While the Cilicians are a significant and interesting people, certain gaps in my knowledge leave me unable to advise on creating a Classical Cilician "kit." I don't know the name in Old Persian, and can't find any art that unambiguously shows Cilician clothing or arms.
Geographical definition
Cilicia lay on the southern coast of Anatolia, along the top edge of a corner of the Mediterranean north of Syria. It is surrounded on the northwest by the Taurus Mountains (modern Turkish Toros Dağları), the north by the Antitaurus (Aladağlar) and the east by the Nur Dağları, which separates this part of Turkey from the Middle East. Greek writers referred to the western region dominated by the Taurus as Kilikia Tracheia ("rugged Cilicia") and the eastern plains as Kilikia Pedias ("flat Cilicia"), which Xenophon described as "a large and beautiful plain, well-watered and full of trees of all sorts and vines; in produces an abundance of sesame, millet, panic, wheat and barley..." (Anabasis, I.2). These two areas roughly correspond to the ancient kingdoms of Khilakku or Hilakku and Quwê.
History
Khilakku and Quwê were Neo-Hittite kingdoms formed after the collapse of the Hittite empire in the late Bronze Age. Quwê was twice conquered by the Assyrians in the 8th and 7th centuries BC, and Khilakku submitted to them in the mid-7th century in exchange for protection from the Cimmerians. The two Cilician kingdoms were reunited under Khilakku after the end of the Assyrian empire. The new kingdom's capital was Tarsus (Tarša), which in Xenophon's day was a large and wealthy city. Its kings were called suuannassai ("belonging to the dog"... huh?), which the Greeks rendered syennesis. Herodotus uses Syennesis as the proper name of the Cilician king who, together with Labynetus of Babylon (probably an anachronistic placement of the later king Nabonidus), brokered the treaty between the Lydians and Medes which drew the famous dividing line between the two empires at the Halys River in 585.
While the peoples of Kilikia Tracheia and Pedias were all Luwian-speakers, Lendering notes that the differing lifestyles of mountain herdsmen and plains agriculturalists (as well as that all of Cilicia's major cities were in Pedias) seems to have caused a rift between the two regions, and there are records of fights from the 4th century that probably continue a state of conflict from centuries earlier.
It is not known when Cilicia became part of the Persian empire, but it probably occurred during Cyrus' campaigns in the 540s, or around the same time he conquered Lydia. Initially, the syennesis was retained as a vassal king Herodotus says that Cilicia gave the empire 360 horses and 500 talents of silver in tribute.
The Persians maintained military bases along the coast. In the Histories, the Cilicians are said to have sent 100 ships to Xerxes' invasion of Greece, though Herodotus has Mardonius accuse the Cilicians, along with the other seafolk in Xerxes' forces (for the Persians, being landlocked, had no ships) of doing "less than brave men should" at the disaster of Salamis (VIII.100). The syennesis at the time (named as a "Syennesis son of Oromedon") acted as a commander in the Persian navy, and gave his daughter's hand in marriage to Pixodarus, a Carian noble (not to be confused with the later Hecatomnid Pixodarus).
The last-known syennesis (again known as "Syennesis" in Greek history) was in 401 BC pressured by Cyrus the Younger and his massive personal army to join his insurrection against his brother Artaxerxes II. According to Xenophon, this Syennesis' wife Epyaxa traveled with Cyrus for part of his march and it was rumored that the two had an affair before he arrived in Tarsus, from where the syennesis and all the city's inhabitants had temporarily retreated until Cyrus could convince him to join. Cyrus' defeat seems to have led to the great king dethroning the native Cilician royal line and replacing them with appointed satraps.
The second-to-last of these satraps was Mazaeus, who reigned from 361-336. In 333, Alexander the Great entered Cilicia and stayed in Tarsus while recovering from an illness. Evidently he found the mountain Cilicians troublesome, and launched a raid in the Taurus. That November he faced and defeated Darius III at the Battle of Issus in eastern Cilicia near the feet of the Nur Dağları. About 23 miles south of the site, he founded Alexandria or Alexandretta, modern Iskenderun. He appointed a new satrap, Balacrus, who remained under orders to attack the mountainfolk.
