Consider with me the head as the organ of reason, trusting to that all-wise philosopher Homer. And in the opinion of the doctors and wise philosophers, he who claims that the heart is the reasoning organ is referring to the material and not the final organ. The rush of the blood from the heart, running to the head from the arteries, heats up the brain and stirs up plans.
If someone should say that the heart is the material organ, but the head the final one, then depend upon it, he is still among the wise. But if he says that the heart is the final organ, he is an all-wise student of Aristotle. If then he is not persuaded by the reasoning of the doctors and all of the myriads of proofs they have worked up, then he is employing the old foolish ‘He himself said it!’ that the Pythagoreans used to spout.
Ask him about the witticism of old uncle Tzetzes about which part of the body we call the back, and he will definitely show you the part between the shoulders, under the head and behind the stomach. Put on a smile, then, and say to that ultra wise man, ‘if reasoning and mind (phrenes) were, as you say, not in the head, but set right there in the heart, then everyone would call the stuff near the seat of manhood ‘metaphrena’, and perhaps they would do the same for the entrance of the stomach, since it is behind the heart, diverging from the practice of everyone else who refers to the spot between the shoulders, since it is behind the head and props up our mind.
The names of Proteus and Eidothea are made up, as your main man Tzetzes has long thought. Look at what he has to say to you: Proteus is the water, the foremost of all the elements; thus he receives the titles of old man and of themighty. If he took human form, he would say that he was an old man, but wise or something else like that, but certainly not of the mighty. Thus old uncle Tzetzes thinks that Proteus is water, while Eidothea is a name fitting the most prophetic, such as astrologers and all of the other people in the prognosticating line. For Eidothea knows everything like a god or a knowing goddess; professor Tzetzes is telling you that she is the diviner. The daughter of Proteus is so called because she knows everything in advance from hydromancy. In the Homeric telling, she is said to have foretold everything to Menelaus, explaining how Proteus was her father, so that he could do a bit of prophecy for him. He says that this is just what happened. Tzetzes notes that she’s the one who saw Menelaus.
1.33 “Burning robe”: [a proverb] applied to those who attack, and destroy, and make slander. For the story is told that Deianeira sent Herakles the robe by which he died because he was being burned up.”
1.43 “Aianteian laugh: [a proverb] applied to those who laugh madly. For Ajax started to become deranged and went made over the fact that Odysseus was preferred in honors over him in the awarding of the arms of Achilles. He rushed at the Greeks with his sword in hands and once he was turned against the animals thanks to divine care, he attacked them thinking they were the Greeks. He grabbed the biggest rams, tied them up, and tortured them. He laughed over them because he was insane. Later, when he came to his right mind, he killed himself.”
1.48 “Aigieans, neither third nor fourth. A proverb applied to simple things, worthy of nothing. For the Aigieans in Akhaia, after conquering the Aitolians, asked the Pythia who of the Greeks were better. She said: “You Aigieans are neither third nor fourth.”
Lübbey Kışlağı, [all images by the author unless stated otherwise]I. An Ancient Route
Euripides, Bacchae, 451-465
Pentheus
Release his hands, for caught in the nets he is not swift enough to escape me. But your body is not ill-formed, stranger, for women’s purposes, the very reason you have come to Thebes. For your hair is long, you’re not a wrestler, scattered all over your cheeks, full of desire; and you keep your skin white, protected from the sun, by hunting after Aphrodite beneath the shade. First then tell me who your family is.
Dionysus
I can tell you this easily, without boasting. I suppose you are familiar with flowery Tmolus.
Pentheus
I know of it; it surrounds the city of Sardis.
Dionysus
I am from there, and Lydia is my fatherland.
From the road alone, it is difficult to grasp the extension of the Boz Dağ, a mountain range known in antiquity as the Tmolus. It runs from east to Izmir all the way to Turkey’s western Anatolian Plateau, with a summit at around 2200-2400 m. Now it’s tucked somewhere between the modern Turkish provinces of Izmir, Manisa and Uşak, hiding its lush valleys, irregular elevations, and largely abandoned villages. At present, the area is a destination for hikers and bikers, who spend time in between the mountains (see The Figs and Mountains of Izmir: Travel horizontally in any direction and you see no change in landscape, by Smithsonian journalist Alastair Bland who biked in the area in 2011) and mostly local tourists, who visit the area around Lake Gölcük and the Ottoman-era town of Birgi (the distance between them is around 21 km), both located at the easternmost end of the mountain range. The real attraction though is Mount Bozdağ itself, and its short skiing season. But during the journey, we traveled only in a triangle between the regional capital, modern-day Ödemiş (a former capital of the Aydınoğlu Sultanate in the 13th and 14th century), the historical Birgi and the more remote settlement of Lübbey.
