PHILOMELIUM, now called _Afium Kara Hissar_ (the “black castle of opium”), has much interest as the centre of the great Asia-Minor trade in that drug, the medicinal properties of which were known to Theophrastus in the third century B.C., under the name of μηκώνιον. Scribonius Largus (A.D. 40), also, knew that the best form of it was procured from the capsules, and not from the leaves of the poppy (Berthold, Argent. 1786, c. iii. s. 2). Dioscorides, thirty years later, calls the juice of these capsules ὀπός (Angl. _Sap_), and the cutting them ὀπίζειν. Hence, the name, _Opium_. Pliny (iv. c. 65, xx. c. 76) points out the medicinal use of “Opion,” and Celsus calls the extracted juice “_Lacryma papaveris_.” Obviously, from this “Opion” comes the Arabic “Afyum,” which is found in many Eastern languages, and may have been spread all the more, owing to Muhammad’s interdiction of the use of wine. In India, _Opium_ is noticed, first, in Barbosa’s Travels, A.D. 1511 (ap. Hakluyt), who found it, at that time, in Malabar and Calicut. Neither Chinese nor Sanskrit has a native word for this drug. _Opium Thebaicum_ is mentioned as early as A.D. 1288-96, by Simon Januensis, Physician to Pope Nicholas IV. (Clavis Sanationis. Venet. 1510); and Kæmpfer (1687) remarks that compounds of opium, nutmegs, &c., were largely sold in his time, as long before, under the name of “_Theriaka_.” But the most important place in the neighbourhood was LAODICEA, often called “Combusta,” “the burnt,” which is to be carefully distinguished from the other town of the same name we shall presently describe in connection with Hierapolis, and which is generally called “ad Lycum,” “on the Lycus,” in the province of Lydia. Recent geographers, however, give both these towns to Phrygia. Laodicea Combusta was about nine hours N.W. of Iconium, and under its modern names of Yorgan Ladik or Ladik-el- Tchaus, is famous throughout Asia Minor for its manufacture of carpets. It has been, popularly, supposed, that it derived its name from the existence at it of some remarkable volcanic agencies. This, however, Mr. Hamilton has clearly shown, is not the case. “There is not,” he says, “a particle of volcanic or igneous rock in the neighbourhood; the hills consist of blue marble, and of the argillaceous and micaceous schists with which that rock is usually associated.” He thinks it may, at some time or other, have been burnt down, and, on being rebuilt, have received this distinguishing title. The inscriptions he found there, though in great abundance, have little interest, being chiefly funereal: they are all carved out of the dark blue-veined limestone of the adjoining hills. The last three places in Phrygia, which we think it necessary to note especially, we shall take together, as situate near one another, and, historically, closely connected. These cities are HIERAPOLIS, LAODICEA, (ad Lycum), and COLOSSÆ.