Kibyra

Cibyra or Kibyra (Greek: Κίβυρα), also referred to as Cibyra Magna, was an Ancient Greek city near the modern town of Gölhisar, in Burdur Province. It lay outside the north-western limits of the ancient province of Lycia and was the chief city of an independent state known as Cibyratis. Since 2016 it has been included in the Tentative list of World Heritage Sites in Turkey.

Location

The site is identified by its inscriptions.

The Cibyratic plain is about 300 m above sea level. Cibyratis comprised the highest part of the basin of the Xanthus (river), and all the upper and probably the middle part of the basin of the Indus river, for Strabo describes Cibyratis as reaching the Rhodian Peraea. Mount Cragus (Babadağ) at 6,500 feet (1,969 m) bounded it on the west and separated it from Caria. Pliny's brief description states that the river Indus, which rises in the hills of the Cibyratae, has sixty perennial tributaries.

History

The city is mentioned by ancient literary sources. According to Strabo, the Cibyratae (Ancient Greek: Κιβυρᾶται) were said to be descendants of Lydians who migrated and occupied the Cibyratis region and subdued the neighbouring Pisidians. A short time after their arrival they moved their settlement to a new city. The move to the city is supported by archaeological finds at the Uytuptnar site about 18 km away from Cibyra where ruins from the early Iron Age were probably the previous settlements dating from around 3-4th c. BC before the great move.

During Eumenes II sovereignty (197-159 BC), Cibyra seems to have been ruled by the Kingdom of Pergamon.

The city grew to be powerful in the second century BC, Ancient sources and other written documents indicate that Kibyra was famous for its blacksmithing, leather processing and horse breeding. Other research shows that pottery production was very intense in the area also. Its territory extended between Pisidia and the adjoining Milyas to Lycia and the Peraea of the Rhodians. At this time it joined with three neighbouring Lycian towns, Bubon, Balbura, and Oenoanda, to form a confederation called the Tetrapolis. Within this confederation, the other three cities had one vote, but Cibyra had two votes, since it could muster 30,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry.

Cibyra is first mentioned by Livy in his account of Ganaeus Manlius Vulso's operations in 189 BC during the Galatian War. Manlius approached Cibyra from the upper part of the Maeander river valley and through Caria. He probably advanced upon it by the valley of Karaook, through which a road led from Cibyra to Laodicea on the Lycus. Manlius demanded and got from Moagetes I, the tyrant of Cibyra, 100 talents and 10,000 medimni of wheat. Livy says that Moagetes controlled Syleum and Alimne, in addition to Cibyra. William Smith suggested that Alimne could be identified with the remains of a large town on an island in lake Gölhisar (east of modern Gölhisar), which were connected to the mainland by an ancient causeway.

Following the Treaty of Apamea in 188 BC, Cibyra became part of the Attalid Kingdom.

Roman Rule

In 133 BC, the last Attalid king, Attalus III left his kingdom to the Roman Republic, which reconstituted it as the province of Asia. It is not clear whether Cibyra formed part of the new province or was granted its freedom like the rest of Lycia.

In 83 BC, during the First Mithridatic War, the Roman general Lucius Licinius Murena deposed the last tyrant of Cibyra, Moagetes II, who was the son of one Pancrates, and dissolved the Tetrapolis. Balbura and Bubon were assigned to the Lycian League.

Writing at the beginning of the 1st century AD, Strabo says that the Cibyratae spoke four languages: Pisidian, Solymian, Greek, and Lydian. This makes Cibyra the last locality where the Lydian language, by then extinct in Lydia itself according to extant accounts, is attested.

Cibyra was heavily damaged by an earthquake in 23 AD in the time of Tiberius, who recommended a Senatus Consultum be enacted relieving it from payment of taxes (tributum) for three years. In the passage discussing these events, Tacitus calls it the civitas Cibyratica apud Asiam (Cibyratic community in Asia). Most of the buildings preserved in the city were erected after the earthquake. Subsequent Roman emperors assisted in reconstruction of the city, particularly Claudius after whom the grateful citizens added Caesarea to its name as indicated by an inscription referring to "The Council and People of the Caesarean Cibyrites" (Καισαρεων Κιβυρατων ἡ βουλη και ὁ δημος) and by the legend "Caesareans" (Καισαρεων), which appears on some of the coins of Cibyra. They also initiated games and started dating a new era from the year of 25 AD.

Hadrian, while travelling through the eastern provinces of the Empire, arrived at Kibyra in 129 and granted many privileges to its inhabitants.

Cibyra was the centre of a conventus (an assize district), which contained twenty-five cities, according to Pliny the Elder. Laodicea on the Lycus was one of the chief cities of this Conventus.

The poet Horace mentions Cibyra as a place of great trade William Smith notes that its position does not seem very favourable for commerce, since it is neither on the sea nor on a great road, and suggests that the city might have exported grain of the Indus valley. Iron ore was plentiful in Cibyratis and a peculiarity was that its iron was easily cut with a chisel, or other sharp tool.

Two artists of Cibyra were more famous for their knavery than for their artistic skill.

Another earthquake struck in 417 and the city could not all be rebuilt. The last residents left the city in the 8th century for the settlement of Horzum now known as Gölhisar.

Archaeological remains

The ruins cover the crest of a hill between 300 and 400 feet above the level of the plain. The stone for the buildings is limestone from the neighbourhood. There are no traces of city walls.