Even though the Tmolus is flanked by the valleys of very important fluvial channels in antiquity, and in the neighborhood of the Aegean Coast, one of the best known parts of the ancient world – Aeolis, Ionia, Lydia – little is known about the mountains. This remoteness has contributed to their mythological status as a home of the gods: Euripides tells us in his posthumous masterpiece that Dionysus was born there (and already in the opening lines, the God informs us that he has arrived in Thebes, taking a mortal form, after leaving behind many riches in Lydia and Phrygia; Eur. Ba. 13-22). The first appearance of the mythological Tmolus, goes back to Theognis, a 6th century lyric poet from Megara, <Οὔποτε τοῖσ’ ἐχθροῖσιν ὑπὸ ζυγὸν αὐχένα θήσω / δύσλοφον, οὐδ’ εἴ μοι Τμῶλος ἔπεστι κάρηι.> ( Never will I set my neck under the galling yoke of mine enemies, nay, not though Tmolus be upon my head); according to myth Tmolus is a mountain-god, son of Ares and Theogone and he judged the musical contest between Pan and Apollo (Ov. Met. 11.146-194). Mount Tmolus is named after him, a king of Lydia, with the capital Sardis at its foot and Hypaepa on the southern slope.
Ancient Lydia, map by Sami Patacı
The historical Lydia, however, is an Iron Age kingdom, named after 2nd millennium king Lydus (Hdt. 1.7) from the dynasty of the Maeonian kings, and which occupied, in its pre-Greek setting, large swathes of Western Anatolia. It was reduced after the Persian contest roughly to its Hellenistic border with Ionia and Phrygia, especially after Cyrus conquered Sardis. But for all the importance of Lydia, the mythical Mt. Tmolus remained a place of isolation, shepherds and woodcutters.
The myth of its seclusion continued into the Christian era with monastic foundations but once again sources are hard to come by. Yet the importance of Mt. Tmolus had always to do with its privileged location between the Anatolian Plateau and the Aegean Coast, except that as Western explorers found out in the 19th century (especially the Swiss botanist Edmond Boissier in 1842), it cannot be crossed from east to west in modern times; “the fertile valleys are separated from each other by large and complex ranges of mountains where communication is difficult and agricultural resources are inadequate to support a large population” (Foss, 1978).
Map of Efeler Yolu
However the Tmolus is not impassable: “Most of the range consists of smaller chains of peaks which run north and south and enclose long, narrow valleys, called yayla, ‘summer pasture’, in Turkish” (Foss, 1978). Ancient roads led from Sardis to Hypaepa (an ancient city at the southern slope of the the Tmolus), a convenient route that connected the plateau and the coast, and that existed since Hittite times. It bypassed the Tmolus altogether along the Hermus, following parallel mountain ranges with lower elevations.
Other parallel roads were carved by political events: the Persian conquest of the Asia Minor in 546 BCE and the subsequent Athenian take over in 499 BCE. From the perspective of a contemporary visitor, the unspoiled nature is breathtaking and inviting, but under the dense vegetation of the valleys or the barren slopes, lurk long centuries of seasonal migrations, archaeological remains, agricultural landscaping, population exchange and massive public works. Since the departure of the man-god Dionysus for Thebes, the mysterious land of the gods has been hotly contested, often in battle, but ultimately abandoned to overgrown nature.
Lübbey Kışlağı
II. One City, Many Names
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 8.19.2-3
A message, however, reaching them from Chalcideus to tell them to go back again, and that Amorges was at hand with an army by land. They sailed to Dios Hieron and there saw ten more ships sailing up with which Diomedon had started from Athens after Thrasycles, They were fleeing with one ship to Ephesus, the rest to Teos.”
