BC 400 – AD 600
Sura
An oracle centre belonging to Myra. Priests read the future from the way the fish received meat thrown into the sacred spring.
- Lycian League votes
- Not a member / unknown
- Location
- 36.2449° N, 29.9443° E
- Today
- Sura mevkii · Demre, Antalya
In mythology
The fish of Sura
Apollo
Lycia’s second oracle was at Sura, and its method was altogether different: meat was thrown into a sacred pool fed from the sea, and the behaviour of the fish was read. A fish that took the meat meant good; one that pushed it away with its tail meant ill. The small temple and the seer’s pool are still in place today.
Natri
Apollo
In Lycian inscriptions Apollo’s name is Natri. This shows that the god was not imported but matched to a local one. In the same inscriptions Artemis appears as Ertemi and the storm god as Trqqas. The Lycians did not take on the Greek gods — they began to call their own gods by Greek names as well.
Artemis Eleuthera
Artemis
The chief goddess of Myra was Artemis Eleuthera — Artemis the free, or the liberator. The city’s largest temple was hers, and hers was among the wealthiest cults in Lycia. When Christianity came, this temple was the first building at Myra to be pulled down; the legend of Saint Nicholas begins immediately after that demolition.
Where they were worshipped
The Twelve Gods
Their cult places are not in city centres but out in the country and at road junctions. That suggests the gods were held to be the protectors not of a city but of a region. They were the gods of borders, of passes and of flocks.
Nearby cities
Andriake · Myra · Trysa · Istlada · Dolichiste