Listed 25 sub titles with search on: History for wider area of: "TURKISH RIVIERA Region TURKEY" .
KILIKIA (Ancient country) TURKEY
Cilicia: ancient name of southern Turkey. The Persian king
Cyrus the Great conquered this country, and after the fall of the Achaemenid empire,
Cilicia belonged to the Seleucid kingdom and the Roman empire. It was well-known
for its iron and silver ores.
Topography and early history
Cilicia as a whole consists of two parts: the inaccessible western
area of the Taurus mountains, also known as "rough Cilicia", and the
eastern plains (modern Cukurova), which are dominated by the rivers Cydnus, Sarus
and Pyramis and are rich in cereals. The Anti-Taurus is the region's northern
border. Here, we find the Cilician gate, a pass that connects the plain with Cappadocia
in the north. To the south, the Mediterranean sea is Cilicia's neighbor, and the
region knew (and knows) close contacts with Cyprus.
In the east the Syrian gates are the connection with Syria
and Mesopotamia.
From times immemorial, the two areas belong together. In the second
half of the the second millennium BCE, the entire region, known as Kizzuwatna,
was part of the Hethitian empire. Contemporary sources mention the two main cities
on the plains: the residence Tarsa (better known as Tarsus)
and Adanija (Adana). The
most important language was Luwian. In those days, the region was ruled by a prince
from the Hethitian royal family, who was called "priest".
Early history
After the fall of the Hethitian empire (after 1215), the two areas
were included in a new kingdom called Tarhuntassa, which had its capital in Pamphylia.
It is not known how long this state existed. When the Assyrians discovered the
region in the ninth century, they called the fertile eastern area Que (its capital
was Adana), and the western area Hilakku; from this word our Cilicia is derived.
The plains of Que (also known as Awariku) were first conquered by
the Assyrians. King Tiglath-pileser III (744-727) appointed a governor, whose
residence was Adana. However, it was not a secure possession of the Assyrian empire:
after the death of Sargon II in 705, it became independent again under the old
dynasty, the house of Muksa. The ancestor of the Quean royal family is known from
Phoenician sources as Mps, and can be identified with the Mopsus from Greek legend,
who is said to have founded a town and an oracle in Cilicia. The Assyrian king
Esarhaddon (680-669) reconquered the area.
Meanwhile, Hilakku remained independent. The Assyrians were not interested
in the underdeveloped mountain area and its poor tribes. However, during the reign
of Assurbanipal (668-627 BCE), Hilakku was threatened by the Cimmerians, a nomadic
tribe from the northeast that had already overrun Armenia.
Therefore, Hilakku placed itself under Assyrian protection.
In 612, the Babylonians and Medes captured the Assyrian capital Nineveh.
Hilakku survived the collapse of Assyria.
A new kingdom came into being, in which both areas were united. Its capital was
Tarsus. The Greeks rendered the title of its kings, suuannassai, as syennesis,
and the name of the country as Cilicia. The coast of Rough Cilicia.
The first syennesis we know about, is mentioned by the Greek researcher
Herodotus of Halicarnassus
(fifth century BCE). He tells that in 585, the syennesis and one Labynetus of
Babylon (probably the future king Nabonidus) negotiated a peace treaty between
king Alyattes of Lydia and
king Cyaxares of Media. The
story confirms that Cilicia was at this time an independent power and did not
belong to the Babylonian empire of king Nebuchadnessar.
This syennesis was succeeded by one Appuwasu, who withstood an invasion
of the Babylonian army under king Neriglissar in 557/556. It had been argued that
Cilicia was invaded because it had become a protectorate of the Median empire,
or may have appeared to have become a Median subject. We can not know.
Persian period
It is certain that in 547/546, the Persian king Cyrus the Great campaigned
in the countries west of the Tigris. Unfortunately, our source (the Chronicle
of Nabonidus) contains a lacuna, and we are unable to read which country he conquered
- except that its name started with Ly-. Almost certainly, Lydia is meant, where
king Croesus was defeated. It must have been at this stage that Cyrus added Cilicia
to the Achaemenid empire, making the syennesis (perhaps Appuwasu) a vassal king.
Babylonian sources do not mention imported Cilician iron after 545, which strongly
suggests that there were no trade contacts any more.