Finally, summing up everything, he judged it wise to arrest Nicephorus. The latter was preparing his meditated escape and, wishing the start on his way to Christopolis during the night, sent to Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the evening and begged him to lend him the swift steed the Emperor had given him. However, Constantine refused, saying it was impossible to give away a gift from the Emperor of such value to another the very same day.
The historical center of Birgi is our base camp for exploration and one of the arteries in a 500 km long walking path, the Efeler Yolu (roughly translated as the Bandit’s Route, explanation forthcoming); a path connecting partly abandoned villages and valleys that were once inhabited by the so-called bandits of the area. Unlike the famous Lycian Way, extending from Fethiye to Antalya, designed and marked by amateur historian Kate Clow (and Turkey’s most famous footpath), however Efeler Yolu is a coordinated effort of Ege University in Izmir, under the direction of Dr. Özgür Özkaya, involving key stakeholders in the region, such as municipalities and development agencies.
The newly established footpath, overlaid on ancient and modern roads, seeks to reactivate the region through different strategies of sustainable tourism. Already in the 19th century (Wagner, 1892) the Ottoman Birgi was largely abandoned as population displaced towards the regional capital Ödemiş, but it is now a heritage tourism destination, with its Ottoman period houses and artisanal production, from which traces of its antiquity are rather absent and have to be carefully carved out through obscure sources.
Its ancient name of Dios Hieron – Sanctuary of Zeus – is very poorly attested and there’s a confusion in the sources given that there’s another Dios Hieron on the Ionian coast that figures prominently in Greek sources as a city in the Delian League (Thuc. 8.19.2), and Thucydides, Stefan of Byzantium, Pliny the Elder, Strabo and Herodotus provide confusing, often conflicting accounts. The only reliable source is merely the name of the city listed by Ptolemy, and there’s doubt whether we are talking about the same exact settlement, or somewhere nearby. Many coins were minted here in antiquity with the inscription “Διοσιερειτων” or different variants thereof.
“Seal of Leo, the most humble bishop of Pyrgion”, Byzantine seal, 11th/12th century obverse, Dumbarton Oaks
Its name changed to Diopolis and Christians called it Christopolis (see Anna Komnene), but it was known as Pyrgion by the end of the Byzantine era – a place mentioned in many sources but without much detail. When Pyrgion fell to the Turks in 1307, its name changed to Birgi and became the capital of a sultanate. By the time Ibn Battuta visited in the 14th century he described the hospitality of Muslim institutions, but little is known about Christian life through the centuries, except that a number of Greeks and Armenians were also settled in the area.
The great mosque of Birgi (Ulu Cami), was erected in 1312, by Mehmed Bey of the Aydınoğlu Emirate, and the builder integrated into the construction a fascinating piece of spolia: A Lydian lion, bearing witness to the pre-Greek past of the region (a Lydian tomb was excavated in the region as a part of the Sardis expeditions in the 20th century). After Turks settled in the surrounding area, nomadism became the established way of life, and whole tribes would move great distances between the summer and winter pastures, called yayla and kışlak in Turkish (Foss, 1978),]. Mt Tmolus or the Boz Dağ, was known through the Ottoman period as a refugee for bandits (hence the name Efeler Yolu), but its reputation for banditry is also ancient: In the Novellae Constitutiones, a code of Roman law initiated by Roman Emperor Justinian I, there was a discussion of Pisidian banditry and the punishments meted out to thieves and bandits. It is also thought that the lack of Christian sources is perhaps due to heretic sects living in this remote highland. But during the Ottoman era, the authorities found it extremely difficult to impose law and order in these valleys.
Ulu Cami, the Great Mosque of Birgi
Several kilometers from Birgi, we arrive at the kışlak of Lübbey, a semi abandoned winter village where only a handful of inhabitants, ruined houses and a mosque remain. Interestingly enough, the archaeological knowledge of the area is very poor, and most of the descriptive work of Clive Foss is based on the yayla, not on the kışlak. Visiting the kışlak with the Izmir Vakfı (a non-profit organization), we are led by Emin Başaranbilek, an archaeologist from Birgi, who completes the picture of this settlement on the Cayster valley, called Küçük Menderes in Turkish, largely against the background of the work of Foss and the Sardis expeditions (he’s also written about the mosque of Lübbey in Turkish). Information about this settlement, populated by Turkmen in the modern era, is very scarce, mostly limited to the late Ottoman period and cadastral records. The history of Lübbey is completely unknown, as the word has no meaning in Turkish (toponyms that begin with L are foreign to Turkish), and could be perhaps related to Datbey (a place famous for kiln firing), around Hypaepa, an important Greek city on the southern slope of the Tmolus that loses importance to Birgi/Pyrgion.