Cilicia was fought over by the Seleucids and Ptolemies for two centuries, during which the land became mostly Hellenized. Like many other nations, Cilicia began to disappear except as a traditional placename, though the mountain people, still maintaining a degree of independence, would turn to maritime piracy until finally conquered by the Romans in the 1st century BC.
Language
Cilicians spoke Luwian, an Indo-European language of the Anatolian family widespread in western Anatolia since the late Bronze Age. By the turn of the 2nd century BC it had been mostly replaced by Greek.
Religion
Cilicians followed various religious customs. At Castabala, a shrine was maintained to Cybele, the mother goddess of many Anatolian religions, while at Mallus on the coast was an oracle that the Greeks said had been founded by the mythical Greek seer Amphilochus, one of the Epigoni.
Clothing
Herodotus simply describes their clothing as "woolen tunics." The same image from the Persepolis Apadana that Nirupars identifies with Syrians (which I have gone over in my article on the Assyrians) is sometimes identified as Cilicians - some sources incorrectly identify these as Sogdians, but Sogdians were Eastern Iranians and wore equestrian clothing. It is, of course, possible that Cilicians dressed in a similar manner to their neighbors to the south.
Weapons
Herodotus describes the Cilicians' equipment as "their native helmets,... bucklers of raw oxhide for shields... two javelins and a sword very close in style to the knives of Egypt" (VII.91, tr. Godley; the word he translates as "bucklers" is a declension of aspis, generic for "shield"). Not much to go by, although it does indicate that shields should be rawhide, not tanned leather. A sheathed Egyptian longsword may be seen on the tomb of Darius the Great, with its pommel shaped like a ring missing the top, a short grip, apparently a long point and a flared chape.
Showing posts with label luwian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label luwian. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Peoples of the empire: The Carians
Geographical definition
Caria (Luwian Karuwa, O.P. Karkâ) lay in southwestern Anatolia, overlapping with southern Ionia and bordering Lydia in the north and Lycia in the south. It was a hilly country with many fortified hilltops but few large cities and little arable land. It is the homeland of Herodotus, who was a Graeco-Carian descended from Doric colonists. Being on the frontier of the Greek world, Caria is one of the better-documented Achaemenid provinces.
History
Caria was an ancient state, noted by the Hittites as a member of the Assuwa league c. 1250 BC (traditional chronology), and said to have sided with the Trojans in the Iliad, which may corroborate the identification of Troy with fellow Assuwan state Taruisa. During the early Iron Age, the coast was colonized by Ionic and Doric Greeks, who occupied such cities as Cnidus and Halicarnassus (hometown of Herodotus, whose father, Lyxos or Lyxes, appears to have a native Carian name). Herodotus claims that the Ionians, for whom Gregory Crane believes the historian had some disdain, colonized Miletus by killing Carian men and forcibly marrying Carian women, for which their wives refused to sit at the table with their new husbands or call them by name. Due to the poverty of the country, many Carians in the Iron Age went overseas to serve as mercenaries in lands such as Judea and Egypt, in which capacity they were still fighting when Cambyses invaded Egypt in the 520s.
The Lydian king Alyattes subjugated Caria in the early 6th century. Herodotus says that after Cyrus the Great conquered Lydia, his general Harpagus had to re-conquer the Lydians' dependents, including the Carians and Greeks of western Anatolia. Halicarnassus became the Persian administrative capital.
Caria does not appear in the Behistun inscription, but does appear in Darius' inscriptions at Persepolis (where they bring a bull in tribute) and Naqš-e Rostam. Jona Lendering believes that the country may have retained a degree of autonomy. The Carians joined in the Ionian Revolt of 499, and, although suffering defeats at the battles of the Marsyas and Labraunda of 497, ambushed and destroyed the Persian army led by Darius' son-in-law Daurises in 497 or 496. This battle led to a stalemate of a year or two in the region before the disintegration of the Ionian forces at the Battle of Lade in 494 led to the collapse of the wider revolt, and most of Caria capitulated to the empire that year.
