Pamphylia

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Map of Anatolia ancient regions

Pamphylia was a former region in the south of Asia Minor. It was also known as Attalia.

Variants of name

Location

Located between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus (modern-day Antalya province, Turkey). It was bounded on the north by Pisidia and was therefore a country of small extent, having a coast-line of only about 120 km with a breadth of about 50 km. Under the Roman administration the term Pamphylia was extended so as to include Pisidia and the whole tract up to the frontiers of Phrygia and Lycaonia, and in this wider sense it is employed by Ptolemy.[1]

Origin of Name

The name Pamphylia comes from the Greek Παμφυλία,[2] itself from Ancient Greek: πάμφυλος (pamphylos), literally "of mingled tribes or races",[3] a compound of πᾶν (pan), neuter of πᾶς (pas) "all"[4] + φυλή (phylē), "race, tribe".[5] Herodotus derived its etymology from a Dorian tribe, the Pamphyloi (Πάμφυλοι), who were said to have colonized the region.[6] The tribe, in turn, was said to be named after Pamphylos (Greek: Πάμφυλος), son of Aigimios.[7][8]

History

The Pamphylians were a mixture of aboriginal inhabitants, immigrant Cilicians (Greek: Κίλικες) and Greeks[9] who migrated there from Arcadia and the Peloponnese in the 12th century BC.[10] The significance of the Greek contribution to the origin of the Pamphylians can be attested alike by tradition and archaeology[11] and Pamphylia can be considered a Greek country from the early Iron Age until the early Middle Ages.[12] There can be little doubt that the Pamphylians and Pisidians were the same people, though the former had received colonies from Greece and other lands, and from this cause, combined with the greater fertility of their territory, had become more civilized than their neighbours in the interior. But the distinction between the two seems to have been established at an early period.

Herodotus, who does not mention the Pisidians, enumerates the Pamphylians among the nations of Asia Minor, while Ephorus mentions them both, correctly including the one among the nations on the coast, the other among those of the interior.[13]


A number of scholars have distinguished in the Pamphylian dialect important isoglosses with both Arcadian and Cypriot (Arcadocypriot Greek) which allow them to be studied together with the group of dialects sometimes referred to as Achaean since it was settled not only by Achaean tribes but also colonists from other Greek-speaking regions, Dorians and Aeolians.[14] The legend related by Herodotus and Strabo, which ascribed the origin of the Pamphylians to a colony led into their country by Amphilochus and Calchas after the Trojan War, is merely a characteristic myth.[15]


A treaty between the Hittite Great King Tudhaliya IV and his vassal, the king of Tarhuntassa, defined the latter's western border at the city "Parha" and the "Kastaraya River".[16] The river is assumed to be the classical Kestros (Turkish Aksu Çayı); Parha, the future Perge. West of Parha were the "Lukka Lands".[17] The Pamphylian language was likely a late Luwic dialect, related to Carian, Lycian, Lydian and/or Milyan.

When the region returns to history its population is "Pamphylian", that is Greek-speaking. On Cyrus's defeat of Croesus, Pamphylia passed to the Persian Empire. Darius included it in his first tax-district alongside Lycia, Magnesia, Ionia, Aeolia, Mysia, and Caria.[18] At some point between 468 and 465 BC, the Athenians under Cimon fought the Persians at the Eurymedon, and won; thus adding Pamphylia to their "Delian League" empire. Toward the end of the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians were weakened enough that the Persians were able to retake it.[19]

Upon Alexander's defeat of Darius III, Pamphylia passed back to Greek rule, now Macedonians. After the defeat of Antiochus III in 190 BC they were included among the provinces annexed by the Romans to the dominions of Eumenes of Pergamum; but somewhat later they joined with the Pisidians and Cilicians in piratical ravages, and Side became the chief centre and slave mart of these freebooters. Pamphylia was for a short time included in the dominions of Amyntas, king of Galatia, but after his death lapsed into a district of a Roman province.[20]

As of 1911, the district was largely peopled with recently settled Ottoman Muslims from Greece, Crete, and the Balkans, as a result of the long-term consequences of the Congress of Berlin and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. [21]

Ch 1.24 Alexander in Lycia and Pamphylia

Arrian[22] writes....Some of the Macedonians who served in Alexander's army had married just before he undertook the expedition. He thought that he ought not to treat these men with neglect, and therefore sent them back from Caria to spend the winter in Macedonia with their wives. He placed them under the command of Ptolemy, son of Seleucus, one of the royal body-guards, and of the two generals Coenus, son of Polemocrates, and Meleager, son of Neoptolemus, because they were also newly married. He gave these officers instructions to levy as many horse and foot soldiers as they could from the country, when they returned to him and brought back the men who had been sent away with them. By this act more than by any other Alexander acquired popularity among the Macedonians. He also sent Cleander, son of Polemocrates, to levy soldiers in Peloponnesus,[1] and Parmenio to Sardis, giving him the command of a regiment of the Cavalry Companions, the Thessalian cavalry, and the rest of the Grecian allies. He ordered him to take the wagons to Sardis and to advance from that place into Phrygia.