III. Wine from Tmolus
Painting by Emin Başaranbilek, historical hammam, undated
Euripides, Bacchae, 135-167
Chorus
He is sweet in the mountains, whenever, after the running dance, he falls on the ground, wearing the sacred garment of fawn skin, hunting the blood of the slain goat, a raw-eaten delight, rushing to the Phrygian, the Lydian mountains, and the leader of the dance is Bromius, evoe!
The plain flows with milk, it flows with wine, it flows with the nectar of bees. The Bacchic one, raising the flaming torch of pine and his thyrsos darts about, like the smoke of Syrian incense, arousing the wanderers with his racing and dancing, agitating them with his shouts, casting his rich locks into the air.
And among the Maenads his voice cries deep: “Go, Bacchae, go, Bacchae, with the luxury of Tmolus that flows with gold, sing of Dionysus, beneath the heavy beat of drums, celebrating in delight the god of delight with Phrygian shouts and cries, when the sweet-sounding sacred pipe sounds a sacred playful tune suited to the wanderers, to the mountain, to the mountain!”
And the Bacchantes, rejoicing like a foal with its grazing mother, rouses her swift foot in a gamboling dance.
In Euripides’ Bacchae, the god Dionysus is constantly bragging about the quality of wines from Lydia and the Tmolus, fact that has been corroborated by Strabo, “And indeed the Ephesian and Metropolitan wines are good; and Mt. Mesogis and Mt. Tmolus and the Catacecaumene country and Cnidos and Smyrna and other less significant places produce exceptionally good wine, whether for enjoyment or medicinal purposes” (Strab. 14.1).
The Aegean coast has always been famous for its wine culture (Hom. Il. 13.673) but in the historical agriculture presented in Foss’ description, vineyards are quite absent: Fruit and nut trees of all kinds, wheat, potatoes, hazelnuts, chestnuts, grapes, apples, and pomegranates. In modern times, the vineyards are located on the lower slopes of the Boz Dağ, though of course wine culture has been affected by population exchanges that drove away from Anatolia Christian minorities traditionally concerned with wine-making. But Turkey’s Aegean region, nevertheless, has experienced a mild rebirth of its wine culture in recent years, paradoxically as the currency has slipped and freedom of expression became very restricted.
Dios Hieron minted coins, Lydia, reign of Antoninus Pius, circa 147-161 CE, ƐΠΙ Λ ΙΟVΛ(Ι) ΜΙΘΡΟV ΔΙΟϹΙƐΡΙΤΩΝ, Goddess Hera, Ashmolean Museum
Part of the appeal for Efeler Yolu is actually the return to small scale agriculture that can serve other purpose than survival: The region’s archaeology of food, for which we have no good sources, indicates that not only is the agricultural panorama radically different from antiquity (unlike Greece for example), but it has profoundly transformed the environment as well. For a country whose modernization has always emphasized large-scale industrial production, massive dependence on imports – a dangerous situation as the currency has lost so much of its value – and a move away from traditional craftsmanship, there’s a lack of much needed incentives for local, regional agriculture. As Alastair Bland mentions in his article from the experience of biking through the ancient roads of the Tmolus in 2011, there was plenty of local produce on offer, olives, figs, oil, and a limited quantity of fruits. Would it be possible to transform back the environment through a gesture as simple as a footpath? Perhaps not, but it creates a different, deeper historical space, where such ideas are possible.
Lübbey Yaylası, Clive Foss, 1978
The cultural history of nomadism and the role of traditional religion and the progressive abandonment of villages have not only transformed the environment, but brought gigantic rings of poverty to capital cities that can no longer sustain a growing young population with high employment rates. By the end of the Ottoman era and definitely in the beginning of the Turkish republic, nomadism was largely eradicated and a degree of law and order was established, but with its departure came also the abandonment of the Tmolus.
