Location information

Laertes

LAERTI (Ancient city) TURKEY
Laertes. City of Cilicia Aspera or Pamphylia, almost certainly at a site high up on the mountain of Cebelires, 17 km E of Alanya and ca. 750 m above sea level. The 40 inscriptions found on the spot do not name the city, but the position agrees reasonably well with the location of Laertes in the Stadiasmus (207) as 100 stades from Korakesion (Alanya), and Alexander Polyistor ap. Steph. Byz. s.v. speaks of a mountain and city of Laertes. Strabo (669: the passage is confused) also places Laertes E of Korakesion. The coinage is Imperial only, of the 2d and 3d c., but the city is not mentioned either in Hierokles or in the Notitae.
  The city lay on a shoulder of the mountain at the foot of the summit peak, which rises some 600 m higher. It is approached by a gully from the SE; this route is defended by two spaced towers, and by a stretch of wall where it reaches the city. The remainder of the site seems never to have had a fortification wall, but at the SE corner there is a good-sized fortress, below which is an underground building consisting of three vaulted passages, perhaps a storehouse. On the N side of the site are remains of a long paved street originally lined with numerous statues, many of Roman emperors. On the S side of this street stood a building approached by steps, possibly a council house; here also were numerous statues. Farther W is an open space, perhaps an agora, bordered by a long pavement; at the N end of this is an exedra and at the S end a large building with an apse at its W end, comprising a complex of halls. This part of the site is covered with ruins of houses and other buildings. The main necropolis is on the mountain slope S of the city.

G. E. Bean, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites, Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.

• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Per...