Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/364

348 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. opposite one to the other, like two sentinels, guarding a bay, with good anchorage at the entrance of the X'anthus valley, the latter being flanked on either side by mountain chains. Patara, to judge from the extent of its ruins, was far the more important of the twin cities. Here Apollo had an oracle which was already famous in the day of Herodotus. 1 The gulf, like all the harbours through which passed the traffic of the valley, is turned into a marshy delta, and made impassable by brakes of reed-cane and tamarisks, so that the student finds it difficult to explore this and similar sites. The Xanthus basin, with its numerous walled towns turned towards the sea and crowded in a narrow space, not only proves that it was the seat of a dense population, but the very heart of Lycia. Pre-eminent among them all was Xanthus, the " metro- polis of the Lycian nation," 2 as she proudly styles herself in the inscriptions of the Roman period. Nor was this a vain boast, since the sacred building of " Letoon," in which the delegates of the confederation were wont to assemble, lies at no less than four kilometres to the south-east of the town. 3 Again, ancient geographers, notably epigraphic texts, tell of the situation of cities in Lycia in and about the sixth century B.C. Such was Telmessus (Macri), the principal port of the Cragos region, which better than any other could communicate with the island of Rhodes. She already possessed, in the reign of Crcesus, a school of soothsayers, famed throughout the peninsula. 4 Much narrower than the 1 Herodotus, i. 182. 2 BENNDORF, Reisen, torn. i. No. 92. 8 With regard to the ruins that are visible about the place, read Ibid,, chap. xi. 4 Herodotus, i. 78. It has been argued that Telmessus did not become a Lycian city until the fourth century of the old era (TREUBER, Geschichte, p. 103). From the fact that it figures separately in the list of the tributaries of Athens (C. I. Attic, pp. 19, 22, No. 37, and pp. 104, 118, No. 234), as well as the statement of Theopompus to the effect that it had fallen to the hand of the Lycian king Pericles (Theopompus, Fr. in in MULLER, Fragm. Hist. Grcec., torn. i.). But it would seem probable that the Telemessus (sic) of the Athenian list, referred to an inland town of Caria, north of Halicarnassus, and consequently had nothing to do with Lycian Telmessus (Six, Monnaies lyciennes, p. 93). As to the passage in Theopompus just mentioned, all we can say is that Telmessus, being separated from the Xanthus valley by the lofty chain of Cragos, carried on its existence for ages independently of the rest of the nation. Nothing indicates that it was either a Greek colony or a Carian centre. All the monuments found there bear an unmis- takable Lycian physiognomy. The simplest thing is to consider it as having been peopled in very early days by Lycians. The same remarks apply to Kadyanda, a