Herodotus says that Caria sent seventy ships to the second Persian invasion of Greece. Five of these, originating from Halicarnassus, Cos, Nisyros and Calydna, were commanded by the famous Queen Artemisia, who (against the majority of his officers' opinions) advised Xerxes against attacking at Salamis and being drawn into the Allied Greeks' trap. Although he apparently regarded her opinion as sound, he chose not to follow it, and she took part in the battle nonetheless. According to Herodotus, during the chaos at Salamis when many Persian ships were retreating, Artemisia managed to convince the Allied Greeks that she had defected by ramming and sinking an imperial ship commanded by King Damasitheos of Calynda (not to be confused with the aforementioned Calydna) who may have been a political rival of hers. It is said that Xerxes, watching from a hillside, was similarly confused and believed that Artemisia was attacking the enemy, causing him to utter than his men had become women and his women men.
Afterward she counseled Xerxes to leave Greece; this time her advice was followed, and she conveyed several of the king's sons to Ephesus in Ionia.
The Delian League conquered parts of Caria in 469-466, but these lands reverted to Persia in 412 in the midst of the Peloponnesian War. In the meantime, Herodotus published his Histories there c. 440.
In the early 4th century, a native Carian satrapal dynasty was founded by Hecatomnus of Mylasa (391-377). The next of the so-called Hecatomnids was his son Mausolus, who fought against Ariobarzanes and other rebels during the Satraps' Revolt in 365 but defected to the rebels soon after. While the revolt was defeated, Artaxerxes III reinstalled Mausolus as satrap, and the region became a nearly de facto independent state. When Mausolus died in 353, a magnificent above-ground tomb was built for him, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Mausoleum.
Mausolus was first succeeded by his sister Artemisia, who fought off an invasion by nearby Rhodes but died in 351. Artemisia was succeeded by her brother Idrieus. At the behest of Artaxerxes, Idrieus raised Greek mercenaries to put down a rebellion in Cyprus amidst the widespread revolts of the early 340s. He died of disease in 344, and was succeeded by his sister Ada. Ada's younger brother Pixodarus seized the throne from her in 340, but she retained the inland fortress of Alinda. Pixodarus died in approximately 334 and was succeeded by his son-in-law Orontobates, a Persian.
In this momentous year, Alexander III of Macedon invaded Asia Minor and defeated an assemblage of satrapal armies at the Battle of the Granicus. Ada still held Alinda, and allied herself with Alexander, giving him a foothold on the road to Persia. However, Orontobates and Memnon of Rhodes (who had commanded the imperial Greek mercenaries at Granicus) held Halicarnassus for a time, driving Alexander's forces back with catapults. When the Macedonians breached the city's walls, Memnon retreated and set the city on fire as he left. The city's citadel held out for a while longer before surrendering.
(An interesting historical footnote is that Orontobates' wife may have been Ada II, the daughter of Pixodares whose hand was earlier sought by Alexander. Although Orontobates held some towns elsewhere in Caria until 333, he was unable to stop Alexander passing through Caria. An officer by the same name, who may well have been the same man, was present at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331. We do not know his ultimate fate. Memnon went on to campaign against Alexander's footholds in the Aegean, but died of illness in 333.)
Alexander reinstated Ada as satrap, and she legally adopted him so that rule of the land would pass to him on her death.
After Alexander's death, Caria changed hands rapidly between the Diadochi, finally winding up with the Seleucids by the middle of the third century BC. The Romans would conquer it in the 2nd century, dividing up Caria between Rhodes and the province of Asia. In the meantime, I have been unable to learn what became of the native Carian people, but it seems reasonable to think that they became hellenized over the centuries.
Religion
The Carians were polytheists whose religion was apparently found compatible with that of the Greeks. Their supreme god was Mylasa ("Carian Zeus"), a war god whose temple was located in the city of the same name. Aside from the Carians themselves, only Lydians and Mysians (whom the Carians considered kindred peoples) were admitted to this temple.
Caria may be the homeland of the goddess Hecate, patroness of paths and crossroads, whom the Greeks regarded as fearful deity of witchcraft. The fact that Hecate's parentage and place in the Greek pantheon is especially inconsistent is cited as evidence that she was of foreign origin. The Greeks sometimes explained that she was a Titan who sided with the Olympians during the Titanomachy and thus was not banished to the underworld. In another story, she was a priestess who insulted Artemis and was induced to commit suicide.