After the reign of a man named Oromedon, who is just a name, the next
syennesis is better known. The Persian king Xerxes chose Cilicia to gather a large
army to attack the Greek homeland (481 BCE). Next year, the syennesis served as
one of the commanders in the Persian navy. He is known to have married his daughter
to Pixodarus, a Carian leader.
At this stage, we begin to know a bit more about the way the Persians
governed and used Cilicia. Its capital was Tarsus, where the loyal syennesis had
its residence. We may assume that there was a Persian garrison. At several other
places, we find military bases, mostly along the sea coast. The coastal plain
often served to assemble armies. Although Cilicia had a native king, it had to
pay tribute: 360 horses and 500 talents of silver, according to Herodotus.
During the Persian era, the fertile Cilician plains were the most
important part of the satrapy. The relations between the inhabitants of the cities
and those of the villages in the eastern mountains were sometimes less than friendly.
After all, the people from the plains were sedentary agriculturalists and the
mountain people were roaming herdsmen. It is certain that in the fourth century,
the two groups sometimes came to blows, and we may assume that this was also true
in the fifth century.
There were several important sanctuaries that remained more or less
independent from Persian rule. One of the most important was that of a mother
goddess that was called Artemis Perasia by the Greeks and Cybele by everybody
else. Her shrine was at Castabala in the northeast. During the reign of king Artaxerxes
II Mnemon, the Castabalans briefly revolted, but they were subdued by general
Datames.
Another sanctuary was Mazaca, which must have been more to the Persians'
taste. Here, the sacred fire was worshipped. Another site of religious importance
was the oracle at Mallus.
At the end of the fifth century, the third known and probably last
syennesis was ruling Cilicia. He became involved in a civil war between Artaxerxes
II and his brother Cyrus the Younger. When the latter approached the Cilician
gate, the syennesis was forced to side with him. However, after the defeat of
Cyrus at Cunaxa near Babylon,
the syennesis' position was difficult and he was dethroned. This marked the end
of the independence of Cilicia. After 400, it became an ordinary satrapy.
One of its satraps was the Babylonian Mazaeus (361-336). His successor
was expelled by the Macedonian king Alexander the Great, who conquered Cilicia
in the summer of 333, and fell ill at Tarsus. After some time, he recovered and
attacked the Cilicians of the Taurus mountains. This was probably a police action
against the herdsmen. The new satrap of Cilicia, a man named Balacrus, was given
special orders to attack the mountain people. Unfortunately, he was unable to
overcome the herdsmen of Isaura,
a tribal formation that now appear in history and was to play a role in the following
centuries.
Greek and Roman period
After the death of Alexander in Babylon (June 11, 323), Cilicia was
first part of the kingdom of Antigonus Monophthalmus, who had been appointed as
satrap of Phrygia. When he
was defeated at Ipsus (301),
Cilicia was divided by Seleucus and Ptolemy, two former friends of Alexander.
From now on, the coastal towns belonged to the Ptolemaean empire, and the interior
was part of the Seleucid empire. Twice, the region was contested: in the Second
Syrian war (260-253), the Ptolemaeans gained ground, but in the Fifth Syrian war
(202-198), all of Cilicia became Seleucid. It remained so for a century, and was
thoroughly hellenized. New cities were founded, and the old Luwian language was
gradually superseded by Greek.
However, after c.110, the Seleucid power was waning, and the inhabitants
of "rough Cilicia", which had always retained some of their independence, started
to behave as pirates. Although both the Seleucid and Roman authorities sometimes
launched expeditions against the Cilician pirates, the two governments did not
really care. After all, the pirates sold the slaves that the ancient economy could
not do without.
It was only after 80, when it became clear to the Romans that the
Seleucid empire was disintegrating and a power vacuum was growing, that the legions
intervened. In 78-74, Publius Servilius Vatia subdued western Cilicia. To commemorate
his victory, he received the surname Isauricus. Eastern Cilicia became part of
the empire of the Armenian king Tigranes. However, the Cilician pirates remained
dangerous, until Pompey the Great attacked them. He settled them in towns and
gave them land (67). This turned out to be an excellent settlement. The last Cilician
war was conducted by Marcus Tullius Cicero (51-50), who defeated the last independent
Cilicians.
During the next decade, the Romans were unable to establish their
power, because they were involved in two civil wars, first between Julius Caesar
and Pompey the Great (49-48) and then between on the one hand Caesar's heirs Marc
Antony and Octavian and on the other hand Caesar's murderers Brutus and Cassius.
When Octavian became sole ruler (after 30 BCE), Cilicia was finally pacified.
