Caria, ancient region of SW Asia Minor, S of the Maeander River, which separated it from Lydia. The territory is in present SW Asian Turkey. The Carians were probably a native people, but their region was settled by both Dorian and Ionian colonists. Caria was a center of the Ionian revolt (c.499 B.C.) that was a prelude to the Persian Wars. Some of the communities joined (c.468 B.C.) the Delian League. In the 4th cent. B.C. the region was united under a satrapy of princes, of whom the most celebrated was Mausolus. Alexander the Great conquered Caria, and it changed hands often in the wars after his death. In 125 B.C. it was made a Roman province (part of the province of Asia). Cnidus, Halicarnassus, and Miletus were famous Carian cities.

Ancient district, southwestern Anatolia. It was one of the most thoroughly Hellenized districts in ancient Anatolia; its territory included Greek cities along the shore of the Aegean Sea and a mountainous interior bounded by Lydia, Phrygia, and Lycia. Absorbed first by Lydia, it later was annexed (6th century BC) by the Persian Achaemenian Empire, one of whose governors, Mausolus, transferred its capital from Mylasa to Halicarnassus. Taken from Persia in 334–332 BC by Alexander the Great, it was incorporated into the Roman province of Asia in 129 BC.

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Ancient Region of Anatolia Caria (Καρία)
Location	Southwestern Anatolia
State existed:	11-6th c. BC
Language	Carian
Biggest city	Halicarnassus
Roman province	Asia

Caria (Turkish Karya, Ancient Greek, Καρία) was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia (Mycale) south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Ionian and Dorian Greeks colonized the west of it and joined the Carian population in forming Greek-dominated states there. The eponymous inhabitants of Caria were known as Carians, and they had arrived in Caria before the Greeks. They were described by Herodotos as being of Minoan descent, while the Carians themselves maintained that they were Anatolian mainlanders intensely engaged in seafaring and were akin to the Mysians and the Lydians. The Carians did speak an Anatolian language, which does not necessarily reflect their geographic origin, as Anatolian once may have been widespread. Also closely associated with the Carians were the Leleges, which could be an earlier name for Carians or for a people who had preceded them in the region and continued to exist as part of their society in a reputedly second-class status.

Municipalities of Caria

Cramer's detailed catalog of Carian towns in classical Greece is based entirely on ancient sources. The multiple names of towns and geomorphic features, such as bays and headlands, reveal an ethnic layering consistent with the known colonization.

Coastal Caria

Coastal Caria begins with Didyma south of Miletus, but Miletus had been placed in the pre-Greek Caria. South of it is the Iassicus Sinus (Güllük Körfezi) and the towns of Iassus and Bargylia, giving an alternative name of Bargyleticus Sinus to Güllük Körfezi, and nearby Cindye, which the Carians called Andanus. After Bargylia is Caryanda or Caryinda, and then on the Bodrum Peninsula Myndus (Mentecha or Muntecha), miles from Miletus. In the vicinity is Naziandus, exact location unknown.

On the tip of the Bodrum Peninsula (Cape Termerium) is Termera (Telmera, Termerea), and on the other side Ceramicus Sinus (Gökova Körfezi). It "was formerly crowded with numerous towns. Halicarnassus, a Dorian Greek city, was planted there among six Carian towns: Theangela, Sibde, Medmasa, Euranium, Pedasa or Pedasum, and Telmissus. These with Myndus and Synagela, Syagela or Souagela, where the tomb of Car is located, constitute the eight Lelege towns. Also on the north coast of the Ceramicus Sinus is Ceramus and Bargasus.

On the south of the Ceramicus Sinus is the Carian Chersonnese, or Triopium Promontory (Cape Krio), also called Doris after the Dorian colony of Cnidus. At the base of the peninsula (Datça Peninsula) is Bybassus or Bybastus from which an earlier names, the Bybassia Chersonnese, had been derived. It was now Acanthus and Doulopolis ("slave city").

South of the Carian Chersonnese is Doridis Sinus, the "Gulf of Doris" (Gulf of Symi), the locale of the Dorian Confederacy. There are three bays in it: Bubassius, Thymnias and Schoenus, the last enclosing the town of Hyda. In the gulf somewhere are Euthene or Eutane, Pitaeum, and an island: Elaeus or Elaeussa near Loryma. On the south shore is the Cynossema, or Onugnathos Promontory, opposite Symi.

South of there is Peraea, a section of the coast under Rhodes. It includes Loryma or Larymna in Oedimus Bay, Gelos, Tisanusa, the headland of Paridion, Panydon or Pandion (Cape Marmorice) with Physicus, Physca or Physcus, also acalled Cressa (Marmaris). Beyond Cressa is the Calbis River (Dalyan River). On the other side is Caunus (near Dalyan), with Pisilis or Pilisis and Pyrnos between.

Then follow some cities that some assign to Lydia and some to Caria: Calynda on the Indus River, Crya, Carya, Carysis or Cari and Alina in the Gulf of Glaucus (Katranci Bay or the Gulf of Makri), the Glaucus River being the border. Other Carian towns in the gulf are Clydae or Lydae and Aenus.

Inland Caria

At the base of the east end of Latmus near Selimiye was the district of Euromus or Eurome, possibly Europus, formerly Idrieus and Chrysaoris (Stratonicea), apparently the ethnic center of non-Hellenic Caria. The name Chrysaoris once applied to all of Caria; moreover, Euromus was originally settled from Lycia. Its towns are Tauropolis, Plarassa and Chrysaoris. These were all incorporated later into Mylasa. Connected to the latter by a sacred way is Labranda. Around Stratonicea is also Lagina or Lakena as well as Tendeba and Astragon.

