Satala lies at Sadak village in the Kelkit district of Gümüşhane, on the eastern slopes of the Mese İçi mountains, on the road that carried traffic from eastern Anatolia to the Black Sea — a junction linking Antioch, Cappadocia and Trabzon. That position made it Rome's forward position against Persian incursions, a garrison guarding the Euphrates frontier and the main military base for imperial campaigns in the east. Of the thirty legionary bases Rome maintained across Europe, Africa and Asia, only four were in Anatolia: Zeugma, Samsat, Malatya and Satala. Trajan came here in AD 117.
The garrison changed hands over the centuries. The XVI Flavia Firma legion was settled at Satala by Vespasian in AD 75 and later moved to Samosata by Hadrian, though a legionary presence continued into the fourth century. The XV Apollinaris legion suffered its first defeat here in AD 256 against the Sasanian army under Shapur I, and the city spent about two years under Sasanian control. After the empire divided, Satala kept its military importance under Byzantium: when the Persians crossed the eastern frontier in AD 529 the emperor had the castle rebuilt, and most of what stands today comes from that rebuilding. The city is thought to have kept its military role until the Arab raids of the seventh century. It became a bishopric in late antiquity and remained one until 1256.
Visitors should know what to expect: most of the ancient town lies beneath the modern village, and much of the wall circuit is now under present-day houses. What can be seen is a few grave stelae, a bath, the aqueduct and the line of the fortification walls. The settlement formed an irregular rectangle ringed by walls. The castle covers 15.7 hectares; its visible walls are badly damaged but the towers set at intervals can be made out, there was probably an outer wall in front of the main circuit, and a separate gate opens to the east — rubble stone within, dressed stone on the outer faces. Beyond it, aqueduct or church remains, a cistern, a bath building and mosaics have been recorded, and finds are spread over a wide area, so the city's limits have not been fixed.
The aqueduct that brought water to Satala is said to have had forty-seven arches; only a fragment of it stands. The ministry has designated Satala a third-degree protected site.
The site is 28 kilometres from Kelkit and 99 from Gümüşhane, southeast of Kelkit, reached by turning left off the main Erzincan route and continuing about ten kilometres.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Gümüşhane as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -1.7 °C in January to 20.3 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (70 mm) and lightest in August (14 mm). Long-term means for 1961-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Getting there
- Access
- Twenty-eight kilometres from the district centre and ninety-nine from the provincial centre. Turn left off the main Erzincan route and follow about ten kilometres.