Parts were given to vassal kings, and the remainder became an appendix to the
province Syria. Although
the governor of Syria sometimes had to fight against the mountain tribes (e.g.,
Lucius Vitellius in 36 CE), Cilicia was now a quiet part of the Roman world.
The emperor Vespasian reunited Cilicia in 72. More than two centuries
later, it was divided into two parts by Diocletian: the mountainous west became
known as Isauria, and the plains retained the name Cilicia. In the late fourth
or early fifth century, the remainder of Cilicia was again divided into two parts,
simply called Cilicia I (Tarsus and environs) and Cilicia II (the eastern plains).
The fifth and sixth centuries saw great affluence, but in the seventh
century, it became a border zone where the Byzantine empire was defended against
the Arab incursions. About 700, it became Muslim, but it became Greek again in
965. Many Armenians were settled in Cilicia, and the country became known as Lesser
Armenia. During the Crusades, it became independent. In 1375, this last period
of Cilician independence came to an end, when the country became part of the Ottoman
empire.
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
PAMFYLIA (Ancient country) TURKEY
Pamphylia: ancient name for the fertile coastal plain in southern Turkey.
Pamphylia is the ancient name of the rich and fertile alluvial plain
of the rivers Kestros, Eurymedon, and Melas (the modern Aksu Cayi, Kopru Cayi,
and Manavgat Cayi). In the south, we find the Mediterranean sea - the Gulf of
Antalya to be more precise. To the west, the Pamphylian city Attalia
(Antalya) faced Lycia; to
the north were the pine forests of Pisidia,
and to the east, Coracesium faced 'rough' Cilicia.
All these countries were dominated by the Taurus mountain range. Between the Taurus
and the Mediterranean, the alluvial plain is dominated by fertile terraces and
the white chalk faces of the foothills.
The name 'Pamphylia'
is very ancient, but because the language of the Pamphylians is hardly known (although
it is closely related to Greek), we cannot interpret the name. When the Rhodian
Greeks entered the region in the seventh century BCE, they thought that the nation
with the related language was called pam-phylos 'all tribes', which may be erroneous
or may be true.
Pamphylia belonged to the ancient Hittite empire. The main towns were
Estwediiys (later known as Aspendus)
and Side. After the fall
of the Hittite empire after 1215, Pamphylia was the center of a new kingdom called
Tarhuntassa. It was later claimed that Greeks settled in the region in the twelfth
century, but these stories were probably invented to explain the linguistic similarities
between Greek and Pamphylian. (In any case, there is no archaeological evidence
for a Greek invasion.) It is not known how long Tarhuntassa existed; when the
Rhodians entered the region, it was already called Pamphylia and we do not know
how this change came to be.
However this may be, it is certain that from the seventh century on,
the Pamphylians traded with the Greeks. Ports like Perge
and Side became large cities,
and rich Pamphylia became a natural target for foreign enemies. The first to conquer
the coastal towns were the Lydians. It is not known who was responsible for the
conquest, but it is certain that it belonged to the possessions of king Croesus
(560-547), who lost it to the Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great. According to
the fifth-century Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus, Pamphylia belonged
to the first tax district of the Achaemenid empire, together with Lycia,
Magnesia, Ionia,
Aeolia, Milya, and Caria.
Although Pamphylia now belonged to Persia, Greek cultural influence
was still felt. After all, the trade contacts remained important. In 468-465 (the
exact year is not known), the Athenian admiral Cimon defeated the Persians at
the mouth of the Eurymedon, after which Pamphylia became part of the Athenian
empire. Forty years later, the Persians reoccupied their former possession.
In the first weeks of 333, the Macedonian king Alexander the Great
occupied the Pamphylian coast. He left his personal friend Nearchus in charge
of the country, which he organized thoroughly: it never revolted to its new Macedonian
masters. In the years after Alexander's death, it was first part of the empire
of Antigonus Monophthalmus, but in the third century, the Ptolemies ruled the
country, succeeded by the Seleucids - two Macedonian dynasties. Side and Perge
continued to flourish; new important cities were Sillyon and Aspendus.
When the Romans defeated the Seleucid king Antiochus III, they ordered
him to give up Pamphylia, which was given to Rome's ally Pergamum (188). The new
rulers founded Attalia in
150, and seem to have given special attention to the production of olive oil.
