and remained for eight years in Egyptian hands.

Following the return of Ottoman rule this cotton drove substantial growth in the local economy, due to increased world demand for the crop during shortages caused by the U.S. Civil War.

However, after 3,000 years as a flourishing port, by the end of the 19th century neglect meant Tarsus lost its access to the sea as the delta became a swamp.

With the founding of the Turkish Republic in the 1920s, the swamp was drained and the River Berdan was dammed to build Turkey's first hydro-electric power station.