A short history of Lycia – Lycian Coast 3

This is an early wake-up at 6.45 a.m. I'm on deck to watch the first daylight as the gulet prepares to leave immediately after breakfast. The air is cool and, like magic, creates a misty band above the warmer seawater. The short twisted pine trees stand out on rocky islands against a fairytale background, reminding me of a drawing from a Japanese temple wall.

We are heading for Ölüdeniz, the Blue Lagoon, as it is called by the general public and tourists alike. No, this is not a joke; this is the very place where the movie "Blue Lagoon" was actually shot. Well, I never knew it was taken on the Turkish coastline, imagining a faraway tropical island as was meant by the moviemakers. What a clever deception!

We are met again by Ivşak, and the minibus drives us to the site of Sidyma, about 1 ½ hours away. Because of the nearby mountain range, we'll have to make quite a detour: first to Fethiye and over the main road up to Esenköy; from there, right in the middle of the luscious Xanthos Valley that produces a variety of crops. Inevitably I picture Alexander the Great riding his Bucephalus at a leisurely pace through these fertile fields dotted with a string of cities from Tlos and Pınara in the north to the more familiar Xanthos and Letoon in the south. Somewhere to the northwest of Letoon lies Sidyma, half buried under and among today's Dodurga.

Of course, the Acropolis of Sidyma on top of a conical hill is what I see first. The walls and watchtowers looking down on us may be reminiscent of antiquity but also from Byzantine times - it is hard to tell from down here.

Time seems to have come to a standstill in this part of the country. Our minivan's arrival is the day's event, and the elderly come out of nowhere to greet us, after which they withdraw to the stone bench that sits around one of the trees on what could be the central square. On the side, a proud elderly man is drawing water for his goats, gestures that must go back to the early Lycians.

As Peter introduces us to the history of the early Lycians, the villagers slowly return to their daily chores. I look around in amazement, for our van is so out of place. There is no road to speak of, only a few stony paths wide enough for an occasional tractor but mainly used by the local people on foot and their mules.

The Lycians were called the Luwian people in early eastern and Egyptian inscriptions, i.e., the Luqqu or Luqqa from the 2nd millennium BC. Lycia's primary source of income came from its forests but also from trade with the ships that navigated along its coastline. Neighboring kings from Caria and Lydia tried but failed to conquer Lycia until the Persians under the Achaemenids managed to impose themselves. Persian rule was fierce and ruthless, and Xanthos resisted heavily, preferring even mass suicide rather than submission to the enemy.

The occupation took a different turn when Mausolos, the King and satrap of Caria, took over, forming a buffer between the Persians and the Lycians. In the 4th century BC, a certain Pericles tried to unite all Lycian cities under one central rule without success. It was Alexander the Great who put a final end to the Persian occupation; at the same time, he also stopped using the Lycian language in favor of Greek. After Alexander's premature death and the fight of his successors over the territories he conquered, Lycia came under the rule of the Egyptian Ptolemaic in 310 BC. In 301 BC, it was ruled by Lysimachos, King of Syria. But this kingdom would not live long either, and finally, by the beginning of the 2nd century BC, Lycia came under the control of Rhodes with the influence of Rome.

Yet Rhodes did not treat the Lycians fairly, and after many complaints, Rome found it reasonable to grant them their freedom. Finally, the Lycian cities all agreed it was time to unite, and the Lycian League, as dreamed of by Pericles several centuries earlier, now became a reality. The six main cities: Xanthos, Pınara, Tlos, Patara, Myra, and Olympos, were the administrative, judicial, military, financial, and religious centers, each receiving 3 votes in the meetings of the League. Most other cities had 1 vote each, while some very small cities shared 1 vote (for instance, Istlada, Apollonia, and Aperlai). Some cities and small federal states were allowed to mint their own coins, provided they bore the inscription ΛΥΚΙΩΝ ΚΟΙΝΩΝ. This must have significantly boosted the Lycians' pride and, eventually, their prosperity.

During the 1st century BC, Lycia became a Roman province with the rest of Anatolia. Still, this domination had its good side, too, for Rome had the power and the means to protect them against pirates, for instance. When their plundering of commercial ships and coastal cities went beyond limits, Manlius Vulso decided to go after them both by land and sea – and he was successful! The trade routes were open once again, and the economy could develop.

But then, in the wake of the murder of Julius Caesar, Brutus arrived in Lycia. Finding no support for his cause, he slaughtered the inhabitants of Xanthos (a repeat of what the Persians had done a few centuries before). A year later, Marc Antony took over, and luckily he decided to rebuild the cities, especially Xanthos. With the reign of Augustus, peace finally returned, reaching its heydays under Trajan and Hadrian.

Unfortunately, in 141 AD, Anatolia, including Lycia, was hit by a severe earthquake, destroying many cities. Thanks to the contributions of wealthy citizens like Opramoas of Rhodiapolis, every single city between Phaselis in the east and Telmessus in the west was rebuilt, and Lycia continued developing. But then it was hit again by a major earthquake on the 5th of August, 240 AD, and the cities were equally destroyed – yet no money seemed to have been available for their reconstruction this time, and the entire region slowly fell into decline. By the 5th century, the Byzantine Empire was crumbling down, and soon afterward, the Arabs invaded the territory.

Click on the Label Lycian Coast to read the full story.