Xanthos

Excluding sites like Göbekli Tepe and Çatalhöyük, Xanthos’ history is one of the most ancient in modern-day Turkey. Finds have been dated to the 8th Century BC, but it is likely its roots stretch back well into the Bronze Age.

Xanthos was the capital of the huge territory of Lycia – an independent kingdom which, for many years, kept the Roman Empire at bay through political trust and the creation of a federation.

Xanthos’, and thus Lycia’s, independence can be demonstrated by a dreadfully sad and barbaric story:  In 540 BC the Persians brought a massive army to the doors of the Lycian city. After a brutal battle, the outnumbered Lycians were blockaded inside the city and forced onto the acropolis in a desperate last stand. But instead of allowing fate to take its course, all the women, children and slaves were placed in a central location and burned to death by their own men, before the men sacrificed themselves with one last assault on the mighty Persian army outside. This horrendous story is known because about 80 families were “elsewhere” during the battle, and it was they who returned later to rebuild the city. Tragically, this story would repeat itself…

Following the period of Persian domination, Alexander the Great took Xanthos in 334 BC, and thus the city was controlled by the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Later the city came under control of King Antiochus III, who ruled between 222 – 187 BC, but as an inscription on the northern door of the city states, “The Great King Antiochus dedicates the city to Leto, Apollon and Artemis”. This inscription indicates Antiochus realised the city could never be taken by force and thus chose to reconcile with the Xanthians. I sit here while writing this account and think to myself that the souls of those poor dead women and children, through some kind of powerful force, would never allow any invading army to depose the people of Xanthos…

And thus, in 42 BC, the city was surrounded by Marcus Junius Brutus.  Brutus, a Roman politician, was one of the main conspirators behind the assassination of Julius Caesar, which had occurred two years earlier in 44 BC, and thus his own death bed was never going to be too far away. For his struggle against the triumvirate that hunted the conspirators down, Brutus sought financial and military aid to help with his fight against Mark Antony and history, unbeknown to Brutus, was about to repeat itself. After many days of arduous fighting the people of Xanthos knew their fate was not a good one and thus, tragically, mass-suicide was once again the favoured way out. When the city fell, Brutus saw the body of a woman hanging by the neck. In her arms were the torch she used to burn down her house, and her dead baby. Brutus was so shocked by what he saw, with tears in his eyes he ordered his soldiers to find as many Xanthians alive as possible, and offered rewards for those that did. By the end of the barbarity, only 150 breathing Xanthians were found. Irony, a common feature of history, was about to rear its head once again, for Brutus himself committed suicide the very same year when he was defeated by Mark Antony and Octavian at the Battle of Philippi in Greece.

The second Xanthian mass-suicide was forever noted in a poem found on a tablet among the ruins of the city when excavations were carried out. The poem reads:

We made our houses graves
And our graves are homes to us
Our houses burned down
And our graves were looted
We climbed to the summits
We went deep into the earth
We were drenched in water
They came and got us
They burned and destroyed us
They plundered us
And we,
For the sake of our mothers,
Our women,
And for the sake of our dead,
And we,
In the name of our honour
And our freedom,
We, the people of this land,
Who sought mass suicide
We left a fire behind us,
Never to die out…

This poem graphically and poignantly portrays the fear and terror of those days fighting for their lives against Brutus. It says after their houses were burned they tried to escape up onto the acropolis and also hide in secret tunnels that were filled with water. But all to no avail. They were found and brought back out again. It also suggests the mass suicide that was carried out by the people left an indelible mark in the memory of its descendants – the witnesses who survived – and they hoped the horrendous fire would, metaphorically at least, never die out.

After the second tragedy, the Lycian League revived the city once again, and Xanthos continued to be the most important city of the independent state.

In the same year they invaded Britain – 43 AD – the Romans annexed the whole of Lycia. Never exactly “invading” the territory due to a treaty, the Romans incorporated the city states into its own empire by trade agreements and assistance. War was never an option for the Romans against the Lycians. Perhaps the sacrifice of those who died in the two previous mass suicides was never in vain – maybe the Romans realised there would be no point in destroying everything, for it was surely known the Lycians would always resort to killing their own women and children if attacked. Is this a demonstration of the morals of ancient warfare, one wonders, or was the Roman way of pacifying the countries they invaded more favourable than outright murder? The Romans never feared meting out horrendous punishments and death to those who opposed them, and yet at the same time warfare and murder was often the last thing they wanted. That duality of Roman tactics seems rather schizophrenic, although the choice to attack or pacify may have been a reflection of the resources at their disposal at any given time.

In the 2nd Century the Romans built the theatre and also the agora directly in front of it. The Roman acropolis was built on the larger hill opposite. It’s not certain whether the Roman acropolis was favoured due its higher position, or whether superstition and the ghosts of the past meant they would never use the Xanthian acropolis. During the later Byzantine period, however, a new road was created which connected the city to the necropolis, and a church was built on the ground of the original Lycian acropolis. Perhaps the new Christian faith would finally lay the souls to rest…

My visit to Xanthos was a perfect sunny day on Sunday 15 March, 2015. The area was devoid of tourists and thus the entire Lycian acropolis, Roman theatre and Byzantine Church were viewed alone. This is the reason I visit sites out of tourist season where possible – to truly feel a site properly one must tune into its energy. That is impossible to do with hundreds of people roaming around and screaming children enjoying a clamber over ancient walls. I didn’t walk to the top of the Roman acropolis, for tiredness was taking its toll and soon a day’s rest was required, but I did see some of the necropolis and spent most of my time behind the theatre – standing alone on top of the Xanthian acropolis I didn’t feel any sad emotions. Unlike places like the Somme, which perhaps have a powerful energy due to their closeness to us in time, I found Xanthos to be a peaceful, silent and thoughtful place. Certainly after the previous 24 hours of freezing cold mountainous areas, the blissful heat and the blazing sun meant sitting among the ruins was more pleasurable than sombre. I sincerely hope all those poor souls were able to free themselves from the tragedies at Xanthos.

 

References:

Tor, Kemal Hakki. Shiny Territory in Anatolia: Lycia. 2012. Ten Books, Antalya, Turkey

http://www.lycianturkey.com/lycian_sites/xanthos.htm

http://lycianturkey.com/who_were_the_lycians.htm

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Marcus-Junius-Brutus

http://www.britannica.com/place/Philippi-Greece