Lycia

Lycia was a region on the southern coast of Asia Minor, between Caria and Pamphylia, watered by the river Xanthus. In Greek myth it is the land of the Chimaera and of Bellerophon, the kingdom ruled by Sarpedon, and the place where Leto was said to have brought her children Apollo and Artemis. Its warriors, led by Sarpedon and Glaucus, fought for Troy in the Iliad.

Sarpedon, Minos and Lycus

Herodotus says that the Lycians came from Crete. There the sons of Europa, Sarpedon and Minos, quarrelled over the kingship; Minos won and drove out Sarpedon and his followers, who came to the Milyan land in Asia. What is now Lycia was then called Milyas, and the Milyans were then called Solymi. For a time Sarpedon ruled there, and the people were called Termilae, the name they had brought from Crete. Later Lycus, a son of Pandion, was banished from Athens by his brother Aegeus and joined Sarpedon in the land of the Termilae, and from Lycus the people came to be called Lycians (Herodotus 1.173; compare 7.92). Pausanias gives the same account, adding that the Lyceum at Athens was named after Lycus (Description of Greece 1.19.3).

Apollodorus says that Europa's sons were born to Zeus: Minos, Sarpedon and Rhadamanthys. Minos and Sarpedon quarrelled over a boy, Miletus, and after Minos won the war Sarpedon allied himself with Cilix, who was at war with the Lycians, and having bargained for a share of the country he became king of Lycia. Zeus granted him life for three generations (Library 3.1.1–2). Homer gives a different origin for the Sarpedon who fights at Troy: he is the son of Zeus and Laodameia, the daughter of Bellerophon (Iliad 6.198–199).

Bellerophon in Lycia

When Proetus, the king of Argos, sent Bellerophon to the king of Lycia with a sealed message calling for his death, the king entertained him for nine days and then asked to see the message. He ordered him first to kill the Chimaera, a fire-breathing creature that was a lion in front, a serpent behind and a goat in the middle; then to fight the Solymi, and then the Amazons; finally he set an ambush with the best men of Lycia, all of whom Bellerophon killed (Iliad 6.168–190). Homer does not name the king; Apollodorus calls him Iobates and says that Bellerophon killed the Chimaera by shooting it from the winged horse Pegasus (Library 2.3.1–2). Hesiod gives the Chimaera three heads, of a lion, a goat and a serpent, and says that Pegasus and noble Bellerophon killed her (Theogony 319–325). Homer says that Amisodarus reared her (Iliad 16.328–329).

When the king realised that Bellerophon was the offspring of a god, he kept him in Lycia, gave him his daughter and half of the whole royal honour, and the Lycians cut out for him a fine estate of orchard and ploughland (Iliad 6.191–195). Apollodorus says that Iobates gave him his daughter and, dying, left him the kingdom (Library 2.3.2). The sons of Bellerophon, Isander and Hippolochus, and his daughter Laodameia are named in Homer. Hippolochus was the father of Glaucus, the Lycian leader at Troy (Iliad 6.196–197, 206).

Leto and the Letoon

Strabo describes a Letoon, a temple of Leto, ten stades up the Xanthus river, and sixty stades farther on the city of Xanthus, the largest in Lycia; farther along the coast was the city of Patara, with a temple of Apollo (Geography 14.3.6). In Ovid's account Leto came to Lycia with her infant children, wandering after their birth, and the country people who refused her water from a pool were turned into frogs (Metamorphoses 6.313–381). Ovid also has Apollo say that Delphi, Claros, Tenedos and the royal house of Patara in Lycia serve him (Metamorphoses 1.515–516).

Lycia and the Trojan War

In the Catalogue of the Trojan allies Homer says that Sarpedon and the blameless Glaucus led the Lycians, who came “from far off, from Lycia, from the swirling Xanthus” (Iliad 2.876–877). Sarpedon tells Glaucus that they are honoured in Lycia with the best seats, meat and cups, and hold a great estate beside the banks of the Xanthus, and that for this reason they must fight in the front rank of the Lycians (Iliad 12.310–321). He later reproaches Hector, saying that he has come from far away, where Lycia lies by the swirling Xanthus and where he left his wife and infant son (Iliad 5.471–480).

Sarpedon was killed by Patroclus (Iliad 16.479–481). At Zeus' command Apollo cleansed the body, and Sleep and Death, the twin brothers, carried it to the rich land of Lycia, where his kinsmen buried him with a mound and a stele (Iliad 16.666–683).

Lycia Sources

Homer, Iliad 2.876–877, 5.471–480, 6.168–206, 12.310–321, 16.328–329, 16.479–481, 16.666–683; Hesiod, Theogony 319–325; Herodotus 1.173, 7.92; Strabo, Geography 14.3.6; Apollodorus, Library 2.3.1–2, 3.1.1–2; Pausanias 1.19.3; Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.515–516, 6.313–381.

See Also: Leto, Apollo, Artemis, Europa, Minos, Bellerophon, Iobates, Glaucus, Chimaera, Pegasus