However, because of the decline of the Seleucid empire, the region was politically
unstable and the eastern town Coracesium
became the capital of the Cilician pirates. After 100, the Romans started to intervene.
At first, they were not very successful, but in 77 Publius Servilius Vatia gained
some remarkable successes: he defeated the pirates at sea and cleared Lycia and
Pamphylia. Later, general Pompey conquered Cilicia proper.
Pamphylia was first part of a province called Cilicia; in 43 BCE it
was added to Asia; twelve years later, general Octavian (the future emperor Augustus)
made it part of Galatia; the emperor Vespasian created a new province called Lycia
and Pamphylia (after 70). In 314 or 325, this double province was divided, and
Pamphylia was a province of its own.
The Roman period was one of great economic and cultural flourishing.
Most archaeological remains that can be visited today in towns like Aspendus and
Side, date back to Roman times.
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
Alexander the Great (336-323): Macedonian king, defeated the Persian king Darius
III and conquered the Achaemenid empire. During his campaigns, Alexander visited
a.o. Egypt, Babylonia, Persia,
Media, Bactria and the valley
of the Indus. In the second half of his reign, he had to find a way to rule his
newly conquered countries; therefore, he made Babylon
his capital and introduced the oriental court ceremonial, which caused great tensions
with his Macedonian and Greek officers.
Issus
When the Macedonians reached Cilicia
in August 333, they heard rumors that the Persian king Darius III was assembling
an army in Babylonia. In fact, he had left Babylon in July and was approaching
the Macedonians as swift as his large army allowed him to. In his Live of Alexander,
Plutarch of Chaeronea writes
that his army counted 600,000 men, which is of course exaggerated, but even when
we divide it by ten, Darius had an overwhelming majority.
Meanwhile, Alexander had fallen ill. Already in Antiquity, it was
assumed that he was exhausted, but in fact, the months since Gordium
had been tranquil. There is a famous anecdote about Alexander and his doctor Philip
of Acarnania, which can be
found here.
When Alexander had recovered, he immediately launched a new campaign.
He himself went to the west, fighting against the mountain tribes of Cilicia,
who might cut off the road through the Cilician gates. Western Cilicia, which
was and is very inaccessible, had a very bad reputation for what the ancient sources
variously call bandits, brigands, desperadoes or criminals, but in fact were tribesmen
who refused to live a sedentary life. In Alexander's age, they were called 'the
rough Cilicians'. During the Roman age, they were to become notorious as the Isaurians.
While Alexander was in Rough Cilicia, Parmenion and a small army were
ordered to occupy the so-called Assyrian gates. This was the pass between the
coastal plain of Cilicia and the plain of the river Orontes; the main road from
Babylonia to Cilicia went through this pass. Parmenion must have been puzzled
by the fact that Darius did not show up, but was not alarmed until he received
word that Darius' huge army was at Sochi, only two days away. A courier was sent
to Alexander's army, which covered 120 kilometers in forty-eight hours and joined
Alexander's army near Myriandrus.
The two commanders were planning to attack Darius in Sochi, when they
discovered that the Persian army was no longer there and was, in fact, facing
into their rear: with his enormous army, the Persian king had crossed the so-called
Amanus pass, had captured Issus, and had cut off the only Macedonian line of supply.
Darius had trapped Alexander.
The Persians could afford to wait until the invaders surrendered:
the Macedonian army could neither move to the east nor to the south, which was
unknown enemy territory. The only option Alexander had, was to return to the north
and attempt an all-out attack on a grand army of professional Persian soldiers.
At the Granicus, the Macedonians had fought against local levies, and the Persian
garrisons in Turkey had been relatively small. Now, real fighting could be expected.
The Macedonian army probably numbered 26,000 infantry and 5,300 cavalry;
the Persian numbers are unknown, but 60,000 is probably not a bad guess. When
the Macedonians advanced, they descended to a river named Pinarus and had a good
view of their opponents' line on the other side of the river. Darius and the Greek
mercenaries stood in the center, the wings were occupied by the Cardaces, a Persian
phalanx. Alexander made some adjustments to his battle array and already wanted
to attack, when he discovered that Darius had posted a force on the mountain to
the Macedonian right. Without countermeasures, this force would attack the Macedonian
rear. Some light infantry, some horsemen and archers were posted on the foothills
to neutralize the danger.
