Patara

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Map of Lycia showing significant ancient cities and some major mountains and rivers. Red dots are mountain peaks, white dots are ancient cities.

Patara was a flourishing maritime and commercial city on the south-west coast of Lycia on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey near the modern small town of Gelemiş, in Antalya Province.

Variants of name

Jat Gotras Namesake

Jat Gotras Namesake

Geography

The site is a plain surrounded by hills and included in ancient times a large natural harbor (since silted up). On the northeast of the harbor is Tepecik Hill upon which there is a Bronze Age site. The later city is on the flanks of this hill and to the south and west.[1] The site of the oracle and temple of Apollo have not been found.

History

Patara was said to have been founded by Patarus (Greek: Πάταρος), a son of Apollo.[2] It was situated at a distance of 60 stadia to the southeast of the mouth of the river Xanthos.[3] Patara was noted in antiquity for its temple and oracle of Apollo, second only to that of Delphi.[4] The god is often mentioned with the surname Patareus.[5] Herodotus[6] says that the oracle of Apollo was delivered by a priestess only during a certain period of the year; and from Servius[7] we learn that this period was the six winter months. It seems certain that Patara received Dorian settlers from Crete; and the worship of Apollo was certainly Dorian. Ancient writers mentioned Patara as one of the principal cities of Lycia.[8] It was Lycia's primary seaport, and a leading city of the Lycian League, having 3 votes, the maximum.

The city, with the rest of Lycia, surrendered to Alexander the Great in 333 BC. During the Wars of the Diadochi, it was occupied in turn by Antigonus and Demetrius, before finally falling to the Ptolemies. Strabo informs us that Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt, who enlarged the city, gave it the name of Arsinoe (Arsinoë) after Arsinoe II of Egypt, his wife and sister, but it continued to be called by its ancient name, Patara. Antiochus III captured Patara in 196 BC. The Rhodians occupied the city, and as a Roman ally, the city with the rest of Lycia was granted its freedom in 167 BC. In 88 BC, the city suffered siege by Mithridates IV, king of Pontus and was captured by Brutus and Cassius, during their campaign against Mark Antony and Augustus. It was spared the massacres that were inflicted on nearby Xanthos. Patara was formally annexed by the Roman Empire in 43 AD and attached to Pamphylia.

Ruins

The name Patara is still attached to the numerous ruins of the city. These, according to the survey of Capt. Francis Beaufort, are situated on the sea-shore, a little to the eastward of the river Xanthus, and consist of a theatre excavated in the northern side of a small hill (Kurşunlu Hill[9]), a ruined temple on the side of the same hill, and a deep circular pit, of singular appearance, which may have been the seat of the oracle. The town walls surrounded an area of considerable extent; they may easily be traced, as well as the situation of a castle which commanded the harbour, and of several towers which flanked the walls. On the outside of the walls there is a multitude of stone sarcophagi, most of them bearing inscriptions, but all open and empty; and within the walls, temples, altars, pedestals, and fragments of sculpture appear in profusion, but ruined and mutilated. The situation of the harbour is still apparent, but it is a swamp, choked up with sand and bushes.[10] The theatre was built in the reign of Antoninus Pius; its diameter is 265 feet, and has about 30 rows of seats.[11] There are also ruins of thermae, which, according to an inscription upon them, were built by Vespasian.[12]

Excavation history

In 1993 a Roman milestone was unearthed at Patara, the Stadiasmus Patarensis. It is a monumental pillar on which is inscribed in Greek a dedication to Claudius and an official announcement of roads being built by the governor, Quintus Veranius Nepos, in the province of Lycia et Pamphylia, giving place names and distances, essentially a monumental public itinerarium.[13] The pillar is on display in the garden of the Antalya Museum.

The site is currently being excavated during two summer months each year by a team of Turkish archaeologists. At the end of 2007, all the sand had been cleared from the theatre and some other buildings, and the columns on the main street had been partially re-erected (with facsimile capitals). The excavations have revealed masonry in remarkable condition.

Ch 1.24 Alexander in Lycia and Pamphylia

Arrian[14] writes....Some of the Macedonians who served in Alexander's army had married just before he undertook the expedition. He thought that he ought not to treat these men with neglect, and therefore sent them back from Caria to spend the winter in Macedonia with their wives. He placed them under the command of Ptolemy, son of Seleucus, one of the royal body-guards, and of the two generals Coenus, son of Polemocrates, and Meleager, son of Neoptolemus, because they were also newly married. He gave these officers instructions to levy as many horse and foot soldiers as they could from the country, when they returned to him and brought back the men who had been sent away with them. By this act more than by any other Alexander acquired popularity among the Macedonians. He also sent Cleander, son of Polemocrates, to levy soldiers in Peloponnesus,[1] and Parmenio to Sardis, giving him the command of a regiment of the Cavalry Companions, the Thessalian cavalry, and the rest of the Grecian allies. He ordered him to take the wagons to Sardis and to advance from that place into Phrygia.

