In ancient times, today's Teke Peninsula which juts into the Mediterannean on Turkey's southern coast, covering the area from the Dalaman Stream in the west all the way to Phaselis on the western outskirts of Antalya, was called Lycia. The people living in this area were therefore known as Lycians.

The Lycians were a democratic but independent people, with a unique art style and a high standard of living. They absorbed Greek culture, and were later conquered by the Romans. It does appear to be true that Greek efforts to colonize Lycia during the first millennium B.C. were largely unsuccessful, in spite of the region's desirability, and the Greeks were able to establish only one important colony there, Phaselis. As a result of excavations conducted since 1963 in Karatas-Semahoyuk area near Elmali, the prehistory of the region has largely been filled in. Early Bronze Age examples of earthenware pottery reveal that the region was settled by 3000 B.C.

In 545 B.C. the Persian commander Harpagos set foot on Lycian soil in the west, seizing Xanthos, its principal city. Thus began Persian sovereignty over Lycia and the rest of Anatolia until the year 200 B.C. Persian rule in Lycia came to an end when the region fell to the Macedonian king Alexander the Great in 333 B.C.

Following the death of Alexander the Great, Lycia fell to the Macedonian Antigonos and then it changed hands for many years between the Ptolemies and Seleucids. Later Lycia was handed over to Rhodes by Rome, to which Rhodes had allied itself. The Lycians were very resentful of this and spent the next two decades fighting against the Rhodesians and petitioning the Roman Senate. Finally in 167 BC, by a decision of the Senate, the Lycians’ independence was recognized and it was not incorporated into the Roman Empire until 74 BC.

The second half of the first century B.C. was a time in which Lycia was affected by internal conflicts and disturbances in Rome itself, from time to time even suffering disaster as a result. However the area again recovered its properity under Augustus (reigned 27 B.C. - 14 A.D.).

In 43 A.D. Claudius reduced Lycia to the status of a Roman province, and it was then administered by a governer whom the emperor appointed. During the first and second centuries A.D. a few of the Roman emperors, such as Vespasian, Traianus, and Hadrian, actually visited Lycia for various reasons. The period was again one in which the region developed and prospered and in which many public works were carried out.

As a natural outcome of this, culture, art, and daily life began to undergo a process of romanization. Lycian aristocrats from this time to on began to adopt Roman names, there was a demand for the wild animal fights and gladiatorial combat peculiar to Roman culture, and the emperor cult spread rapidly.

In 141 A.D. Lycia was levelled by a large earthquake, and its cities were rebuilt by Rome, along with the help of wealthy Lycians of high rank. From written sources we lear that after the earthquake a certain Opramoas, a wealthy man from Rhodiapolis, made a donation of 500,000 dinars toward the rebuilding of cities.

After a second earthquake in 240 A.D. some cities were unable to recover, and we see them gradually beginning to decline. Later, during the early Christian ear, conflicts and spread of Christianity brought about important cultural and social changes. Under the Byzantines, nearly all the ancient cities in the region became Byzantine settlements of greater or lesser importance. Here, Byzantine architectural forms were generally adopted for religious buildings. It is interesting, however, that while one finds carefully constructed monumental churches in Lycia's mountainous area in settlements so small that not even their names are known, the buildings on the coast, even large churches, are by contrast remarkable for their careless construction, often of rubble masonry.

Source : K. Dortluk