BC 500 – AD 700
Limyra
Zẽmuri
The capital of the dynast Pericle in the 4th century BC. His heroon stands on the acropolis and the cenotaph of Gaius Caesar on the plain; hundreds of rock tombs cover the surrounding slopes.
- Lycian League votes
- 2
- Location
- 36.3422° N, 30.1707° E
- Today
- Turunçova · Finike, Antalya
This city in history
Pericle of Limyra
5th–4th c. BC · c. 380–360 BC
In the east Pericle of Limyra grows strong; he besieges Telmessos, binds the west to himself as well, and joins the Satraps’ Revolt. This short-lived union is Lycia’s own experiment in self-rule. When the revolt is crushed, the region passes into the hands of the Carian satrap Mausolus.
Egypt’s century
after 323 BC · c. 309–197 BC
For roughly a hundred years the coast belongs to the Ptolemies. There is a garrison at Limyra and a shipyard at Patara; for a time the city goes by the queen’s name, “Arsinoe”. Lycian timber feeds the Egyptian navy, and Lycian harbours the grain road to Alexandria.
One coinage, one army
168 BC · 2nd–1st c. BC
The League strikes its own silver: the head of Apollo on one face, a lyre and the legend ΛΥΚΙΩΝ on the other — with the initials of the minting city along the edge. One currency, one army, thirty cities each with its own square: here the idea of federation takes solid form.
The age of twenty-three cities
~168–43 BC · 2nd–1st c. BC
For a century Lycia governs itself and grows rich. Twenty-three voting cities, together with the dozens of towns around them, make up a single political body. The region’s population, its buildings and its trade stand at the height of their history.
A road map in stone
AD 43 · AD 45
The monument set up at the entrance to Patara lists every road and every distance in the new province: more than sixty routes, written out mile by mile. The Stadiasmus Patarensis is the most detailed road document to survive from the Roman world.
The fortune of Opramoas
AD 2nd–4th c. · c. AD 125–155
After the earthquake, Opramoas of Rhodiapolis rains money on dozens of cities: theatres, baths, granaries, dowry funds. The inscription covering the walls of his mausoleum records what he gave to each city, one by one — the longest record of benefaction in the ancient world.
On the Lycian Way
A ruler and an heir
Andriake – Finike – Limyra
Limyra fell into the middle of history twice. In the fourth century BC the dynast Pericles gathered most of Lycia into one hand from here and laid siege to Telmessos; his tomb monument on the acropolis is carried by caryatids. Four centuries later Gaius Caesar, grandson and heir of Augustus, died here in AD 4 on his way back wounded from the East; his cenotaph still stands on the plain.
Gifts to twenty-eight cities
Limyra – Rhodiapolis – Gagai
Rhodiapolis is a small city, but it produced the most generous man in Lycia: Opramoas. When the earthquake of AD 141 wrecked the region he sent money from his own fortune to twenty-eight cities — theatres, baths, walls, grain. The inscription on the wall of his tomb lists those gifts one by one and is the longest known inscription in Anatolia. From there the way descends to Gagai, on the sea.
The whole Lycian Way — 12 stages, 540 km
Nearby cities
Rhodiapolis · Gagai · Myra · Arykanda · Sura