PHYSKOS
(Marmaris) Turkey.
Town in Caria,
the most important deme of the Rhodian Peraea, attached to the city of Lindos. An inscription shows that
it was incorporated in the Rhodian state at least by the
mid 4th c. B.C. It fell normally under the command of
a hagemon of Apeiros, Physkos, and Chersonasos, and
is the only Peraean deme except Kedreai to be individually named in a governor's command. Its importance
is explained by its superb harbor. Strabo (
652) mentions
a grove of Leto at Physkos, and built into a wall of the
castle at Marmaris is a 4th c. dedication to her. Strabo
(
659) makes the curious statement that Physkos was the
port of Mylasa; the error is the more surprising as elsewhere (652, 665, 677) he is aware of its true position.
The acropolis was on a hill some 2 km NW of Marman, now heavily overgrown, but some stretches of wall
of Classical and Hellenistic date can be made out. In
Marmaris itself nothing of the ancient city remains standing, but numerous inscriptions and sculptured blocks
have been found there, especially in the Eyliktaşi quarter; some of these are collected at the school. The castle
on the low hill at the S end of the town is mediaeval.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. T. Newton,
Travels and Discoveries
II (1865) 40; H. Collitz,
Sammlung d. griechischen Dialektinschriften III (1899) 4266; E. Meyer,
Die Grenzen der
Hellenistischen Staaten (1925) 50; C. Blinkenberg,
Lindos II,
Inscriptions (1941) I, 51; P. M. Fraser & G. E.
Bean,
The Rhodian Peraea (1954) 57, 79, 97; Bean &
J. M. Cook,
BSA 52 (1957) 58; id.,
TürkArkDerg 9, 2
(1960) 7-10.
G. E. BEAN
