Εμφανίζονται 4 τίτλοι με αναζήτηση: Ιστορία στην ευρύτερη περιοχή: "ΚΑΡΙΑ Αρχαία χώρα ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ" .
ΚΑΡΙΑ (Αρχαία χώρα) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Caria: the southwest of modern Turkey,
incorporated in c.545 BCE the ancient Achaemenid empire as the satrapy Karka.
Its capital was Halicarnassus
(modern Bodrum), which had been originally been founded by the Greeks. In Antiquity,
the Carians were famous mercenaries.
Early history
Caria and the Carians are mentioned for the first time in the cuneiform
texts of the Old Assyrian and Hethite Empires, i.e., between c.1800 and c.1200.
The country was called Karkissa. They are absent from the Egyptian texts of this
period.
After a gap of some four centuries in which they are mentioned only
once, the first to mention the Carians is the legendary Greek poet Homer. In the
so-called Catalogue of ships, he tells that they lived in Miletus,
on the Mycale peninsula,
and along the river Meander. In the Trojan war, they had, according to the poet,
sided with the Trojans (Homer, Iliad, 2.867ff). This is a remarkable piece of
information, because in Homer's days, Miletus was considered a Greek town; the
fact that it is called Carian indicates that the catalogue of ships contains some
very old information. In the fifth century, the Greeks thought that the Carians
had arrived in Caria from the islands of the Ionian
Sea, whereas the Carians claimed to be indigenous. Homer confirms their story.
It is also confirmed by modern linguistics: the Carian language belongs
to the Hittite-Luwian subfamily of the Indo-European languages. It is related
to Lycian and Lydian, the languages spoken to the southeast and north of Caria.
Had the Carians arrived in their country from the west, their language would have
been closer to Greek.
It seems that the Greeks settled on the coast in the dark ages between
c.1200 and c.800, where they and the Carians mixed. The Roman author Vitruvius
mentions fights at Mycale (On architecture 4.1.3-5). According to the Greek researcher
Herodotus of Halicarnassus (fifth century BCE), the inhabitants of Miletus spoke
Greek with a Carian accent (Histories 1.142). Herodotus himself is also a good
example of the close ties between the Carians and Greeks: his father is called
Lyxes, which is the Greek rendering of a good Carian name, Lukhsu. Because of
his descent and birth place, Herodotus is one of our most important sources.
Caria is, like Greece,
a country of mountains and valleys, poor in agricultural and other resources -
in comparison with Egypt and Babylonia a backward country. Hilltops were fortified
and there were several villages in the valleys, but there were hardly any cities.
Because of their disparate country, the Carians were divided; when they learned
to read and write, every village used its own version of the Phoenician alphabet.
What united the Carians, however, was their religion. One of their
ritual centers was Mylasa, where they venerated a male supreme god, called 'the
Carian Zeus' by Herodotus. Unlike his Greek colleague, this Zeus was an army god.
One of the Carian goddesses was Hecate, who was responsible for road crossings
and became notorious in Greece as the source of witchcraft. Herodotus calls her
Athena and tells that her priestess got a beard when a disaster was appending
(Histories 8.104). On mount Latmos
near Miletus, the Carians venerated Endymion, who had been the lover of the Moon
and had procreated as many children as there are days in the year. Endymion was
sleeping eternally, a story that the Greeks told about Zeus' father Kronos.
Pharaoh's mercenaries
Like the Swiss, the Gurkha's, and other mountain people, the Carians
were forced to become mercenaries. Their country was too poor to maintain a large
population, and younger sons went overseas to build a new future. They were military
specialists and it is no coincidence that Herodotus writes that the Greeks had
been indebted to the Carians for three military inventions: making shields with
handles, putting devices on shields, and fitting crests on helmets (Histories
1.175). Because of this last invention, the Persians called the Carians 'cocks'.
The first reference to Carian mercenaries can be found in the Bible:
in 2 Kings 11.4, we read about Carians in Judah. (This may look strange, but it
fits the picture: according to 2 Samuel 8.18, king David had a guard of Cretans.)
The books of Kings were probably composed in the sixth century, but the information
stems from older sources; this is the only mentioning of the Carians in the dark
ages.
The Carians, however, were especially famous because they served the
Egyptian pharaoh. Our main source is, again, Herodotus. He tells us that the first
to employ these men was pharaoh Psammetichus I (664-610; Histories 2.152), probably
at the beginning of his reign. Some circumstantial evidence supports Herodotus'
words, because archaeologists have discovered several settlements in the western
part of the delta of the Nile that were founded by people from the Aegean.
These settlements can be dated in the seventh century.
The Carians remained active in Egyptian service. They are known to
have fought against the Nubians (in modern Sudan) in c.593; on their return, they
visited Assuan and left inscriptions. According to an Egyptian stela now in Cairo,
they played an important role during the coup d' etat of Amasis (570), who gave
the Carians a new base near the Egyptian capital Memphis.
When the Persian king Cambyses invaded Egypt in 525 BCE, the Carian
contingents were still there, serving king Psammetichus III. According to Herodotus
(Histories 3.11), they sacrificed children before they offered battle against
the invaders.
They managed to switch sides, however. (They were not the only ones:
even the commander of Egyptian navy, Wedjahor-Resenet, deserted his king.) In
Egyptian sources from the Persian age, we still find Carians, now serving a new
lord. One of the latest examples is an Aramaic papyrus dated to January 12, 411.
