ANTALYA TO ALANYA

Aspendus and the other cities in Pamphylia came under Persian rule soon after the fail of Sardis in 546 B.c. The region vvas liberated from the Persians in 467 B.c. vvhen the Athenian commander Cimon defeated the Persian forces at the mouth of the Eurymedon. Aspendus then became a member of the Delian League, though the amount of the annual tribute that it paid is unknovvn. Aspendus and the other cities of Pamphylia fell under the control of Persia again in 386 B.C, and they vvere stili under Persian domination vvhen Alexander arrived in the spring of 333

B.c. The cilizens of Perge had already surrendered to Alexander vvhile he vvas in Phaselis, so vvhen he arrived in Pamphylia the gates of their city vvere opened to him. He then advanced tovvards Aspendus, vvhich at first surrendered to him vvithout a struggle, as Arrian narrates in book I of The Campaigns of Alemnder:
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Advancing from Perge, he vvas met by plenipotentiaries from Aspendus, vvho offered to surrender ıhe tovvn, but begged, at the same time, that no garrison be put in. As to the garrison, they got vvhat they asked for; but
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AIexander demanded that the tovvn should contribute fifty talents tovvards the men's pay and hand över ali the horses bred there as tribute to Darius [Darius III, the Persian king). Both demands vvere agreed to.and theenvoys returned home.
Alexander then moved on to Side, vvhich surrendered imme-diately, after vvhich he proceeded to Sillyum. But there, as vve have seen, the determined resistance of the defenders gave him pause, and he broke off the siege abruptly vvhen he reccived a report, as Arrian vvrites, that "determined him to returned to Aspendus." The rest of the story is best told by Arrian:
The report stated that the people of Aspendus had backed out of their agree-ment; they vvere refusing to hand över the horses to the proper authorities and to pay the money; moreover they had taken their movable property inside the tovvn's defences, shut their gates against Alexander's men, and vvere at vvork upon ali necessary repairs to their vvalls.
The main part of the tovvn of Aspendus is built upon a very steep and easily defended hill, the base of vvhich is vvashed by ıhe river Eurymedon. There vvere also a number of houses on the level ground round this central strong-hold.all of them enelosed vvithin a vvall of no great height.This vvall, together vvith ali houses on the flat ground vvhich secmed impossible to hold, vvas abandoned by the people of ıhe place the moment they vvere avvare of Alexander's approach. They hurriedly vvithdrevv and took refuge vvithin the fortified center on the hill. Alexander, as soon as he reached the tovvn, led his men inside the outer vvall—novv defenceless—and took up his quarters in ıhe deserted houses.
The shock of Alexander's presence and the sight of his army surrounding them vvas too much for the people of the tovvn: they sent their spokesmen to hini and hegged lo be allovved Ihcir original icrms. Alexandcr. hovvever, in spite of the fact ıhat the position of Aspendus was a strong one and he was not prepared fora protracted siege,refused the request; he demanded,in addi-tion to the horses they had previously agreed to hand over, 100 talents instead of the original fıfty and the surrender as hostages of the leading men of the community; furtber, they vvere forced to obey the governor appointed by him-self, to pay an annual tribute to Macedon, and submit to an inquiry inlo the rightful ownership of the land. vvhich they vvere accused of holding by force, \vhen it was really the property of their neighbors.
After Alexander's death Aspendus passed in turn to Antigonus, the Seleucids of Syria, the Ptolemies of Egypt, and the Pergamene kings; then, in 129 B.c, it became part of the Roman province of Asia.
The Romans negleeted Lycia, Pamphylia, and Cilicia, inter-vening only vvhen Cilician pirates interfered vvith their com-merce. What is more, the Roman governors used their office to enrich themselves at the expense of the locals. The \vorst of the Roman governors was Publius Cornelius Dolabella, vvho vvas proconsul in 80-79 B.C, during vvhich time he plundered the cities of Pamphylia and Cilicia vvith the help of his legate Gaius Verres. A decade later Verres vvas prosecuted by Ciceroand con-vieted of having abused his office, vvhich led him to flee into exile to escape punishment. Cicero's address to the court men-tions the art treasures that Verres looted from Aspendus during his term as Dolabclla's legate:
You are avvarc. gentlemen. that Aspendus is an old and famous town in Pamphylia, ful I ol fine statuary. I slıall not allege that from ıhis to\vn thİS or that particular statue vvas removed. My charge is that Verres did not leave one statue behind from temples and public places alike, vvith the vvhole of Aspendus looking on, they vvere ali openly loaded on vvagons and carted avvay. Yes, even the famous Harpist of Aspendus, about vvhom you lıave often heard the saying that is proverbial among the Greeks that 'he made the music inside'—that too he carricd off.
Conditions vvere greatly improved after A.D. 43, vvhen
Claudius joined Lycia and Pamphylia together to make one