In any case, she had a major shrine in Lagina, east of Mylasa. Herodotus identified Hecate with Athena, though she was elsewhere regarded as a separate figure. A priestess of Hecate/Athena held office in Pedasa near Halicarnnasus, and would spontaneously grow a beard when the city was in imminent danger. Well, that's what they say.
A shrine to the mortal Endymion, shepherd-astronomer and beloved of Selene, existed at Mount Latmus near Miletus, where it was said that Zeus had put him into an eternal sleep.
Language
Carian was a Luwic language (related to Luwian), being a branch of the IE Anatolian subfamily. It was written in a variety of scripts adapted from the Phoenicians. As of the Achaemenid period, Carians would have spoken a mix of their native language, Doric Greek on the coasts and Ionic Greek in the north.
Clothing
Carian clothing is a bit ambiguous. At Persepolis, the Carian delegation (right, second row from bottom) are depicted with smooth legs that tend to indicate fitted trousers, long-sleeved tunics, simple headbands, and cloaks or shawls wrapped around the body. They wear low shoes, but the image I've examined is a bit too low-contrast to describe their type The Carian at Naqš-e Rostam wears a tunic with short, wide sleeves and a square, hanging cloak which is perhaps a Greek-style chlamys, and has clearly-muscled, bare legs. I cannot make out whether he wears a headband or shoes. A Doric-style peplos would probably be an acceptable choice at least for Graeco-Carian women.
Weapons
Herodotus states that the Carians invented shields with handles; previously all peoples carried shields on telamons (neck straps). I don't put much stock in this statement, but it may be that the Carians invented the porpax-antelabe system in which the forearm is placed through a porpax (armband) in the middle of the shield and the hand holds a grip just behind the shield's rim (antelabe, "before-lip"). At Persepolis, the Carian carries a round shield in such a manner which looks pretty much like a Greek Argive shield.
Herodotus also claims that the Greeks also copied the Carian practice of putting symbols on their shields and crests on their helmets (if the latter is in any sense true, it must have happened long before our period - Greeks had worn crested helmets since the Bronze Age), and that the Carians' equipment was like that of the Greeks except for their drepana kai egcheirida, which A.D. Godley translates as "scimitars and daggers"; from my research drepana normally means "sickles." At Naqš-e Rostam the Carian carries a long sword with wide branched pommel and a circular chape with a bar above it, possibly similar to Greek ones, apparently on a shoulder belt. The Persepolitan relief has a short spear, which is little taller than himself (probably no more than six feet/183cm) with a leaf-shaped head.
There are a few good sources for Greek-style equipment. Manning Imperial has probably the best all-around reputation for quality and variety, selling fully- and semi-finished aspides and aspis cores, as well as helmets, thorakes and spearheads. Deepeeka makes some deeceent items as well, although scrutiny should be paid to each given item. Heck, just check out Matt Amt's page for more.
Caria (Luwian Karuwa, O.P. Karkâ) lay in southwestern Anatolia, overlapping with southern Ionia and bordering Lydia in the north and Lycia in the south. It was a hilly country with many fortified hilltops but few large cities and little arable land. It is the homeland of Herodotus, who was a Graeco-Carian descended from Doric colonists. Being on the frontier of the Greek world, Caria is one of the better-documented Achaemenid provinces.
History
Caria was an ancient state, noted by the Hittites as a member of the Assuwa league c. 1250 BC (traditional chronology), and said to have sided with the Trojans in the Iliad, which may corroborate the identification of Troy with fellow Assuwan state Taruisa. During the early Iron Age, the coast was colonized by Ionic and Doric Greeks, who occupied such cities as Cnidus and Halicarnassus (hometown of Herodotus, whose father, Lyxos or Lyxes, appears to have a native Carian name). Herodotus claims that the Ionians, for whom Gregory Crane believes the historian had some disdain, colonized Miletus by killing Carian men and forcibly marrying Carian women, for which their wives refused to sit at the table with their new husbands or call them by name. Due to the poverty of the country, many Carians in the Iron Age went overseas to serve as mercenaries in lands such as Judea and Egypt, in which capacity they were still fighting when Cambyses invaded Egypt in the 520s.
