SIDYMA
(Dudurga Asari) Lycia, Turkey.
About 14 km NW of Xanthos, high up on Mt. Cragus.
First mentioned in the 1st c. B.C. (by Alexander Polyhistor). No Lycian inscription has been found there; and
the extant remains are of the Roman period. The name,
however, appears ancient, and there are some indications
of an earlier city on the site. The ruins lie in a valley at
the foot of a steep hill, at whose base is a stretch of
“cyclopean” wall containing a gate; this appears to have
defended a city on the hill, though the summit now carries nothing beyond the remnants of a Byzantine fortification. The known coinage seems to be confined to a single specimen of League type (2d-1st c. B.C.). The city
flourished in a modest way under the Empire, but was
never important. It is related that when the emperor
Marcian, then still only a simple soldier, was at Sidyma,
a portent revealed his future elevation to the purple.
Later, the bishop of Sidyma ranked tenth under the
metropolitan of Myra.
The ruins include a number of buildings of good
Roman work, among them a small Temple of the Augusti
and a columned stoa, but none stands to any considerable height. The theater mentioned by Fellows is now in
wretched condition. The inscriptions record a gymnasium
and baths, but these have not been identified. Nothing is
known of games at Sidyma, nor does the city possess a
stadium. Tombs are numerous, including “Gothic” sarcophagi, temple tombs and other built tombs, and some
plain rock-cut chamber tombs. The more impressive
Lycian rock tombs familiar on other sites are totally
lacking.
The port of Sidyma, named apparently Calabatia, lay
on the coast to the W at the foot of a steep valley which
seems to be that called by Strabo (
665) “the valley
Chimaira,” associated with the legend of Bellerophon.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. Fellows,
Lycia (1840) 151-56; E.
Petersen & F. von Luschan,
Reisen in Lykien (1889) I
57-83; TAM II.1 (1920) 60-62.
O. E. BEAN
