A map showing Pamphylia's location within the Roman Empire
Photo of a 15th Century map showing Pamphylia.
In ancient geography, 'Pamphylia' was the region in the south of
Asia Minor, between
Lycia and
Cilicia, extending from the
Mediterranean to
Mount Taurus (modern day
Antalya province,
Turkey). It was bounded on the north by
Pisidia and was therefore a country of small extent, having a coast-line of only about 75 miles with a breadth of about 30 miles. Under the Roman administration the term Pamphylia was extended so as to include Pisidia and the whole tract up to the frontiers of
Phrygia and
Lycaonia, and in this wider sense it is employed by
Ptolemy.
Origins of the Pamphylians
There can be little doubt that the Pamphylians and Pisidians were the same people, though the former had received colonies from
Greece and other lands, and from this cause, combined with the greater fertility of their territory, had become more civilized than their neighbours in the interior. But the distinction between the two seems to have been established at an early period.
Herodotus, who does not mention the Pisidians, enumerates the Pamphylians among the nations of Asia Minor, while
Ephorus mentions them both, correctly including the one among the nations on the coast, the other among those of the interior. The early Pamphylians, like the Lycians, had an alphabet of their own, partly Greek, partly "Asianic," which a few inscriptions on marble and coins preserve. The legend related by Herodotus and Strabo, which ascribed the origin of the Pamphylians to a colony led into their country by
Amphilochus and
Calchas after the
Trojan War, is merely a characteristic myth. Probably the Pamphylians were of Asiatic origin and mixed ethnicity.
History
Ruins of the main street in Perga, capital of Pamphylia, Asia Minor
The region of Pamphylia first enters history in
Hittite documents. In a treaty between the Hittite Great King
Tudhaliya IV and his vassal, the king of
Tarhuntassa, we read of the city "Parha" (
Perge), and the "Kastaraya River" (Classical Kestros River, Turkish Aksu Çayı).
The first historical mention of "Pamphylians" is among the group of nations subdued by the
Mermnad kings of
Lydia; they afterwards passed in succession under the dominion of the
Persian and
Hellenistic monarchs. After the defeat of
Antiochus III in
190 BC they were included among the provinces annexed by the Romans to the dominions of
Eumenes of Pergamum; but somewhat later they joined with the Pisidians and Cilicians in piratical ravages, and Side became the chief centre and slave mart of these freebooters. Pamphylia was for a short time included in the dominions of
Amyntas, king of
Galatia, but after his death lapsed into a district of a Roman province. The Pamphilians became largely hellenized in
Roman times, and have left magnificent memorials of their civilization at Perga, Aspendos and Side.
As of 1911 the district was largely peopled with recent settlers from Greece, Crete and the Balkans, a situation which changed considerably as a result of the disruptions attendant on the fall of the
Ottoman Empire and the war between Greece and
Turkey in the 1920s.
See also
★
Perga
★
Myth of Er
★
Pamphylian Greek
★
Antalya
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