Kariya

The territory occupied by the people of the Carians has changed over time. The borders of Caria are roughly determined based on the descriptions of Strabo and Herodotus , a native of Halicarnassus from Caria. The country stretched along the Asia Minor coast of the Mediterranean Sea opposite the islands of Crete and Rhodes from about the mouth of the Meander River (modern name: Big Menderes) to the mouth of the Indus River (Indos, modern name: Dalaman), including the large coastal cities of Miletus , Halicarnassus , Knidos , Kavn .

In the north, Kariya borders Lydia on the Meander river in the upper reaches, in the lower reaches Meander flows through the lands of the Kareans. The closest known city to Ephesus is already in Lydia , although, according to Strabo, once the Carians lived there too. In the northeast, Kariya borders with Phrygia , naturally separating from the ridge, as well as from Pisidia, a mountainous region. In the east, Kariya borders Lycia on the Indus River (Dalaman). Rivers such as Calbius and Marsyus, a large tributary of the Meander, also flowed inside Caria.

The coastline of Caria, according to Strabo, stretched for 4900 stages (approx. 880 km), if you include all the bays. Since ancient times, most of the coast of Caria belonged to the Greek tribes: Rhodes owned the coast from the western border of Caria for 1,500 stages (270 km), settlers from Lacedaemon founded Knidos , Dorians from Argolis founded Halicarnassus , Ionians from Athens captured Miletus and Cape Mikal. However, the Greeks settled in foci, so that the local Carians had access to the sea.

Most of Caria is a mountainous region where sheep breeding was developed in ancient times. Fertile lands lie in the valley of the Meander River and its tributaries, as well as along the coast. In ancient times, the wine from Knidos was famous, and on the Karyan coins a bunch of grapes was depicted. Winemaking was developed in Caria by Greek settlers.

According to Herodotus, the Carians considered themselves to be the original inhabitants of Caria, although he gives a different story about the island origin of the Carians:

“The Carians came to the mainland from the islands. In ancient times, they were subject to Minos, were called lelegs and lived on islands. However, leglegi , according to legend, as far as one can penetrate into the depths of centuries, did not pay Minos any tribute. They were obliged only to supply rowers at the request of his ships. Since Minos conquered many lands and waged victorious wars, the people of the Carians, along with Minos, at that time were the most powerful people in the world. ... Then, a long time later, the Carians were driven out of their islands by the Dorians and Ionians [Greek tribes], and in this way they moved to the mainland. That's what they say about the Cretans of the Caryans. The Karians themselves, however, do not agree with them: they consider themselves to be the original inhabitants of the mainland, claiming that they always bore the same name as now. ” ^[1]

Strabo , although he notes that there are other stories, adheres to the island version of the origin of the Carians, while reporting that the Carians displaced the Lelegs and Pelasgians from their habitats during their resettlement ^[2] . In the Iliad, the Canaries, Lelegs and Pelasgians are listed separately by Homer as allies of the Trojans:

" Nastes led the adverbs of barbaric cars ,
Koi Miletus occupied, and Ffirov wooded mountain ,
Both the Meander stream and Mikala peaks are steep ” ^[3]

That is, during the Trojan War (XIII / XII century. BC. E.) Carians already lived in Asia Minor . Athenaeus ^[4] quotes the writer Philip of Feangel, who said that "the Carians from ancient times to the present day use lelegs as slaves ." Even under Strabo in Miletus and all of Caria, crypts and buildings of the Lelegs, a people other than the Carians, were preserved.

For the island origin of the Carians, the following fact is stated by Thucydides ^[5] . When the Athenians, on the orders of Pisistratus, cleared the holy island of Delos from burial, it turned out that almost half of the remains belonged to the Carians, who were recognized by their weapons and other signs corresponding to the Carians from Caria. Thucydides leads the version that it was not the Greeks who drove the Carians from the islands of the Aegean, but King Minos because they were pirating ^[6] .

Some inscriptions in the Karyan language have been preserved, which the linguist J. Ray finally deciphered. The Carian language, which had almost disappeared before the birth of Christ, belonged to the Hittite subgroup of the Anatolian languages spoken by the peoples of Asia Minor. Anatolian languages ​​belonged to the Indo-European language family. The same subgroup of languages ​​was spoken by the neighbors of the Carians in Asia Minor, the Lycians and the Lydians, which refutes the island version of the origin of the Carians.

Bronze Age

Based on a linguistic analysis of the inscriptions, we can conclude that the Hittite tribes invaded Asia Minor from the east at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. e., in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. these tribes of Indo-European origin began to occupy Caria, where they partially mixed with the local population, the so-called Lelegs . The Carian language, according to linguists, was most affected by local influences.

