BC 400 – AD 700
Rhodiapolis
Said to have been founded by settlers from Rhodes. The monumental tomb of Opramoas, the benefactor who gave to the whole of Lycia, documents the workings of the League in its long inscription.
- Lycian League votes
- 1
- Location
- 36.3870° N, 30.2665° E
- Today
- Sarıcasu · Kumluca, Antalya
This city in history
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.
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
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