Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "SYLLION Ancient city TURKEY".
City in Pamphylia 28 km E-NE of Antalya. Founded presumably by the
mixed migrants under Amphilochos, Mopsos, and Kaichas after the Trojan War; a
statue base bearing the name of Mopsos was recently found on the site. The city
is mentioned by Pseudo-Skylax in the mid 4th c., and by Ptolemy and Hierokles.
Strabo (667) records, between Perge and Aspendos, a lofty city visible from Perge,
40 stades from the sea, which can be no other than Sillyon, though the distance
is underestimated by more than half. When Alexander came to Pamphylia in 333 B.C.
Sillyon was the only place to resist him; it was held, says Arrian (1.26), by
a garrison of the native barbarians and foreign mercenaries. Alexander's first
improvised attack failed, and he abandoned the idea of a second. Coinage begins
in the 3d c., giving the city's name as Selyviys. Pseudo-Skylax and Arrian give
it as Syllion, but Sillyon is the form used on the later coins. In Byzantine times
Sillyon was joined as a bishopric with Perge.
The city stood on and around a conspicuous flat-topped hill some 210
m high. All sides of the hill are precipitous except the W, and fortifications
were needed only there. Occupation seems to have been originally confined to the
flat hilltop, but later a wall was built on the SW slope to extend the inhabited
area. At the S end of this wall is an entrance gate of the same type as at Perge
and Side, a horseshoe-shaped court flanked by towers in the wall. At the N end
of the wall is a tower still virtually complete, in two stories with six windows;
from the upper story doors opened onto the ramparts, and in the lower story two
other doors lead into and out of the city.
The original city gate, however, stood at the top of the steep W slope,
and was approached from N and S by a ramp. The gate itself is poorly preserved,
but the ramp, especially on the S, is impressive. A road 5 m wide leads obliquely
up the hill, flanked on one side by the face of the hill and on the other by a
wall of regular masonry supported by buttresses, with a number of windows; the
date is Hellenistic. Of the N ramp a part of the stone paving remains near the
top.
The theater stood at the edge of the cliff on the S, with a smaller
theater or odeion beside it on the E. The theater is small, and was split by a
great cleft in the rock; the odeion was better preserved, but in 1969 a landslide
carried away the lower part of the theater and all of the odeion; all that now
remains is a few of the upper rows of seats in the theater.
A short distance to the E is a series of terraces, cut in the rock
and joined by steps, where there are ruins of houses, partly rock-cut, partly
of masonry. At the edge of the cliff is a small temple of Hellenistic date, with
walls in handsome broad-and-narrow masonry; the S wall, however, has disappeared
over the precipice.
Some 50 m N of the theater is a group of buildings which seem to have
formed the city center; three of them are comparatively well preserved. The most
conspicuous is a large Byzantine structure of unknown purpose; the other two are
Hellenistic. The larger of these is long and narrow, evidently a public hall of
some kind; its W wall stands 6 m high and contains 10 windows. The smaller building
is remarkable for its elegantly decorated doorway, and particularly for the inscription
carved on one of the door-jambs. This is in the Pamphylian dialect of Greek, 37
lines long, and the most important document known in that dialect; little progress,
however, has been made in its interpretation. Other buildings on the plateau include
a small temple, badly preserved, a round tower, and a large cistern. In the lower
part of the city, close to the later city gate, is a large building of uncertain
purpose, sometimes called a palace, and below this on the W are the scanty ruins
of a stadium.
Tombs are mostly on the low ground below the hill on the W: plain
rectangular graves cut in the surface of large boulders apparently fallen from
above, with steps leading up to them, and in some cases holes for the pouring
of libations. Inscriptions at Sillyon are unusually scarce.
G. E. Bean, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Syllium (Sullion), a fortified town of Pamphylia, situated on a lofty height between Aspendus and Side, and between the rivers Eurymedon and Cestrus, at a distance of 40 stadia from the coast. (Strab. xiv. p. 667; Arrian, Anab. i. 25; Scylax, p. 40; Ptol. v. 5. § 1; Hieroel. p. 679; Polyb. xxii. 17; Steph. B. mentions it under the name Suleion, while in other passages it is called Sulaion, Sullon, and Silonon.) Sir C. Fellows (Asia Minor, p. 200) thinks that the remains of a Greek town which he found in a wood on the side of a rocky hill near Bolcascooe belong to the ancient Syllium; but from his description; they do not appear to exist on a lofty height.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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