Alexander led the Companion cavalry to the right: this would force
a part of the Cardaces to move in the same direction, thereby creating a gap with
the Cardaces standing near the center. Then, Alexander wheeled towards the gap,
broke through the enemy lines and attacked the Persian center. At the same time,
the phalanx had crossed the river and made a frontal attack on the Persian right
wing and the Greek mercenaries.
Darius had been fighting from his chariot until his guard had been
annihilated. He was now forced to retire from the battlefield. The Greek authors
have called this cowardice, but it was not. It might have been honorable to die
on the battlefield, but it was not practical. Darius knew what would happen after
his heroic death: the rival factions that had almost caused a civil war in the
years before his accession, would be at each other's throats again, and the invader
would be able to overrun the whole, divided empire. If the empire were to survive,
civil war ought to be prevented at all costs. So he retired to Issus, leaving
his demoralized men as a prey to the Macedonians and the vultures.
The Macedonian losses were heavy. Our sources mention 450 dead and
4,000 wounded, 15% of the soldiers. There are no reliable statistics of the Persian
casualties, but they may have been between 5,000 and 10,000. Since most of the
fighting had taken place near the Pinarus
and sword wounds are extremely bloody, there is no reason to doubt that the river
had really turned red. Alexander's coins (emission from Alexandria,
between 326 and 323)
One of the most impressive actions took place after the battle: Parmenion
rushed to Damascus (350 kilometers
through enemy territory) and seized Darius' treasure. He surprised the Persian
garrison and took with him almost 55 ton gold, a great quantity of silver, 329
female musicians, 306 cooks, 13 pastry chefs, 70 wine waiters, 40 scent makers,
and the women who had lived at Darius' court. Small surprise that Parmenion needed
7,000 pack animals to bring the booty to Alexander.
The gold and silver taken at Damascus was used to strike new coins.
They showed the head of Alexander's legendary ancestor Heracles (with Alexander's
features), and on the reverse the supreme god Zeus seated on a throne. These coins
would be acceptable to the Phoenicians, whom Alexander wanted to persuade to switch
sides: they venerated Heracles under the name Melqart and could recognize the
seated man as their god Ba'al. This would become Alexander's normal coin type.
Among the captive women were Darius' mother Sisygambis, his wife Statira,
his five year old son, and his daughters Barsine (or Statira) and Drypetis. The
Macedonian king treated them kindly, which was not an act of courtesy but simply
a claim to the Persian throne: in the ancient Near East, a new king would take
over the harem of his predecessor. Plutarch tells us that Alexander, 'esteeming
it more kingly to govern himself than to conquer his enemies', sought no intimacy
with Darius' wife.This is not true: Statira was captured in November 333 and died
in childbirth in September 331. Darius can not have been the father of the baby.
Among the Persian women was Barsine, the widow of the former Persian
supreme commander in the west Memnon of Rhodes.
She was some seven or eight years older than Alexander, and the two had already
met each other, when she, Memnon, her father Artabazus and her brother Pharnabazus
were staying in Macedonia
as exiles. The childhood friendship was renewed as a serious love affair.
Alexander was now twenty-three. According to the Macedonian ideas
about love and sexuality, he had to find a woman to marry; the time for homosexual
affairs was over. Hephaestion could no longer be Alexander's lover, and had to
find a new role. It should be noted that the friendship between the two young
men remained close; Alexander was deeply shocked when Hephaestion died in 324.
In the aftermath of the battle, Alexander founded a new city, where
the 4,000 wounded were settled. He called it Alexandria, a name that lives on
in the modern name Iskenderun. The site of the town was well chosen: it commanded
the access to the Assyrian gate. (Alexander was not the first one to name a town
after himself. When his father had refounded Crenides
in 356, he had called it Philippi; and the founder of the Achaemenid empire, Cyrus
the Great, had built Kurushkatha, 'city of Cyrus'.)
Shortly after the battle, a messenger arrived, delivering a letter
from king Darius, who offered a huge ransom for his mother, wife and children.
Alexander refused. In the next months, there were several diplomatic exchanges
-the chronology is not clear-, which culminated in Darius' offer of all countries
west of the Euphrates to Alexander.
'I would accept it,' said Parmenion after reading the proposal, 'if I were Alexander.'
'So would I,' replied Alexander, 'if I were Parmenion.'
Alexander's first letter to the man who had trapped him near Issus
was intentionally rude. He insulted Darius, accused him of several crimes he had
not committed (e.g., the murder of Alexander's father Philip), and announced that
he would hunt him down and kill him. If Darius wanted to write him again, Alexander
said, the Persian should not write to him as an equal, but should regard him as
the master of the Persian possessions.
