[54]. Strabo’s words are: Ταύτην γὰρ, ἔφη, τὴν πόλιν ὁ κτίσας εἰ μὴ ἐφοβεῖτο, ἆρ’ οὐδ’ ᾐσχύνετο; (xiv. 659).
The people of Mylasa having made a successful resistance to the attacks of Philip, the son of Demetrius, were rewarded by being made “free” by the Romans. Modern travellers, from Pococke to Chandler, fully confirm the statements of the ancients as to the abundance of marble monuments; and Colonel Leake adds that, since they were there, the Turks have pulled down the best ruin, that of the Temple of Romulus and Augustus. Sir Charles Fellows, on his second journey, observed on the key-stone of a gateway the double-headed axe (bipennis), indicating that the building to which it belonged had once been consecrated to the Jupiter of Labranda, a name said to have been derived from λαβρὺς, the Carian word for an axe;[[55]] and succeeded, also, in identifying it (pp. 66-67). He says of it, “The only conspicuous building of the place is a beautiful temple of the Corinthian order, but I think not of the finest age.... It stands in a recess in the hills, and is consequently not seen without approaching close to it.”[[56]]
[55]. Strabo calls the temple νεὠς άρχαῖος, and Herodotus adds that there was a holy grove of plane-trees near it, ἅγιον ἂλσος πλατανίστων (v. 119). Plutarch (ii. p. 302 A) states that λαβρὺς was the Lydian and Carian word for axe (which we find represented also on the coins of Mausolus and Pixodarus). On one of the Oxford marbles (ii. 12), probably an altar, occur the words Διός Λαβραύνδου.
[56]. Since Sir Charles’s visit, this spot has been carefully examined by Mr. Pullan, who states that the building (of which the fifteen columns still stand) is really of Roman times and work, though engraved (under the auspices of Dr. Chandler) as a Greek temple in the “Ionian Antiquities,” vol. i. (Pullan, “Ruins of Asia Minor,” p. 26).
CHAPTER III.
Xanthus—Sir Charles Fellows—Telmessus—Patara—Pinara—Myra—Tlos and Antiphellus—Attalia—Perge—Eurymedon—Aspendus—Side—Termessus—Cremna—Sagalassus—Selge—Antioch of Pisidia—Tarsus—Coracesium—Laertes—Selinus—Anemurium—Celenderis—Seleuceia—Corycus—Soli—Adana—Mallus—Mopsuestia—Anazarbus—Issus.
We come now to Lycia, of which many of the most important monuments are now in the Lycian room at the British Museum—for the most part the records of its chief town, Xanthus—and all procured by Sir Charles Fellows. A few less valuable remains, were, at the same time, obtained from other Lycian towns.
The chief value of the monuments from Lycia lies in this, that, while they exhibit many well-executed pieces of sculpture, interesting as a local or provincial rendering of Greek work of the middle of the fourth century B.C., they comprise, also, a few slabs, as, for instance, those from the Harpy tomb, of a genuine Archaic type.
Xanthus, the town from which the greater part of the monuments about to be described have been secured, underwent remarkable vicissitudes of fortune, some of which, it has been thought, are indicated on its sculptures. Originally, it was a Cretan colony settled at or near Xanthus; hence we read, in the Iliad, of Sarpedon and Glaucus, as the leaders of the Lycians in the Trojan army, and of the body of the former being carried back by Sleep and Death to Lycia to be honoured with a stele and tomb. Pandarus, too, the celebrated archer, is also a Lycian. On the overthrow of Crœsus, Harpagus, Cyrus’s general, was sent to reduce Lycia with a mixed force of Persians, Dorians, and Ionians; the Glaucidæ, or royal family of Lycia, having vigorously supported the Ionians in their resistance to Cyrus.