The History of the Ancient Civilizations. Duncker Max

on the western coasts of Asia Minor, they regarded the valley of the Xanthus as the eastern land of light, they gave it this name, and supposed that Apollo passed the winter in Lycia, and gave oracles during the six winter months at Patara in Lycia.[856] In spite of the eastern situation and the climate of Lycia, this idea would hardly have taken root had not the Lycians at Patara, and probably at other places in Lycia, worshipped a god in whom the Greeks could recognise their own god of light. The Homeric poems place the Lycians in the closest connection with the Teucrians. There is a Xanthus in Lycia and in the Troad, and the name Tros seems to be identical with the name of the Lycian city of Tlos, which lies high up in the valley of the Xanthus under Taurus. In any case, from this close combination of the Teucrians and Lycians in Homer, we may conclude that with the Greeks of the coast the Lycians passed for a tribe who had already been for a long time in possession of their settlements. None but native Asiatic tribes could be represented as fighting beside the native Teucrians as their closest confederates.

The Lycians developed a peculiar civilisation and a peculiar art, of which numerous monuments, and many of them accompanied by inscriptions, have come down to us. The alphabet in these inscriptions closely resembles the Greek. With the aid of some inscriptions written in the Greek and Lycian languages, scholars have succeeded in fixing the value of the Lycian letters—of which there are ten for vowels and diphthongs, and twenty for consonants.[857] By this means we have become acquainted with the name by which the Lycians called themselves. They were not merely called Termilians, as Herodotus supposed, in the most ancient times, but even in their own inscriptions they call themselves Tramele. The city which the Greeks calls Xanthus is in the language of the Tramele, Arna; the city of Patara is Pttarazu; Pegasa is Begssere.[858] In fixing the character of the Lycian language, it was at first supposed that the Lycians might have been a branch of the Phrygians, who had forced their way over the Taurus to the south coast—an assumption which seems to be supported by the fact that the Lycian monuments resemble the Phrygian in plan and style; and that the Lycians, like the Phrygians, loved to excavate walls of rock and that in Lycia, as in Phrygia, the influence of the Greeks was felt at an early time. But the Lycian idiom, so far as the remains of it have been examined at present, was distinctly different from the Phrygian language. While some of our scholars find in the Lycian language words and inflexions allied to the Albanian, i.e. to the remains of the language of the ancient Illyrians, others are more inclined to place the Lycian in close connection with the Iranian languages.[859] In either case the Lycians, like the Armenians and Phrygians, belong to the Indo-Germanic stock, and not only the Armenians and Phrygians, but along with them the forefathers of the Lycians came into Asia Minor from the north-east.

The Lycians were settled in a region of strong natural boundaries, and of a very defined and picturesque form. The position of their land, protected as it was by strong natural boundaries, secured for them a more undisturbed development than was possible to the other tribes of Asia Minor. Their cities and towers, Xanthus, Phellus, Myra, Telmissus, Patara, Pinara, and Tlos were surrounded by strong walls of Cyclopian architecture, and the splendid remains are evidence of great skill in masonry. The noble ruins of Xanthus, not far from the mouth of the river of the same name, still proclaim, even at a distance, the ancient metropolis of the Lycians. How far back the monuments of Lycia extend cannot be determined as yet. The oldest of which the date can be fixed go back to the reign of Darius II., the Itariayush of Lycian inscriptions. The reliefs exhibit the Chimæra, as described in Homer; and they repeatedly exhibit a lion slaying a bull.[860] The Lycians themselves are represented in long garments, just as in works of Greek art; and even to this day the peasants on the Xanthus are to be seen in the caftan.[861] Pictures of battles, of agricultural and pastoral occupations are frequent on the monuments; but so far as the inscriptions have been deciphered at present, they afford no single instance in support of the statement of Herodotus that the Lycians were not named after the father, but after the mother.[862] The most important remains are the tombs, which are evidence of the great industry and care which the Lycians devoted to the repose and memory of the dead. A considerable number of these tombs lie within the walls of the city, and are surrounded by the ruins of other buildings. Hence the dwellings of the dead and of the living were not separated among the Lycians. Besides sarcophagi, made of blocks brought for the purpose, we also find detached rocks, which are changed into great sarcophagi, rocky peaks transformed into sepulchres, and extensive walls of rock, in which grave-chambers have been cut. The face of the rocky wall, thus hollowed out for tombs, is provided with façades which rise up in rich variety to the number of many thousands, over and alongside of each other, sometimes advancing, sometimes receding, according to the nature of the rock. The style of these tombs, which is for the most part very delicate and slender, is an imitation of a kind of wooden structure, which must have been common in Lycia in ancient times, and the simplest forms of which are still in use among the peasants of the region which corresponds to Lycia;[863] sometimes the structure is simpler, at others more complicated, and the effect is strengthened by delicate and luxuriant ornamentation. The faces of the rock-tombs sometimes end with a flat framework of beams, at others with a gable in low relief. The detached sepulchres exhibit the same imitation of a wooden building. Many of these sepulchres are obviously intended for three corpses; in the single chamber included in them are generally found two stone benches in the sides and at the back a receptacle for a corpse in a recess.[864] The detached sarcophagi are the most numerous. On a sub-structure, or immediately on the ground, stands a long stone coffin, closed by a high massive cover, the section of which exhibits a Gothic pointed arch. On these sarcophagi also the ornamentation is almost always rich, and carried out with neatness even to the smallest detail. Beside the sarcophagi we also find pillars and obelisks among the ruins. The tympana, friezes, and surfaces of all these monuments are covered with reliefs, which represent with much truth and liveliness the life of animals as well as the life of men. Evident remains of colouring on all the monuments show us that a layer of lively and even startling colours was laid upon these buildings. The reliefs also were painted, and some are treated almost as pictures. The inscriptions upon the tombs prove that the Lycians erected these tombs in their lifetime for themselves, wives, and children, and that this was done by several families in common; they invoke the anger of a goddess Phate—whom the Greeks call Leto—on those who might dare to violate them. From the nature and solidity of these tombs and sarcophagi, it is clear that the Lycians were almost at as much trouble to give a secure resting-place to their dead as the Egyptians were to give rest to their mummies, while the ornaments show that the Lycians must have regarded the life after death as a state of peaceful repose; the sculptures on the tombs invariably represent friendly scenes of family life, of occupation in the country, of social life or festal enjoyment. We see mothers with their children, carriage journeys, riders, processions, banquets, and feasts, and finally battle-pieces, in which the combatants are partly armed as Lycians and partly as Greeks. Nothing, not even in the pictures of battles, reminds us of the horrors of death, or of a judgment in the under world. The monuments of Lycia prove that the supremacy of the Persians did not interrupt the progress of Lycian art. But the creations of the later period enable us to see that Greek art, in her bloom, obtained and exercised the strongest influence over the Lycians. The most beautiful monument of Lycia, the tomb of Harpagus, the Persian satrap, which belongs to the first half of the fourth century, exhibits a preponderance of Greek forms.

      FOOTNOTES:

      [688] Strabo, pp. 525, 530, 532, 559.

      [689] Kiepert, "Monatsberichte der B. Akad.," 1869, s. 238.