Samsat itself represents the ancient Samosata, the capital of the Seleucid kings of Commagene (Kuinukh of the Assyrian inscriptions), and here the Persian Royal Road from Sardis to Susa is supposed to have crossed the river.
Commagene (Kummukh), Cyrrhestica, Phoenicia, Palestine, &c. It is ineffective in history, especially on the south and east.
With the exception of the extreme north (Commagene), which is shut off by a barrier of hills and belongs to foreign hydrographic systems, the whole country is roughly a gable-shaped plateau, falling north and south from a medial ridge, which crosses Syria at about its central point.
The others, which terminate streams, are the Bahr el-Ateiba, which receives the waters of Damascus; the Mat, into which the Kuwaik flows below Kinnesrin; and the Ak Deniz, or Bahrat Antakia, the ancient Lake of Antioch, which collects the waters of the Kara Su and Afrin, the southward from the watershed which shuts off Commagene.
Commagene, where not rocky, and the district lying along the southward drains from its divide (anc. Cyrrhestica), is in better case, enjoying perennial streams which can be utilized, and the fringe of the Tauric rainfall.