province. The tvvo parts of the province each had their ovvn magistrates, headed respectively by a Lyciarch and a Pamphyliarch, vvho managed their internal affairs under the aegis of Rome. This union continued until the early fourth cen-tury, vvhen Diocletian (r. 284-305) made Lycia and Pamphylia separate provinces önce again, an arrangement that continued under his immediate successors and on into the Byzantine era. Aspendus continued to be an important place in the early Byzantine period, but then the Persian and Arab invasions brought about an inexorable decline from vvhich it never recov-ered. Like Perge, it vvas taken by the Seljuks in 1078 and the Ottomans in 1392. By then Aspendus had declined to the status of a village, and in the late Ottoman period it vvas abandoned al together.

Thealer al Aspendus
The magnificent Roman theater at Aspendus has alvvays elicited encomiums from travelers, such as that of the arehae-ologist D. G. Hogarth in his Accidents of an Antiquarian's Life (1910): "You may have seen amphitheatres in Italy, France,Dalmatia and Africa: temples in Egypl and Greece; palaces in Crete; you may be sated vvith antiquity, or scornful of it. But you have not seen the theatre at Aspendus." George Bean vvrites of his first impression of the theater at Aspendus in Turkey's Southern Shore: "the vvriter vvell remembers the feeling, almost of avve, vvhich it gave him vvhen he first stepped into its interior: 'This is not lıke anything I ever savv before.'"
One can appreciate here betler Ihan anywhere else in Asia Minör the total visual effect of a Roman theater, particularly since the structure is so remarkably vvell preserved. The theater is directly under the southeast side of the aeropolis hill, on vvhose summit most of the other buildings of Aspendus stand.
I
original part of the structure, but vvas erected by the Seljuks ca. 1220, vvhen Alaettin Keykubat I decided to use the stage building as his residence.
The interior of the theater is almost as vvell preserved as its exterior, lacking only the columns and oth.er archilectural ele-ments and sculptures that önce adorned the inner facade of the stage building. The facade rose in tvvo stories above the prosce-nium, the colonnadcd platform on vvhich the players performed, vvith the uppermost story being used principally to support an avvning-like roof that projected över the stage to improve the acoustics. The tvvo lovver levels of the facade had a double arcade of ten pairs of columns each, complete vvith their entab-lature, the lovver colonnade lonic and the upper Corinthian. The central quartet of columns on the upper level vvas surmounted by a broken pediment vvith a relief—stili visible—representing Dionysus surrounded by floral scrolls; the other panels betvveen the columns had scenes in relief as vvell as statues and portrait busts.The auditorium cxtends somevvhal beyond the usual semi-circlc of a Roman theater. The paradoi, vvhich in Greek theaters



are alvvays öpen and approach the orehestra al an angle, are here parallel to the stage building and covered vvith barrel vaults.Thc auditorium has a capacity of about 20,000.There is a single dia-zoma, vvith tvventy tiers of seats belovv and tvventy-one abovc; stairvvays divide the auditorium into nine cunei in the lovver range and eighteen in the upper, vvith the uppermost rovv backed by an arcaded gallery vvith fifty-nine vaults. Special seats in the front rovv of the auditorium vvere reserved for high-ranking offı-cials such as senators and magistrates; the priestesses of Vesta sat in private boxes in the tvvo tovver-like struetures that flank the stage building.
Beyond the theater to the north is the stadium, 30 meters vvide and 215 meters long, its structure almost completely overgrovvn. Near its curved northern end there are a fevv rock-hevvn tombs, and beyond it to the north there are a number of sareophagi, ali part of the Hellenistic-Roman necropolis of Aspendus. There is a much earlier necropolis in the foothills to the northvvest of the ancient city, in vvhich grave-offerings dating back to ıhe fifth century B.C. have been found.
A path leads uphill betvveen the stadium and the theater to the east gate of the aeropolis, vvhere vve come to the civic center of Aspendus. At the center is the agora, surrounded by the princi-pal public buildings, ali built in Roman times.
On the east side of the agora there is a huge three-aîsled basil¬ica, more than 90 meters long, of vvhich only the foundations remain. At the north end of the basilica, on a higher level, there is a square building stili standing to a height of 15 meters, vvith vvalls nearly 2 meters thick, the vvest vvall reinforced by four exterior buttresses. it has a single arehed entrance on the north side; on the south side threc doors lead into the basilica, the cen¬tral one being the largest, vvith tvvo vvindovvs high up in the same vvall.

