LAERTES
Turkey.
City of Cilicia Aspera or
Pamphylia, almost certainly at a site high up on the
mountain of Cebelireş, 17 km E of Alânya and ca. 750 m
above sea level. The 40 inscriptions found on the spot
do not name the city, but the position agrees reasonably
well with the location of Laertes in the
Stadiasmus (207)
as 100 stades from Korakesion (Alânya), and Alexander
Polyistor ap. Steph. Byz. s.v. speaks of a mountain and
city of Laertes. Strabo (669: the passage is confused)
also places Laertes E of Korakesion. The coinage is Imperial only, of the 2d and 3d c., but the city is not
mentioned either in Hierokles or in the
Notitae.
The city lay on a shoulder of the mountain at the foot
of the summit peak, which rises some 600 m higher. It
is approached by a gully from the SE; this route is
defended by two spaced towers, and by a stretch of wall
where it reaches the city. The remainder of the site seems
never to have had a fortification wall, but at the SE corner there is a good-sized fortress, below which is an
underground building consisting of three vaulted passages, perhaps a storehouse. On the N side of the site
are remains of a long paved street originally lined with
numerous statues, many of Roman emperors. On the S
side of this street stood a building approached by steps,
possibly a council house; here also were numerous statues. Farther W is an open space, perhaps an agora, bordered by a long pavement; at the N end of this is an exedra and at the S end a large building with an apse at its
W end, comprising a complex of halls. This part of the
site is covered with ruins of houses and other buildings.
The main necropolis is on the mountain slope S of the
city.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
G. E. Bean & T. B. Mitford,
AnatSt 12
(1962) 194-206; id.,
Journeys in Rough Cilicia 1964-1968 (1970) 94-105.
G. E. BEAN