It is believed that Kariya was first mentioned twice in the cuneiform text of the Hittites as the country of Karkiss (Karkissa, Karkija) around 1270 BC. e. . In a victorious document, the Hittite king Hattusilis III quotes his appeal to the treacherous ruler Manapa-Datta from the Country on the Seha River:

“At one time, when your brothers expelled you from your country, I entrusted you to the people of Karkisa, I even sent gifts for the people of Karkisa for you. But despite this, you did not follow me, but you followed Uhhaciti, my enemy. And now what shall I take you as subjects ?! ” ^[7]

Most scholars identify the Hittite Karkis with Kariya, based, in addition to the phonetic similarity of names to the geographical localization (from the Hittite texts) of neighboring Lycia . The second time, already in retrospect, about the Carians of the 2nd millennium BC. e. Homer mentioned in the Iliad.

From the coming of the Greeks to the Persian conquest

The first wave of Ionian colonization of the coast of Asia Minor began in the XI century. BC e. Herodotus reports that settlers from Athens (the Ionian tribe) killed men in Miletus , originally a Carian city, and took their daughters as a wife. An expedition from Argolis from the Peloponnese (Dorian tribe) captured a piece of the coast and founded Halicarnassus , where, several centuries later, the inhabitants of the adjacent Carian settlements were resettled. The Carians in the depths of the country retained their language, but under the influence of the Hellenic settlers saturated it with a large number of Greek words. On some facts, we can conclude that the ruling nobility in the IV century. BC e. Already switched to Greek, which in fact was the language of tribal communication in the coastal states of Asia Minor. The Carians did not have a single state, they lived in settlements and small towns, united by the principle of confederation , which existed after the conquests of Alexander the Great . They united their common language and faith in the god of war, Zeus of Caria, as Herodotus called him. Important issues were resolved at a meeting in the famous temple, located in the center of Caria. Dorian cities in Caria had their own alliance. There is no information about any wars between the local Carians and the newly arrived Greeks; apparently, these peoples found a joint existence mutually beneficial.

The Karians are also mentioned in the Bible, the book of the Kings ^[8] , as mercenaries in Judea , that is, in the 9th-7th centuries. BC e.

800 years after the Trojan War , Herodotus spoke of the Carians. The Carians were considered a warlike people, it is to them that Herodotus ascribes the invention of pens to shields and sultans on military helmets. Herodotus says that in the VII century. BC e. Egyptian pharaohs willingly used the services of mercenaries-Karians:

“ After some time, however, the Ionians and the Carians, who were engaged in robbery, accidentally brought the winds into Egypt. They landed on the shore in their copper armor, and one Egyptian, who had never before seen people in copper armor, arrived at Psammetich in the coastal lowland with the news that copper people had come from the sea and were ruining the fields. The tsar understood that oracle divination was coming true, entered into friendship with the Ionians and Carians, and with great promises he managed to persuade them to join him in the service of mercenaries. " ^[9]

This information of Herodotus is confirmed by inscriptions found in Egypt. In the Chronography of Eusebius , it is noted that at the turn of the VIII-VII centuries. BC e. the Carians were one of the most powerful peoples in the Mediterranean basin, " ruled the sea " ^[10] according to Eusebius. In the service of the pharaohs, the Carians remained until the Persian conquest of Egypt in 525 BC. e. , and then served the Persians, the new masters of Asia. Of the approximately 200 inscriptions found in the Karyan language, only 30 are found in Caria (mainly on coins), and the rest in Egypt, Sudan (in ancient Nubia ) and Athens. It is possible that the Carians, having scattered as mercenaries in the Mediterranean basin, gave birth to a legend about their island origin.

Another of the first known kings of Lydia Giges at the beginning of the VII century. BC e. fought on the lands of Caria. His son Ardis II captured the Ionian city ​​of Priene in Caria according to Herodotus. However, Diogenes of Laerta in a story about the ancient Greek sage Biant from Priene in Caria mentioned the siege of Priene by the Lydian king Aliatt III, the grandson of Ardis II and the father of the legendary king Croesus :

“ There is a story that when Aliatt besieged Prien, Biant fed two mules and drove them to the tsar’s camp,” and the king marveled, thinking that the beleaguers had enough for the beast too. He started negotiations and sent ambassadors - Biant poured heaps of sand, covered him with a layer of grain and showed him to the ambassador. And learning about this, Aliatt finally made peace with the Prienians. " ^[11]

According to Herodotus, Croesus was the son of Aliatt from his brown wife ^[12] .

Kariya is poor in Greek mythology ; only the myth of Endymion , whose cult has been known in Caria since antiquity, is directly confined to it. The cave on Mount Latme , where Endymion sleeps, is obviously described in the outline of Pushkin 's unfinished poem "A cave lurks in the grove of the Karyan, amiable catchers ..."

Carians ruled by Persian satraps

For the first time all the Greek cities in Caria were conquered by the legendary Lydian king Croesus in the middle of the VI century. BC e. After the defeat of the Lydian kingdom by the Persian king Cyrus , the Carians in 543 BC. e. obeyed Harpag, the chief commander of Cyrus , only the small Carian city of Pedas resisted (as stated by Herodotus ).

