Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/361

 HISTORY. 345 Homer, Lycia and the valley of the Xanthus are one and the same thing. When he speaks of " broad Lycia," l it is the valley of the Xanthus which is mirrored in his mind's eye, the only one to which the epithet could be rightly applied (Fig. 247). But this privileged canton had not been wrested without strife from the Solymi and the Milyes, 2 who were in possession. It was a long FlG. 247. The Xanthus Valley. DURUY, Hist, des Grecs., torn. iii. p. 253. 3 guerilla warfare, during which the Lycians gradually but steadily gained ground, and in the end drove the natives on to the coast IT; evpcu; (Iliad, vi. 173, 188, 2IO, etc.). 2 Strabo (XII. viii. 5; XIV. iii. 10) is aware that the primitive inhabitants of the district under consideration went by the name of Milyans and Solymi, and that the term Lycian was of later date ; but he seems to think that the various names were applied in succession to one and the same people, an hypothesis not very probable in itself, and distinctly opposed besides to the formal testimony of the Iliad (vi. 184, 204), where the Lycians are described in conflict with the Solymi from generation to generation. Then, too, he contradicts himself, and confutes his own statement, when he speaks of the language current in Cibyratides, not as " that of the Lycians," but that which was spoken by the Solymi. 8 The above view is borrowed from Plate XIII. vol. i. of the Arisen. It is taken from a height north of Xanthus, facing south. Above the river rises the rocky eminence upon which stood the citadel ; to the west of the rugged mass are still a few buildings of the city, half hidden amidst bushes. The sea is seen in the distance.