Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/348

 332 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. a footpath between its precipitous sides and the sea, which dis- appears under the flood as often as a sea wind prevails. In Mount Solyma is seen the subterraneous fire which gave rise to the fable of the Chimaera ; l the shepherds round about utilize the flames that leap out of a slit in the rock to cook their dinner. Lycia can boast of but one valley really deserving the name, open enough and spacious enough to have been split up into several divisions, each with an important centre embosomed amidst gardens and well-watered fields, which covered the gentle slopes of the last counter-forts of the mountain towards the plain, and supported houses, public edifices, and acropoles. The valley is known as Sibros or Xanthus (Eshen-Tshai) (Fig. 244) ; its length from the sea where it abuts to the rocky gully out of which the river escapes is about fourteen leagues ; its mean width is from three to five kilometres, whilst its direction, in a straight line from north to south, affords the shortest and most convenient route to those making their way inland. The other valleys of Lycia, Myros (Dembre-Tshai), Arycandos (Bashkoz-Tshai), Limyros (Alaghir-Tshai) are little more than gaps hollowed out in the rock by water agency. Flat level is seldom found except at the mouth of streams, where a narrow strip exists between the sea and the heights, due to the deposit of ages. Then, too, higher up the mountains, dominating numerous havens formed by the indenta- tions of this jagged, rugged coast, appear here and there levelled spaces, just broad enough to afford a foothold to man between the escarps of the cliff and the gentler slopes, which he covered with vineyards and fine plantations of olive. As time went on lack of room induced him to utilize the tiniest eyelets, lost in the depths of the mountain such as Phellus, for example. Beyond the snowy peaks eastward of Xanthus, which the traveller descries from the sea, the aspect changes, for here vast plateaux with a 1 In regard to the orography of Lycia, and the correspondence to be established between ancient and modern denominations, we have relied on Kiepert's map, in Reisen in Sud-westlichen Kleinasien, fol., Vienna, torn. i. ; Reisen in Lykien und Karien. described by Otto Benndorf and Georg Niemann, 1884, with forty- nine plates in photogravure and eighty-nine figures in the text, torn. ii. ; Reisen in Lykien, Milyas, und Kibyratis, published by Eugen Petersen and Felix Luschan, 1888, forty plates in photogravure and eighty-six figures. A much reduced copy of this same map will be found in Geschichte der Lykier, by Oscar Treuber (i2mo, 1887, Stuttgart). The work is a brief but exact summary of the best-known writings bearing upon the geography and history of Lycia.