The Greek author Arrian has retold in his own words what was in this
letter; although he may have colored it a bit, it is clear that Alexander for
the first time claimed to be more than the king of Macedonia. Arrian uses the
expression 'king of Asia' to describe Alexander's new title. That Alexander claimed
the Persian kingdom at this early stage -before he had actually conquered Persia-,
can be corroborated from the fact that he entered Darius' harem. Other proof can
be found in a Babylonian diary, which states that Alexander already called himself
'king of the world' when he entered Babylon.
Having won the battle, having found a girlfriend, having humiliated
Darius, Alexander proceeded along the Orontes to Emessa.
There, he turned to the west and reached Aradus,
the northernmost city of Phoenicia.
It surrendered immediately.
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited August 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
PAMFYLIA (Ancient country) TURKEY
River of Pamphylia,
on the southern coast of Asia
Minor (modern name is Kopru su).
At the mouth of this river, in 466, the Athenians and their allies,
under the command of Cimon, won a double battle, on sea and on land, over the
Persians, in which two hundred Phoenician ships were destroyed. Plato mentions
this battle in the Menexenus.
Bernard Suzanne (page last updated 1998), ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Plato and his dialogues URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
LYKIA (Ancient country) TURKEY
The cities of Lycia and of Caria, along with Cos and Rhodes, were overthrown by a violent earthquake that smote them. These cities also were restored by the emperor Antoninus, who was keenly anxious to rebuild them, and devoted vast sums to this task.
FASILIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Amasis became a philhellene, and besides other services which he did
for some of the Greeks, he gave those who came to Egypt the city of Naucratis
to live in; and to those who travelled to the country without wanting to settle
there, he gave lands where they might set up altars and make holy places for their
gods. Of these the greatest and most famous and most visited precinct is that
which is called the Hellenion, founded jointly by the Ionian cities of Chios,
Teos, Phocaea, and Clazomenae, the Dorian cities of Rhodes, Cnidus, Halicarnassus,
and Phaselis, and one Aeolian city, Mytilene.
KELENDERIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
SELGI (Ancient city) TURKEY
Selge was founded at first by the Lacedaemonians as a city, and still earlier by Calchas; but later it remained an independent city, having waxed so powerful on account of the law-abiding manner in which its government was conducted that it once contained twenty thousand men.
SIDI (Ancient port) TURKEY
Then Side, a colony of the Cymaeans, which has a temple of Athena; and near by is the coast of the Lesser Cibyratae (Strab. 14.4.2).
IOTAPI (Ancient city) TURKEY
Iotape. A daughter of Artavasdes, king of Media, was married to Alexander, the son of Antony, the triumvir, after the Armenian campaign in B. C. 34. Antony gave to Artavasdes the part of Armenia which he had conquered. After the battle of Actium lotape was restored to her father by Octavianus. (Dion Cass. xlix. 40, 44, 1. 16.)
Soli, a noteworthy city, the beginning of the other Cilicia, that which is round Issus; it was founded by Achaeans and Rhodians from Lindus.
ASPENDOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Thrasybulus, the Athenian general, went with his fleet from Lesbos to Aspendus and moored his triremes in the Eurymedon River. Although he had received contributions from the Aspendians, some of the soldiers, nevertheless, pillaged the countryside. When night came, the Aspendians, angered at such unfairness, attacked the Athenians and slew both Thrasybulus and a number of the others; whereupon the captains of the Athenian vessels, greatly alarmed, speedily manned the ships and sailed off to Rhodes. Since this city was in revolt, they joined the exiles who had seized a certain outpost and waged war on the men who held the city. When the Athenians learned of the death of their general Thrasybulus, they sent out Agyrius as general.
XANTHOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
When Harpagus (Persian, general of Cyrus) led his army into the plain of Xanthus, the Lycians came out to meet him, and showed themselves courageous fighting few against many; but being beaten and driven into the city, they gathered their wives and children and goods and servants into the acropolis, and then set the whole acropolis on fire. Then they swore great oaths to each other, and sallying out fell fighting, all the men of Xanthus.
ASPENDOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Sailing sixty stadia up this river (Eurymedon), to Aspendus, a city with a flourishing population and founded by the Argives. Above Aspendus lies Petnelissus.
LYKIA (Ancient country) TURKEY
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