Seven years later, the Egyptians became independent again; this time, the Carians
were unable to switch sides. The collaborators must have been dismissed.
The Persian period
Meanwhile, their homeland had been subjected to the Persians. This
happened in 544 or 543. In 547, the Persian king Cyrus the Great had defeated
the powerful king of Lydia,
Croesus, who had had some influence in Caria. Next year, the Lydians revolted,
but Cyrus sent his general Harpagus, who subjected them again. This time, he also
took the Greek cities on the coast and then moved to the south, where he subdued
the Carians and the Lycians.
The Carians offered their services to their new masters. They are
mentioned in cuneiform documents from Borsippa in Babylonia and from the Persian
capital Persepolis. When
the Macedonian king Alexander the Great conquered the Achaemenid empire, he discovered
a Carian settlement in the neighborhood of modern Baghdad.
These Carians can not have been deported from their homeland, but must have formed
a military colony, because it was a very strategic place, commanding the so-called
Silk road.
Initially, the Carians seem to have retained some kind of independence.
In the Behistun inscription, which was made in 520 BCE, they are not mentioned
among the nations subject to king Darius the Great. After 499, they joined the
revolt of the Ionians against the Persians. They were twice defeated by the Persians,
but in a third battle they annihilated their enemies - not even their generals
survived. Although Darius and his successors have claimed overlordship, it seems
that the Carians were always able to keep a certain independence. The Persians
knew that they were good soldiers, and after all, their country was poor, so there
was no need to really conquer it. However, the Persians were present. In 1974,
archaeologists have found a threelingual inscription from the time Artaxerxes
IV Arses in Xanthus (in the southeast) and one of the languages was Aramaic, the
language of the Persian bureaucracy. The center of the Persian administration
in Caria was Halicarnassus.
However, after 469/466, parts of Caria were conquered by the Athenians.
They remained more or less loyal to these Greeks until 412, when they returned
to Persia. Again, they retained
some freedom.
The Hecatomnid dynasty
At the beginning of the fourth century, the Carians gained even more
independence: they were ruled by satraps of Carian descent. The first of these
was Hecatomnus of Mylasa
(391-377), who was not only satrap of Caria, but also of Miletus. He seems to
have been fascinated by Greek culture, but was loyal to the Persian king and -from
a religious point of view- always remained a Carian.
He was succeeded by his son Maussolus. When he became sole ruler,
the Achaemenid empire was in decline, but Maussolus remained loyal. For instance,
he fought for the great king against Ariobarzanes, a rebel satrap in the northwest
of modern Turkey (365). But
almost immediately after this war, he took part in the so-called Revolt of the
Satraps: Maussolus, Orontes of Armenia, Autophradates of Lydia and Datames of
northern Turkey joined forces against their king, with support of the pharaohs
of Egypt, Nectanebo I, Teos, and Nectanebo II. Although they were defeated, king
Artaxerxes III Ochus had to retain Maussolus as satrap of Caria. Even though the
Persians retained a garrison at Halicarnassus, Maussolus had in fact become independent,
and several ancient sources call him 'king'.
One of the most remarkable aspects of his reign is his strict adherence
to the ancient cults of Caria. Although it was not unusual for the dynasts of
what is now Turkey to sacrifice to the Persian supreme god Ahuramazda, or to venerate
the Greek gods, none of these religious beliefs can be attested for Maussolus.
In 357, he helped the Athenian allies, who had revolted against Athens.
Some of these allies -Chios,
Kos, Rhodes
and Byzantium- became federates
of Maussolus. This was his usual policy: he ruled Caria, had allies abroad, and
left the towns in his territory more or less autonomous. This model was copied
by later rulers.
Between 370 and 365, Maussolus returned the Carian residence to Halicarnassus.
(His father had resided in Mylasa.) The city was fortified with modern walls and
received many new inhabitants. Its most famous building was the monument that
the satrap built for himself, which has become known as the Mausoleum. It was
considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
Maussolus died in 353. He was succeeded by his sister (and wife) Artemisia
-she invited Greek artists to finish he Mausoleum-, his brothers Idrieus and Pixodarus
and finally his younger sister Ada. They were quarreling. When Alexander the Great
approached Caria in 334, Ada opened negotiations and became the new queen of Caria.
Hecatomnus | 391-377 |
Maussolus | 377-353 |
Artemisia | 353-351 |
Idrieus | 351-344 |
Ada (first reign) | 344-340 |
Pixodarus | 340-334 |
Ada (second reign) | 334-326? |
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
The cities of Lycia and of Caria, along with Cos and Rhodes, were overthrown by a violent earthquake that smote them. These cities also were restored by the emperor Antoninus, who was keenly anxious to rebuild them, and devoted vast sums to this task
Among those who inhabit it (Caria) are certain Cnidians, colonists from Lacedaemon.
Cyrus, finding the nations in Asia also independent in exactly the same way, started out with a little band of Persians and became the leader of the Medes by their full consent and of the Hyrcanians by theirs; he then conquered Syria, Assyria, Arabia, Cappadocia, both Phrygias, Lydia, Caria, Phoenicia, and Babylonia; he ruled also over Bactria, India, and Cilicia; and he was likewise king of the Sacians, Paphlagonians, Magadidae, and very many other nations, of which one could not even tell the names; he brought under his sway the Asiatic Greeks also; and, descending to the sea, he added both Cyprus and Egypt to his empire.
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