He himself marched towards Lycia and Pamphylia, in order to gain command of the coast-land, and by that means render the enemy's fleet useless. The first place on his route was Hyparna, a strong position, having a garrison of Grecian mercenaries; but he took it at the first assault, and allowed the Greeks to depart from the citadel under a truce. Then he invaded Lycia and brought over the Telmissians by capitulation; and crossing the river Xanthus, the cities of Pinara, Xanthus, Patara, and about thirty other smaller towns were surrendered to him.[2] Having accomplished this, though it was now the very depth of winter, he invaded the land called Milyas,[3] which is a part of Great Phrygia, but at that time paid tribute to Lycia, according to an arrangement made by the Great King. Hither came envoys from the Phaselites,[4] to treat for his friendship, and to crown him with a golden crown; and the majority of the maritime Lycians also sent heralds to him as ambassadors to treat for the same object. He ordered the Phaselites and Lycians to surrender their cities to those who were despatched by him to receive them; and they were all surrendered. He soon afterwards arrived himself at Phaselis, and helped the men of that city to capture a strong fort which had been constructed by the Pisidians to overawe the country; and sallying forth from which those barbarians used to inflict much damage upon the Phaselites who tilled the land.[5]

1. See Arrian, ii. 20 infra.

2. The Marmarians alone defended their city with desperate valour. They finally set fire to it, and escaped through the Macedonian camp to the mountains. See Diodorus (xvii. 28). As to Xanthus the river, see Homer (Iliad, ii. 877; vi. 172); Horace (Carm., iv. 6, 26).

3. Lycia was originally called Milyas; but the name was afterwards applied to the high table in the north of Lycia, extending into Pisidia. See Herodotus, i. 173.

4. Phaselis was a seaport of Lycia on the Gulf of Pamphylia. It is now called Tekrova.

5. He also crowned with garlands the statue of Theodectes the rhetorician, which the people of Phaselis, his native city, had erected to his memory. This man was a friend and pupil of Aristotle, the tutor of Alexander. See Plutarch (Life of Alex., 17); Aristotle (Nicom. Ethics, vii. 7).

p.66-68

References

  1. ↑ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pamphylia". Encyclopædia Britannica. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 662.
  2. ↑ Παμφυλία, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
  3. ↑ Παμφυλία, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
  4. ↑ Παμφυλία, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
  5. ↑ Παμφυλία, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
  6. ↑ Herodotus, The Histories, 5.68
  7. ↑ Πάμφυλος, William J. Slater, Lexicon to Pindar, on Perseus
  8. ↑ George Grote : A History of Greece. p. 286; Irad Malkin : Myth and Territory in the Spartan Mediterranean. Cambridge U Pr, 2003. p. 41.
  9. ↑ Pamphylia, Encyclopædia Britannica
  10. ↑ Ahmad Hasan Dani, Jean-Pierre Mohen, J. L. Lorenzo, and V. M. Masson, History of Humanity-Scientific and Cultural Development: From the Third Millennium to the Seventh Century B.C (Vol II), UNESCO, 1996, p.425
  11. ↑ Arnold Hugh Martin Jones, The cities of the eastern Roman provinces, Clarendon Press, 1971, p.123
  12. ↑ John D. Grainger, The cities of Pamphylia, Oxbow Books, 2009, p.27
  13. ↑ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pamphylia". Encyclopædia Britannica. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 662.
  14. ↑ A.-F. Christidis, A History of Ancient Greek: From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity, Cambridge University Press, 2007, p.427
  15. ↑ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pamphylia". Encyclopædia Britannica. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 662.
  16. ↑ G. Beckman (1996). Hittite diplomatic texts. Atlanta., no. 18C
  17. ↑ J. David Hawkins (2009). "The Arzawa letters in recent perspective". British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan. 14: 73–83., 75
  18. ↑ Herodotus. Histories.
  19. ↑ Jona Lendering - Livius.org, http://www.livius.org/articles/place/pamphylia/?
  20. ↑ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pamphylia". Encyclopædia Britannica. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 662.
  21. ↑ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pamphylia". Encyclopædia Britannica. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 662.
  22. ↑ Arrian:The Anabasis of Alexander/1b, Ch.24
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