OLYMPOS
(Deliktaş) Turkey.
City on the E
coast of Lycia near Çirali, close to a mountain of the
same name, probably the modern Tahtali Dağ. Its existence is not attested before the 2d c. B.C., when it issued
coins of Lycian League type; about 100 B.C. it was one
of the six members of the League which had three votes
in the assembly (Strab. 665, quoting Artemidoros). A
little later it was occupied by the pirate chieftain Zeniketes until he was suppressed by Servilius Isauricus in 78 B.C.; Cicero called it an ancient city, rich and well furnished in every way. Later it was readmitted to the
League, and remained a respected member under the
Empire. In the hills nearby was (and still is) the remarkable perpetual fire which issues from the ground; the spot,
sometimes called in antiquity Chimaera, was sacred to
Hephaistos, whose cult was most important at Olympos.
In the 2d c. A.D. the city received from Opramoas of
Rhodiapolis a donation of 12,000 den. for the festival
of the god. Evidently those authors (Pliny, Solinus) who
speak of Olympos as having ceased to exist are wide of
the mark; the mistake seems to have arisen from a misconception of the effects of the capture by Servilius.
Among the bishops of Olympos the most distinguished
was Methodius, about A.D. 300. The coinage, apart from
the League types, is confined, as usual in Lycia, to the
time of Gordian III.
The ruins lie on either bank at the mouth of a small
stream, and are heavily overgrown; the principal occupation was on the N. The acropolis hill, low but steep,
is covered with remains of buildings of poor quality and
of late date; a little inland is a lake, now hardly more
than a marsh, on whose shore stands a handsome doorway, apparently belonging to a temple of which nothing
more survives. There are remains of other buildings in
the heavy growth. On the S bank of the stream are the
remains of a quay (?) in coursed polygonal masonry, a
small theater, poorly preserved, and the main necropolis, where a multitude of tombs has produced 217 inscriptions. Many of the tombs are vaulted chambers
coated with white plaster; none are of Lycian type, and
Lycian names are uncommon in the epitaphs. Olympos was not by origin a Lycian city, and no Lycian inscriptions have been found there.
The Hephaistion (Chimaera, called Yanar by the
Turks) is a walk of an hour and a half to the NW some
250 m above sea level, and is approached by an ancient
paved way. The fire is quite small, burning in a hole in
the ground, and is unspectacular by day. Of the sanctuary
of Hephaistos nothing remains but a few inscriptions,
none relating to the fire or sanctuary; there are also some
shapeless fragments of masonry from ruined buildings
of the late Middle Ages.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
F. Beaufort,
Karamania (1811) 35;
T.A.B. Spratt & E. Forbes,
Travels in Lycia I (1847)
191-94;
TAM II, 3 (1944) pp. 362-63, 408-9; G. E. Bean,
Turkey's Southern Shore (1968) 165-73.
G. E. BEAN