He himself marched towards Lycia and Pamphylia, in order to gain command of the coast-land, and by that means render the enemy's fleet useless. The first place on his route was Hyparna, a strong position, having a garrison of Grecian mercenaries; but he took it at the first assault, and allowed the Greeks to depart from the citadel under a truce. Then he invaded Lycia and brought over the Telmissians by capitulation; and crossing the river Xanthus, the cities of Pinara, Xanthus, Patara, and about thirty other smaller towns were surrendered to him.[2] Having accomplished this, though it was now the very depth of winter, he invaded the land called Milyas,[3] which is a part of Great Phrygia, but at that time paid tribute to Lycia, according to an arrangement made by the Great King. Hither came envoys from the Phaselites,[4] to treat for his friendship, and to crown him with a golden crown; and the majority of the maritime Lycians also sent heralds to him as ambassadors to treat for the same object. He ordered the Phaselites and Lycians to surrender their cities to those who were despatched by him to receive them; and they were all surrendered. He soon afterwards arrived himself at Phaselis, and helped the men of that city to capture a strong fort which had been constructed by the Pisidians to overawe the country; and sallying forth from which those barbarians used to inflict much damage upon the Phaselites who tilled the land.[5]

1. See Arrian, ii. 20 infra.

2. The Marmarians alone defended their city with desperate valour. They finally set fire to it, and escaped through the Macedonian camp to the mountains. See Diodorus (xvii. 28). As to Xanthus the river, see Homer (Iliad, ii. 877; vi. 172); Horace (Carm., iv. 6, 26).

3. Lycia was originally called Milyas; but the name was afterwards applied to the high table in the north of Lycia, extending into Pisidia. See Herodotus, i. 173.

4. Phaselis was a seaport of Lycia on the Gulf of Pamphylia. It is now called Tekrova.

5. He also crowned with garlands the statue of Theodectes the rhetorician, which the people of Phaselis, his native city, had erected to his memory. This man was a friend and pupil of Aristotle, the tutor of Alexander. See Plutarch (Life of Alex., 17); Aristotle (Nicom. Ethics, vii. 7).

p.66-68

References

  1. ↑ Peschlow, Urs (2017), "Patara", in Niewohner, Philipp, The Archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 280–290, doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190610463.003.0025
  2. ↑ Strabo xiv. p. 666; Stephanus of Byzantium s. v.
  3. ↑ Stadiasm. Mar. Mag. § 219.
  4. ↑ Smith, William (1854). Dictionary of Greek and Roman geography. London : Walton & Maberly. pp. 554–555. Retrieved 23 July 2018.
  5. ↑ (Greek: Παταρεύς), Strabo xiv. p. 666; Lycophron 920; Horat. Carm. iii. 4. 64; Stat. Theb. i. 696; Ovid Met. i. 515; Virgil Aeneid iv. 143; Pomponius Mela, i. 15.
  6. ↑ Herodotus i. 182.
  7. ↑ Servius, Commentario ad Aeneidos
  8. ↑ Livy, xxxiii. 41, xxxvii. 15-17, xxxviii. 39; Polybius xxii. 26; Cicero p. Flacc. 32; Appian, B.C. iv. 52, 81, Mithr. 27; Pliny ii.112, v. 28; Ptolemy v. 3. § 3, viii. 17. § 22; Dionys. Per. 129, 507.
  9. ↑ Peschlow, Urs (2017), "Patara", in Niewohner, Philipp, The Archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 280–290, doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190610463.003.0025
  10. ↑ Beaufort, Karmania, pp. 2, 6.
  11. ↑ A plan is given in William Martin Leake, Asia Minor p. 320.
  12. ↑ Sir C. Fellows, Tour in Asia Min. pp. 222ff; Discov. in Lycia, p. 179, foil.; Texier, Description de l'Asie Mineure faite par ordre du Gouvernement français, which contains numerous representations of the ancient remains of Patara; Spratt and Forbes, Travels in Lycia, i. pp. 31f.
  13. ↑ S. Sahin, "Ein vorbericht über den Stadiasmus Provinciae Lyciae", Lykia 1 1997:130-37.
  14. ↑ Arrian:The Anabasis of Alexander/1b, Ch.24

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