RHODIAPOLIS
Lycia, Turkey.
Among the hills
some 6.5 km N-NW of Kumluca. According to Theopompos the city was named after Rhode, daughter of
Mopsos; this however is no more than the usual eponymous fabrication, and the foundation from Rhodes which
the name implies is generally accepted. Its existence in
the 4th c. B.C. is proved by two rock tombs carrying epitaphs in the Lycian language; these are almost the only
Lycian inscriptions yet found E of the Alagir Çayi (generally identified with the ancient Limyros). Coinage
began in the Hellenistic period with issues of Lycian
League type; under the Empire it is confined, as elsewhere in Lycia, to Gordian III. Later, the bishop of Rhodiapolis ranked twenty-sixth under the metropolitan of Myra.
The extant ruins are mostly of late date and somewhat unimpressive. The theater is in moderate preservation, with 16 rows of seats and some remains of the stage building; in front of it stood the well-known funerary
monument of Opramoas, the local millionaire philanthropist. The inscription on this is among the longest known,
covering three sides of the building (
TAM 11.3.905); it
records the honors conferred on Opramoas and the benefactions, in the form of money, bestowed by him on most
of the Lycian cities. Among numerous buildings, largely
built with small stones and mortar, a Temple of Asklepios
and Hygieia is identified by inscriptions. There are remains of two stoas, and to the NW of the city some piers of an aqueduct. On the summit of the hill is a solid rectangular tower. There is no sign of a city wall.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
T.A.B. Spratt & E. Forbes,
Travels in
Lycia (1847) I 165, 181-83
M; E. Petersen & F. von
Luschan,
Reisen in Lykien (1889) II 76-137;
TAM 11.3
(1940) 326.
G. E. BEAN
