Sites and Strongholds of Northern Lydia

Abstract

A remote mountainous region of Lydia, rarely visited and hardly known to history, contains antiquities which form the subject of the present study. This was an area where classical culture was slow to penetrate, but when it did take root, it produced a remarkable number of inscriptions which are comprised in an exemplary modern corpus. The inscriptions illustrate conditions in Hellenistic and especially Roman times, with only an occasional glimpse into later ages. Their relative abundance has made the country better known to epigraphists than others, but remains of a different kind, worthy of a closer examination, also exist. Some of these are Hellenistic, but most are late, reaching far beyond the bounds of classical Antiquity, yet by their nature illustrating the change and decline which that culture underwent in this corner of Lydia.