Faustinopolis
FAUSTINO´POLISa town in the south of Cappadocia, about 12 miles south of Tyana. It was named after the empress Faustina, the wife of M. Aurelius, who died there in a village, which her husband, by establishing a colony in it, raised to the rank of a town under the name of Faustinopolis. (Jul. Capitol. M. Ant. Philos. 26.) Hierocles (p. 700) assigns the place to Cappadocia Secunda, and it is mentioned also in the Antonine and Jerusalem Itineraries. The exact position of the town has not yet been ascertained, but it must have been close to the defiles of the Cilician gates.
[L.S]Formerly a village called Halala, it was raised to the status of colony by M. Aurelius. His wife Faustina the Younger died there on the journey from Syria in A.D. 176. It was a city and bishopric of Cappadocia Secunda according to Hierokles and the Notitiae. The town, in the foothills of Tauros on the main Tyana-Cilician Gates route, was identified by an inscription honoring Gordian III. The ruins include a rocky acropolis.
BIBLIOGRAPHYM. H. Ballance, “Derbe and Faustinopolis,” AnatSt 14 (1964) 140-42.
R. P. HARPER