In the early Iron Age Maraş was the capital city of the Syro-Hittite state Gurgum. It was known as "the Kurkumaean city" to its Luwian inhabitants and as Marqas to the Assyrians. Germanicia it was renamed in 38 AD in honor of empire by IV. Antiokhos, King of Commagene during the reign of Gaius Iulius
Caesar Augustus Germanicus (Caligula).
Sources:
- Trevor Bryce, The World of The Neo-Hittite Kingdoms: A Political and Military History. OUP Oxford. 2012, pp. 125-128.
- William Mitchell Ramsay, The Historical Geography of Asia Minor, Cambridge University Press 2010
- Okktay Dumankaya, Room and Corridor Mosaics from the Ancient City of Germanicia and its Iconographic Assessment. JOURNAL OF MOSAIC RESEARCH, 2018, pp. 9 - 25,