KASTABOS
(Pazarlik) Turkey.
City in Caria
above Hisarönü, 13 km SW of Marmaris. Until the site
was identified in 1960 Kastabos was known only from
three sources: 1) a Rhodian inscription found on the
island of Megista; 2) a Rhodian decree, found at Gölenye near Marmaris, which locates Kastabos on the territory of the deme of Bybassos; 3) a passage of Diodoros
(5.62-63) which places the sanctuary of Hemithea at
Kastabos in the Carian Chersonese. The site at Pazarlik
was visited in 1860, and a temple, theater, and other
remains including a female statue were reported; it was
supposed to be the grove of Leto mentioned in Strabo
(
652). Excavation after WW II revealed an inscription
recording that the temple was dedicated to Hemithea,
proving that Kastabos was at Pazarhk and that the fortified site at Hisarönü is Bybassos.
Diodoros' account is remarkably detailed. The sanctuary, he says, in the course of time became highly esteemed and visited by pilgrims from far and near who
made splendid sacrifices and rich offerings so that the
place was filled with dedications although not protected
by guardians or any strong wall. Such was its reputation
that neither the Persians nor the pirates touched it, vulnerable as it was. The goddess had great powers of healing, especially for women in childbirth; standing over the
sleeping patients she treated them in person and had
cured many desperate cases. The Gölenye inscription
confirms this popularity, recording that the crowds were
so great that they could not be accommodated in the
existing buildings, and revenue was being lost.
The temple stood on a platform; it succeeded a simple
shrine about 5 m square on the hilltop, the sanctuary
which had been spared by the Persians. The platform and
temple were apparently constructed in the latter part of
the 4th c. The platform, some 53 by 34 m, is supported
by high walls of local limestone with masonry varying
from ashlar to coursed polygonal. The temple was Ionic,
with a peristyle of 12 columns by 6, a cella, and a deep
pronaos with two columns in antis; there was no opisthodomos. The cella door seems to have been decorated
with engaged columns and stood on a high threshold
necessitating steps up from the pronaos. Close to this
threshold, in the middle of the pronaos and blocking
direct approach to the cella door, was a puteal consisting
of a circular plinth surmounted by a round monument
adorned with half-lifesize figures in relief. Judging from
its position this is probably a later addition to the
pronaos. At the back of the cella stood a small naiskos
1.22 m wide, which evidently housed the cult statue. Of
the whole temple hardly more than the foundation survives.
Round three sides of the platform ran a screen wall,
poorly preserved; along this at intervals were placed at
least five small buildings, aediculae, of unequal size and
uncertain purpose. And on the E, adjoining the outer
side of the screen wall, were two larger buildings, also
of unequal size; the larger could possibly have served for
purposes of incubation, but more likely both rooms were
intended for the personnel of the temple. Built into a
wall of the larger building, facing the temple, was an
inscription recording the dedication of the temple to
Hemithea by a man of Hygassos; another inscription
from the screen wall named the architects, two men of
Halikarnassos.
Outside the temple platform a few foundations are
recognizable, but the only identifiable building is the theater, a short way down the slope to the SW. The cavea,
facing approximately W, was roughly constructed, but
only a small part has been excavated.
We learn from the Gölenye inscription that in the first
half of the 2d c. B.C. considerable improvements were
made to provide for the crowds and to render the sanctuary more worthy of the goddess; but in the damaged
condition of the text it is not clear what steps were taken.
Soon after this the sanctuary began to decline, no doubt
largely because of the contemporary decline of the
Rhodian state itself, and by the Roman period there is
little evidence to suggest that the cult of Hemithea continued even to exist.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
T.A.B. Spratt,
Archaeologia 49 (1886)
351-54; H. Collitz,
Sammlung d. griechischen Dialektinschriften III (1899) 4332; P. M. Fraser & G. E. Bean,
The Rhodian Peraea (1954) 24-27; Bean,
Turkey beyond
the Maeander (1971) 162-65; J. M. Cook & W. H. Plommer,
The Sanctuary of Hemithea at Kastabos (1966)
MI.
G. E. BEAN