Exlerior o/Scene Building al AspeııJuı



Roman Aqueducl ut Aspendus
The west side of the agora is laken up vvith a long market hail comprising a row of two-storied shops with a gallery behind and in front a stoa, of vvhich none of the columns remain.
The north side of the agora is occupied by a prominent build-ing stili standing to a height of 15 meters, its facade nearly 37 meters long. The facade has ten niches in tvvo rovvs, the middle one belovv pierced by a door, the others by öpenings that have no\v been bricked up.This has been identified as a nymphaeum, to vvhich vvater \vas condueted by an aqueduct and then distrib-uted throughout the city.
Just lo the north of the nymphaeum there are the remains of a building 30 meters vvide and nearly 40 meters long, vvith a semi-circular east end. This has been identified tentatively as an odeion, in vvhich case it probably also served as the bouleuterion.
The north gate is the best vanlage point to vievv the great Roman aqueduct that brought vvater to Aspendus from the mountains to the north. This is the best-preserved aqueduct in Asia Minör, dating from the second century A.D.


We novv return to Highvvay 400 and continue our journey eastvvard through the Pamphylian plain. As vve do so vve eross the Eurymedon, vvhose mouth in antiquity vvould have been elose to the modern highvvay vvhere it erosses the river, vvhile today the shore is some three kilometers to the vvest. The river mouth vvas the site of the battle of the Eurymedon, vvhere in 467 B.c. Cimon of Athens led the Greeks to a great victory över the Persians on both land and sea. Thucydides mentions this in book I of his History of the Peloponnesian War:
Next came the battles of the river Eurymedon in Pamphylia, fought on land and sea by the Athenians and their allies against the Persians. İn both bat¬tles the Athenians vvon the victory on the same day under the command of Cimon, son of Miltiades, and they captured and destroyed the entire Phoenician fleet of 200 triremes.
A funerary monument vvas aftervvards ereeted here to honor the Greek dead, vvith this epitaph inseribed upon it: 'Thesc are the men vvho laid dovvn the splendor of their manhood beside the Eurymedon: on land and on the svvift-sailing ships they fought vvith their spears against the foremost of the bovv4oear-ing Medes. They are no more, but they have left the fairest memorial of their valor."
We novv return to Highvvay 400 and continue driving east¬vvard önce again. Some five kilometers beyond the Aspendus turnoff vve turn off to the left on a road signposted for ancient Selge, a drive of fifty-five kilometers up the valley of the Eurymedon. The road is asphalted as far as Beşkonak, tvventy-three kilometers from the turnoff, but from there on it gets steadily vvorse. About five kilometers beyond Beşkonak vve come to a junction and take the left fork, signposted for Altınkaya. The road then erosses the Eurymedon on a Roman bridge that has been in constant use for nearly tvvo thousand years, spanning a deep gorge betvveen tvvo cliffs. Beyond the bridge vve turn right on a rough road that elimbs steadily up until it comes to the village of Zerk, nearly 900 meters above sea


level. This brings us to the site of the ancient Pisidian city of Selge, vvhose ruins lie in and around the village, set againsl the magnificcnt mountain scenery oi the Taurus. Hreya Slark. who visiled Selge in 1954,describes the scene in Alexander's Path:
|Zerk has| fifteen cottages or so scattered among prostrate columns under a Roman theatre in a hollovv. it vvas shallovv as a saucer and the plovved fıelds l'illed it, and small pinnacles surrounded il, w here temples önce stood on easy slopes. Beyond them the high peaks rose . .. Some in light and some in shadovv, thcy had the cold pink mountain glow upon them as we made for an alpine cottage built betvveen the marble shafts of some forgotten pub-lic buildiııg.

Roman Bruf);e iner the liııryıııcıtoıı im the Rıııul to Selve
Strabo quotes the geographer Artemidorus of Ephesus in list-ing Selge among the cities of Pisidia. He thcn goes on to give a detailcd history of the city from remote antiquity up to his o\vn time (64 B.c.-ca. A.D. 25), as vvell as describing its splendid set-ting among the Taurus Mountains:


Selge vvas founded at firsl by the Lacedaemonians as a cjty, and stili carlier by Calchas; but latcr il remaincd an indepcndent city, having waxed so povverful on accounl of the lavv-abiding manner in vvhieh its government vvas conducicd thal it önce conlained lwenl> thousand men . . . The region around the cily and the tcrritory of the Selgians has only a fcvv approachcs, since thcir territory is mountainous and full of precipices and ravines,which are formed. among other rivers, by the P.urymedon and the Cestrus, which flow from the Selgic mountains and cmply into the Pamphylian Sea. But they havc bridges on their roads. Because of their natural fortifıcations, hovvevcr, the Selgians have never, even önce, either in carlier or latcr times, become subject to others, but unmolested have reaped the fruit of the whole country except the part situaled below them in Pamphylia and inside the Taurus, for which they were always at vvar vvith the kings |of Pcrgamuml, but in their relations with the Romans, thcy occupied Ihe part in question on certain stipulaled conditions. Thcy sem an embassy to Alexander and offered to receive his commands as a friendly country, but al the preseni time they have become vvholly subjeci to the Romans and are ineluded in the territory that vvas formerly subject to Amynlas.
During the Byzantine era Selge was the site of a bishopric ranking next after Side and before Aspendus. Selge disappears from history during theTurkish invasions, its name surviving in corrupled form in that of the village of Zerk, vvhieh developed in Ottoman times among the ruins of the ancient city. The site of Selge remained totally unknovvn to the outside vvorld until the second quaıter of the nineteenth century, \vhen it vvas rediscov-ered by Weslern travelers. One of the fırst of these cxplorers was Edvvard Daniell, a companion of Captain T. A. B. Spratt. Daniell came upon the ruins of Selge in May of 1842, just t\vo vvecks before his sudden and untimely death from a fever. Daniell deseribes his discovery of Selge in a letter to Spratt vvritlen just before his death:
I came suddenly in vievv of a theatcr magnificcnlly situated, a stadium, a rovv of lonic columns slanding, and a square belovv, vvhieh must have been the Agora, though novv a corn-ficld. Standing myself upon a large square platform of ancient pavemcni, vvith a bcautiful forcground ... I ıhink in ali my life I never savv such a mountain vievv.

The ruins of Selge lie on and around three hills that form an cquilateral triangle, vvith vertices on the north, east, and vvest— the latler being the highest. The city vvas enclosed by a vvall that vvas över tvvo Roman miles in circumference, vvith tovvers at intervals of about 90 meters. The longest surviving remnant of the fortification is an angled stretch of about 350 meters on the southvvest, vvith a tovver at its vvestern end and a gate near the eastern extremity. Just inside the gate there arc the remains of a small building vvith three rooms, identifıed tentatively as a cus-toms house.
The \vell-prescrved theater lies lo the northeast of the village. The lovver part is hollovved out of the hillside, facing southeast, and the upper part is constructed from masonry. The cavea extends around more than a semicircle, in the Greek style, but it is joined to the stage building in the Roman manner, evidently due to later remodeling. There is a single diazoma, vvith thirty rovvs of seats belovv and fifteen above, both zones divided ver-tically by tvvelve stairvvays. The stage building has collapsed into a pile of masonry, but one can stili see three of the five doors that gave access to the stage, as vvell as a small arehed door in the short vvall at the west end and a larger portal leading into the orehestra.
The poorly preserved stadium is just belovv the theater to the southvvest. it had seats on either side of the arena, those on the vvest resting against the natural slope of the hill, the tiers on the south supported by a vaulted gallery that stili survives in part. Inscriptions record victories in the games; these vvere held annu-ally and vvere normally öpen only to citizens of Selge, but every four years a gala festival vvas celebrated in vvhich outsiders vvere invited to participate.
The agora is on the summit of the eastern hill. it is a paved area measuring somevvhat less than 50 meters on a side, origi-nally enclosed by buildings on ali sides except the south. A short distance to the northeast are the remains of a church, perhaps

ANTALYA TO ALANYA 89
the episcopal cathedral of Byzantine Selge. The main necropo-üs vvas on the east slope of the hill. A fevv of the sareophagi there are decorated vvith a curious symbol, consisting of tvvo lit-tle cusped cireles in the upper quadrant of a much larger and deeper circle, looking like a pair of staring eyes in a moon face. There appears to have been another necropolis on the vvestern slope of the northern hill, vvhere there are three built tombs that have survived only in part.
Midvvay betvveen the east and vvest hills are the remains of a hail or stoa that is 110 meters in length. At its southern end there is a very tali pillar bearing tvvo inseriptions, neither of vvhich identifies the monument.
The vvestern hill is the site of tvvo temples, both of them in ruins. The northern one is thought to have been dedicated to Zeus, vvhose temple vvas the principal sanetuary in Selge, but there is no defınite evidence to prove this. The second temple is thought to have been dedicated to Artemis, as suggested by an inseription found in its vicinity, but here again the evidence is inconelusive. On the vvestern side of the hill there is a large cir-cular cistern, 21 meters in diameter and about 7.5 meters deep. Water vvas condueted to the cistern via a channel from the hills to the northvvest, vvhere there are the impressive ruins of a
Roman aqueduct.
We novv retrace our route to Highvvay 400, vvhere vve turn lef t and resume our drive eastvvard through the Pamphylian plain. After a drive of tvventy kilometers vve turn right on a road sign-posted for ancient Side, a drive of four kilometers. Along the approach to Side vve see stretehes of a Roman aqueduct, part of a system that carried vvater to the city from a source 40 kilo¬meters distant, near the Melas river.Then as vve near the site vve pass the necropolis and some of the outlying ruins of Side, the most unusual of the ancient Pamphylian cities, certain aspects of its history verging on the mysterious.