Xenophon sets out the story of the conquest of the Karis as follows ^[13] : Cyrus sent his commander Adusius to Caria, who caught the Karis in a civil war. Both warring parties appealed to Ausius for help. The Persian military leader did not deny the union of any of the parties and asked to let his troops into the Carian cities as allies. Having occupied the fortresses, he convened the leaders of the parties and reconciled them, promising to become an enemy to anyone who would break the peace. The Carians, in gratitude, asked Cyrus to give them to the satraps of Ausius, which the Persian king did after 5 years, when he captured Babylon and the need for a military commander disappeared.

Under Darius I, Caria was included in satrapy and imposed an annual tax. In 499 BC e. the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, led by Miletus, rebelled against Persian rule, and the Karians joined the rebellion. After a series of victories and defeats, the Carians in 494 BC. e. again obeyed the Persians, and even acquired part of the land of Miletus, whose Greek population was enslaved by the Persians.

When the Persian king Xerxes I in 480 BC. e. set off on a campaign to Greece , the Carians set up 70 ships as vassals, and another 30 ships set up the Dorian cities of Caria ^[14] . The Dorian ships were led by Artemisia I of Halicarnassus , a woman whose courage admired Xerxes. Satrap of Caria Aridolis in one of the naval battles was captured by the Greeks ^[15] . And the main eunuch of Xerxes, the tutor of his sons, was Germotim, a native of Pedas, a Carian city north of Halicarnassus.

After the Greco-Persian wars, Athens became a leading naval power. Athenian strategist Cimon made a military expedition to the south of Asia Minor in the 460s. e. defeating the troops of the Persian satraps there. During the Peloponnesian War, the population of coastal Caria paid tribute to Athens, as reported by Thucydides . However, when the Athenians moved deep into Caria, their detachment was destroyed by the Carians ^[16] . Kariya seems to have gained independence from the Persian state , or the power of the Persians was nominal at least until the end of the 5th century. BC e. when Sparta in alliance with Persia defeated Athens in the war . In these years (413–395 BC), Kariya was ruled by a relative of the Persian king Tissafern , who also ruled Lydia and Lycia . After the end of the Peloponnesian War, he unsuccessfully tried to fight off the Spartan detachments in Asia Minor. The defeat and suspicion of treason prompted the Persian king Artaxerxes to send a new satrap of Tifraust in 395 BC. e. who beheaded Tissafern, and sent his head to the king ^[17] .

The Activities of the Karean Kings

Not hoping for satrap Persians, the Persian king attracted the local nobility to rule Kariya, first Hekatomna from Milas ( 391 - 377 BC ). Persian King Artaxerxes II appointed King Milas to rule over all of Caria in order to assemble an army against the rebellious Cypriots. Hekatomn succeeded in making the power hereditary and transferred it to his son Mavsol ( 377 - 353 BC ), who transferred the capital of Caria from Milas to Halicarnassus . Ancient authors call Mausola and Hekatomna kings, showing the degree of their independence from central authority. On the coins of these kings, the names are written in Greek. Mausoleum even participated in an open rebellion against the Persian king, but his power in Caria was so strengthened that he was able to rule his country even after the Persians regained dominance among their subjects. It is not known whether the power of the kings of Caria extended to mountain Caria.

After Mausoleum for 3 years, his sister (and at the same time his wife according to the customs of the Karians) ruled Artemisia , who became famous herself and glorified her brother by the erection of a mausoleum , considered one of the seven wonders of the world. Not inferior in valor to another Artemisia, who became famous 130 years earlier in the Greco-Persian wars, Mavsol's wife repelled the attack of the Rhodes fleet, which had territorial interests in Caria (see article Halikarnassus ).

After the death of Artemisia, the middle son of Hekatomna Idria ruled Kariya ( 351 - 344 BC ), then the youngest son of Hekatomna Piksodar , and then in 334 BC. e. over Kariya they placed the Persian Orontobat , the son-in-law of Pixodar. The son-in-law of Piksodar was called to become young Alexander the Great , angering his father Philip II , who considered Piksodar not a king, but only a Persian servant.

Kariya after the defeat of the Persian Empire

In 334 BC e. Alexander of Macedon invaded Asia Minor. In the same year, defeating Orontobat in the battle for Halicarnassus , transferred power over the country to the hands of Queen Ada , the youngest daughter of Hekatomn and at the same time the widow of Idrius, who voluntarily recognized the authority of Alexander. On the ruins of the Persian Empire, Alexander built a new empire that lasted for a few years.

After the death of Alexander of Macedonia, Kariya passed from hand to hand in the wars of the Diadoch , completely losing independence, while the Romans defeated the Syrian ruler Antiochus III in 190 BC. e. , did not divide Caria between the kingdom of Pergamon and Rhodes . After this time, Kariya lost an ethnographic identity.

In 129 BC e. the territory of Caria was included in the Roman province of Asia, covering most of Asia Minor . From 395, Kariya became part of Byzantium after the division of the Roman Empire into two parts and was there until the 11th century , when the Seljuk Turks captured Asia Minor. Then the Byzantines recaptured Kariya, but from the 13th century Muslim rulers ruled over its lands again. Since the 14th century, Kariya has been part of the Ottoman Empire , and after the collapse of the empire, it has been part of Turkey as the administrative province of Mugla.

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