Further inland towards Aydin is Alabanda, noted for its marble and its scorpions, Orthosia, Coscinia or Coscinus on the upper Maeander and Halydienses, Alinda or Alina. At the confluence of the Maeander and the Harpasus is Harpasa (Arpaz). At the confluence of the Maeander and the Orsinus, Corsymus or Corsynus is Antioch on the Maeander and on the Orsinus in the mountains a border town with Phrygia, Gordiutichos ("Gordius' Fort") near Geyre. Founded by the Pelasgi Leleges and called Ninoe it became Megalopolis ("Big City") and Aphrodisias, sometime capital of Caria.

Other towns on the Orsinus are Timeles and Plarasa. Tabae was at various times attributed to Phrygia, Lydia and Caria and seems to have been occupied by mixed nationals. Caria also comprises the headwaters of the Indus and Eriya or Eriyus and Thabusion on the border with the small state of Cibyra.

Pre-Hellenic states and people

The name of Caria appears in a number of early languages: Hittite Karkija (a member state of the Assuwa league, ca. 1250 BC), Babylonian Karsa, Elamite and Old Persian Kurka. According to some accounts, the land was originally called "Phoenicia", because a Phoenician colony settled there in early times. Allegedly, the region would have then received the name of Caria from Kar, a legendary early king of the Carians.

Sovereign state hosting the Greeks

Caria arose as a Neo-Hittite kingdom around the 11th century BC.The coast of Caria was part of the Dorian hexapolis (six-cities) when the Dorians arrived after the Trojan War in the last and southernmost waves of Greek migration to western Anatolia's coastline and occupied former Mycenaean settlements such us Knidos and Halicarnassos (present-day Bodrum). Herodotus, the famous historian was born in Halicarnassus during the 5th century BC. But Greek colonization touched only the coast and the interior remained Carian organized in a great number of villages grouped in local federations.

The Iliad records that at the time of the Trojan War, the city of Miletus belonged to the Carians, and was allied to the Trojan cause.

Lemprière notes that "As Caria probably abounded in figs, a particular sort has been called Carica, and the words In Care periculum facere, having been proverbially used to signify the encountering of danger in the pursuit of a thing of trifling value."

Lydian province

Persian satrapy

Caria was then incorporated into the Persian Achaemenid empire as a satrapy in 545 BC. The most important town was Halicarnassus, from where its sovereigns reigned. Other major towns were Latmus, refounded as Heracleia under Latmus, Antiochia, Myndus, Laodicea, Alinda and Alabanda.

Halicarnassus was the location of the famed Mausoleum dedicated to Mausolus, a satrap of Caria between 377–353 BC by his wife, Artemisia. The monument became one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and from which the Romans named any grand tomb a mausoleum.

Macedonian kingdom

Caria was conquered by Alexander III of Macedon in 334 BC with the help of the former queen of the land Ada of Caria who had been dethroned by the Persian Empire and actively helped Alexander in his conquest of Caria on condition of being reinstated as queen. After their capture of Caria, she declared Alexander as her heir.

Roman province

As part of the Roman Empire the name of Caria was still used for the geographic region but the territory administratively belonged to the province of Asia. During the administrative reforms of the 4th century this province was abolished and divided into smaller units. Caria became a separate province as part of the Diocese of Asia.

Dissolved by Constantinople

In the 7th century provinces were abolished and the new theme system was introduced.

Traces in modern Turkey

The Greek population of the coast of Anatolia persisted through the fall of Constantinople in 1453 CE and went on under the Ottoman Empire. In the early 20th century as a result of various social conflicts and power vacuum, the Ottoman Empire came under the rule of the Three Pashas who first socially and then militarily attacked populations they considered foreign. The Greeks of the western coast suffered pogroms and were reduced to second-class citizens.

Subsequently the three pashas were removed from power, court-martialed and sentenced to death in absentia but meanwhile the Ottoman Empire had been on the losing side in World War I and lost sovereignty to the Entente Powers. They were not long under the Entente, conducted a Turkish War of Independence resulting in a new Turkish Republic under the presidency of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk starting in 1923.

Atatürk set about resolving the ethnic difficulties he inherited, making the decision to westernize Turkey and seeking the assistance of westerners, notably of president Woodrow Wilson. Together they hammered out a border between Turkey and the new state of Armenia. Part of the difficulty was to make the border ethnically tidy; that is, with Turks on one side and Armenians on the other, and the same difficulties applied to the border between Turkey and Greece. As a result of the Treaty of Lausanne a decision was made to tidy the border by moving populations to either side of it. In the resulting Population exchange between Greece and Turkey the population of Greeks in western Anatolia greatly diminished, as did the population of Turks on the Aegean Islands and mainland Greece.

The exchange ended a 3000-year Greek presence in Anatolia; however, modern Turkey cherishes the ruins and culture of ancient times, having turned much of the coast into national parks and granting licenses to western archaeologists. Modern Turkish scholarship also is significant. Many of the names remain intact or they have been converted to local tongue; for example, Caria:Geyre; Myndos: Menteşe.

See also

• Ada of Caria
• Carian language
• Aphrodisias
• Melankomas of Caria, an ancient Olympic boxer

Notes

Sources

External links

History and Culture of Ancient Caria

Black and White Photos of Carian Cities

Livius.org: Caria