The Lydian king Alyattes subjugated Caria in the early 6th century. Herodotus says that after Cyrus the Great conquered Lydia, his general Harpagus had to re-conquer the Lydians' dependents, including the Carians and Greeks of western Anatolia. Halicarnassus became the Persian administrative capital.
Caria does not appear in the Behistun inscription, but does appear in Darius' inscriptions at Persepolis (where they bring a bull in tribute) and Naqš-e Rostam. Jona Lendering believes that the country may have retained a degree of autonomy. The Carians joined in the Ionian Revolt of 499, and, although suffering defeats at the battles of the Marsyas and Labraunda of 497, ambushed and destroyed the Persian army led by Darius' son-in-law Daurises in 497 or 496. This battle led to a stalemate of a year or two in the region before the disintegration of the Ionian forces at the Battle of Lade in 494 led to the collapse of the wider revolt, and most of Caria capitulated to the empire that year.
Herodotus says that Caria sent seventy ships to the second Persian invasion of Greece. Five of these, originating from Halicarnassus, Cos, Nisyros and Calydna, were commanded by the famous Queen Artemisia, who (against the majority of his officers' opinions) advised Xerxes against attacking at Salamis and being drawn into the Allied Greeks' trap. Although he apparently regarded her opinion as sound, he chose not to follow it, and she took part in the battle nonetheless. According to Herodotus, during the chaos at Salamis when many Persian ships were retreating, Artemisia managed to convince the Allied Greeks that she had defected by ramming and sinking an imperial ship commanded by King Damasitheos of Calynda (not to be confused with the aforementioned Calydna) who may have been a political rival of hers. It is said that Xerxes, watching from a hillside, was similarly confused and believed that Artemisia was attacking the enemy, causing him to utter than his men had become women and his women men.
Afterward she counseled Xerxes to leave Greece; this time her advice was followed, and she conveyed several of the king's sons to Ephesus in Ionia.
The Delian League conquered parts of Caria in 469-466, but these lands reverted to Persia in 412 in the midst of the Peloponnesian War. In the meantime, Herodotus published his Histories there c. 440.
In the early 4th century, a native Carian satrapal dynasty was founded by Hecatomnus of Mylasa (391-377). The next of the so-called Hecatomnids was his son Mausolus, who fought against Ariobarzanes and other rebels during the Satraps' Revolt in 365 but defected to the rebels soon after. While the revolt was defeated, Artaxerxes III reinstalled Mausolus as satrap, and the region became a nearly de facto independent state. When Mausolus died in 353, a magnificent above-ground tomb was built for him, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Mausoleum.
Mausolus was first succeeded by his sister Artemisia, who fought off an invasion by nearby Rhodes but died in 351. Artemisia was succeeded by her brother Idrieus. At the behest of Artaxerxes, Idrieus raised Greek mercenaries to put down a rebellion in Cyprus amidst the widespread revolts of the early 340s. He died of disease in 344, and was succeeded by his sister Ada. Ada's younger brother Pixodarus seized the throne from her in 340, but she retained the inland fortress of Alinda. Pixodarus died in approximately 334 and was succeeded by his son-in-law Orontobates, a Persian.
In this momentous year, Alexander III of Macedon invaded Asia Minor and defeated an assemblage of satrapal armies at the Battle of the Granicus. Ada still held Alinda, and allied herself with Alexander, giving him a foothold on the road to Persia. However, Orontobates and Memnon of Rhodes (who had commanded the imperial Greek mercenaries at Granicus) held Halicarnassus for a time, driving Alexander's forces back with catapults. When the Macedonians breached the city's walls, Memnon retreated and set the city on fire as he left. The city's citadel held out for a while longer before surrendering.
(An interesting historical footnote is that Orontobates' wife may have been Ada II, the daughter of Pixodares whose hand was earlier sought by Alexander. Although Orontobates held some towns elsewhere in Caria until 333, he was unable to stop Alexander passing through Caria. An officer by the same name, who may well have been the same man, was present at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331. We do not know his ultimate fate. Memnon went on to campaign against Alexander's footholds in the Aegean, but died of illness in 333.)
