Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/354

 338 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. texts, 1 and the Lycian inscriptions themselves, bear the same testimony. These, though they do not lend themselves to being deciphered, have alphabetical signs whose value is known. Now, the word TPXMEA/JV has been found in them scores of times. 2 Herodotus, then, did not err : yet it is just possible that the name Termilae, Tramelse, was no more than the particular appellation of a Lycian tribe which, by extension, was applied to the whole Lycian people by imperfectly informed neighbours. Examples of appellations used in a double and triple sense might be cited ad infinitum, e.g. as applied to nations of any importance in the world's history ; such would be the Jews, Greeks, Germans, and many more. In this particular instance, we have every reason to believe that the more general and oldest appellation was certainly that which persisted down to the last days of antiquity, the one by which the inhabitants of this province designated themselves on the coins bearing the legend : KOIVOV AVKLOJV, " Lycian confederation." Homer furnishes a further proof of this. He stands about midway between Ramses III. and Herodotus, and he knows as little of the Tremilse as the Egyptian scribes ; whilst the Lycians play a conspicuous part in all the battles of the Iliad, in which they bear themselves bravely and far outnumber the other allies of Troy. 3 Then, too, the de- scription the poet gives of the country whence Sarpedon and Glaucus led out their forces in aid of the Trojans in their straits, coincides with Lycia. "It is very far removed from the Troad ; " 4 " brawling Xanthus flows in its midst ; " 5 and if this were not enough, he adds : " The Solymi are the constant enemies of the Lycians." 6 No uncertainty exists as to the exact position of the country held by the Solymi ; it was the tract ruled by Mount Solyma, and the latter, according to geographers, is represented at the present day by Taktalu-Dagh. 1 Stephanus Byzantinus, s.v. Tpe/xiA.^ ; Menecrates of Xanthus ; MULLER, Fragm. Hist. Grcec., torn. ii. p. 343, Fragm. 2. 2 The name " Tramela " may be read in the great inscription of the obelisk discovered at Xanthus, and in the Lycian texts found at Antiphellus, Myra, Limyra, etc. 8 This is implied in the oft-repeated phrase, "Trojans and Lycians," used by the bard to designate the assembled forces opposed to the Greeks (Iliad, iv. 197 ; vi. 78, etc.). 4 ... /AoXa TifXoflev r/Ku, says Sarpadon. TrjXov yap Av/ar; (Iliad, . 478, 479). 5 EaV00U V7TO SlVTJfVTOS (Ibid., . 877). 6 Ibid., vi. 184, 185, 204.