Alexander reinstated Ada as satrap, and she legally adopted him so that rule of the land would pass to him on her death.
After Alexander's death, Caria changed hands rapidly between the Diadochi, finally winding up with the Seleucids by the middle of the third century BC. The Romans would conquer it in the 2nd century, dividing up Caria between Rhodes and the province of Asia. In the meantime, I have been unable to learn what became of the native Carian people, but it seems reasonable to think that they became hellenized over the centuries.
Religion
The Carians were polytheists whose religion was apparently found compatible with that of the Greeks. Their supreme god was Mylasa ("Carian Zeus"), a war god whose temple was located in the city of the same name. Aside from the Carians themselves, only Lydians and Mysians (whom the Carians considered kindred peoples) were admitted to this temple.
Caria may be the homeland of the goddess Hecate, patroness of paths and crossroads, whom the Greeks regarded as fearful deity of witchcraft. The fact that Hecate's parentage and place in the Greek pantheon is especially inconsistent is cited as evidence that she was of foreign origin. The Greeks sometimes explained that she was a Titan who sided with the Olympians during the Titanomachy and thus was not banished to the underworld. In another story, she was a priestess who insulted Artemis and was induced to commit suicide.
In any case, she had a major shrine in Lagina, east of Mylasa. Herodotus identified Hecate with Athena, though she was elsewhere regarded as a separate figure. A priestess of Hecate/Athena held office in Pedasa near Halicarnnasus, and would spontaneously grow a beard when the city was in imminent danger. Well, that's what they say.
A shrine to the mortal Endymion, shepherd-astronomer and beloved of Selene, existed at Mount Latmus near Miletus, where it was said that Zeus had put him into an eternal sleep.
Language
Carian was a Luwic language (related to Luwian), being a branch of the IE Anatolian subfamily. It was written in a variety of scripts adapted from the Phoenicians. As of the Achaemenid period, Carians would have spoken a mix of their native language, Doric Greek on the coasts and Ionic Greek in the north.
Clothing
Carian clothing is a bit ambiguous. At Persepolis, the Carian delegation (right, second row from bottom) are depicted with smooth legs that tend to indicate fitted trousers, long-sleeved tunics, simple headbands, and cloaks or shawls wrapped around the body. They wear low shoes, but the image I've examined is a bit too low-contrast to describe their type The Carian at Naqš-e Rostam wears a tunic with short, wide sleeves and a square, hanging cloak which is perhaps a Greek-style chlamys, and has clearly-muscled, bare legs. I cannot make out whether he wears a headband or shoes. A Doric-style peplos would probably be an acceptable choice at least for Graeco-Carian women.
Weapons
Herodotus states that the Carians invented shields with handles; previously all peoples carried shields on telamons (neck straps). I don't put much stock in this statement, but it may be that the Carians invented the porpax-antelabe system in which the forearm is placed through a porpax (armband) in the middle of the shield and the hand holds a grip just behind the shield's rim (antelabe, "before-lip"). At Persepolis, the Carian carries a round shield in such a manner which looks pretty much like a Greek Argive shield.
Herodotus also claims that the Greeks also copied the Carian practice of putting symbols on their shields and crests on their helmets (if the latter is in any sense true, it must have happened long before our period - Greeks had worn crested helmets since the Bronze Age), and that the Carians' equipment was like that of the Greeks except for their drepana kai egcheirida, which A.D. Godley translates as "scimitars and daggers"; from my research drepana normally means "sickles." At Naqš-e Rostam the Carian carries a long sword with wide branched pommel and a circular chape with a bar above it, possibly similar to Greek ones, apparently on a shoulder belt. The Persepolitan relief has a short spear, which is little taller than himself (probably no more than six feet/183cm) with a leaf-shaped head.
There are a few good sources for Greek-style equipment. Manning Imperial has probably the best all-around reputation for quality and variety, selling fully- and semi-finished aspides and aspis cores, as well as helmets, thorakes and spearheads. Deepeeka makes some deeceent items as well, although scrutiny should be paid to each given item. Heck, just check out Matt Amt's page for more.
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