It might seem strange to casual observers today, but classical and Byzantine settlements have been found throughout the area, and while significant remains of antiquity have not been found, it is also suspected that the banditry culture contributed to massive looting and that antiquities were unearthed before heritage laws were passed. According to Clive Foss, who documented a number of inscriptions in the 1970s, inscriptions were broken up for stone and carried off for roadworks, without much oversight. That this happens is no surprise to observers in Turkey, where archaeological sites are covered by roadworks and botched restorations are a matter of course.
Chris Roosevelt, an archaeologist specializing in the Lydia region, has also documented testimonies from other archaeologists in the same period and as late as the early 2000s, about mysterious shepherds, overnight digs, weak law enforcement and unreported antiquities, including looting and destruction of remains. He even theorizes that in the absence of the state (in the remains-rich Bin Tepe, north of Mt. Tmolus), archaeological excavations in fact encourage more plunder and looting. It is perhaps possible, to think, that a multidirectional project such as Efeler Yolu, a coordinated effort across different state and private actors and agencies, could in fact serve to magnify efforts in heritage (preventive) preservation. Through its engagement with nature and the built environment (an artificial construct with political implications), a contemporary archaeological practice (of the kind espoused by archaeologists such as Dan Hicks and his project “Lande: The Calais Jungle” or Yannis Hamilakis’ “Transient Matter”) could arise, reversing the socio-cultural damage that survival agriculture and decades of poor planning have inflicted on the Lydian mountains.
The Emperor was detained for some time by his care for the Franks; and when he had arranged everything satisfactorily for them, he took the road home to Byzantium. But after his return he did not give himself entirely to rest and repose, for, when he reflected how the barbarians had laid the whole sea-coast of Smyrna in ruins up to Attalia, he thought it would be a disgrace if he could not restore the cities to their pristine state, bring back their former prosperity, and re-people them with the inhabitants who were now scattered far and wide.
Constantine P. Cavafy, “Anna Komnena”, Poems 1919-1933
In the prologue to her Alexiad,
Anna Komnena laments her widowhood.
Her soul is all vertigo.
“And I bathe my eyes,” she tells us,
“in rivers of tears… Alas, for the waves” of her life,
“alas for the revolutions.” Sorrow burns her
“to the bones and the marrow of the splitting” of her soul.
But the truth seems to be this power-hungry woman
knew only one sorrow that really mattered;
even if she doesn’t admit it, this arrogant Greek woman
had only one consuming pain:
that with all her dexterity,
she never managed to gain the throne,
virtually snatched out of her hands by impudent John.
Στον πρόλογο της Aλεξιάδος της θρηνεί,
για την χηρεία της η Άννα Κομνηνή.
Εις ίλιγγον είν’ η ψυχή της. «Και
ρείθροις δακρύων», μας λέγει, «περιτέγγω
τους οφθαλμούς….. Φευ των κυμάτων» της ζωής της,
«φευ των επαναστάσεων». Την καίει η οδύνη
«μέχρις οστέων και μυελών και μερισμού ψυχής».
Όμως η αλήθεια μοιάζει που μια λύπη μόνην
καιρίαν εγνώρισεν η φίλαρχη γυναίκα·
έναν καϋμό βαθύ μονάχα είχε
(κι ας μην τ’ ομολογεί) η αγέρωχη αυτή Γραικιά,
που δεν κατάφερε, μ’ όλην την δεξιότητά της,
την Βασιλείαν ν’ αποκτήσει· μα την πήρε
σχεδόν μέσ’ απ’ τα χέρια της ο προπετής Ιωάννης.
Lübbey
The presence of the Ottoman minorities along the footpath of Efeler Yolu is as weak as the evidence for its classical past, and often apocryphal – mostly accounts of Western travelers. Although in the case of Birgi hardly avoidable, given the status of Christopolis, and especially Pyrgion, as a borderline in the mountains of a receding empire as the Seljuk presence closed in on the Byzantines. In a way, Turks and Greeks first encountered each other in these mountains, and continued to do so for centuries. The erasure of the Greek presence is today near absolute, to the extent that a number of Roman and Byzantine tombs (even inside of Birgi) are mistakenly attributed to the Ottoman Seljuks, and incorrectly dated. The Fall of Constantinople, thanks not to the Turks but to Latins on August 12, 1204, thus moving the Byzantine Empire out of Constantinople and to Nicaea, created a wave of refugees from the city to the Aegean region and a new dynamic in the area (Anna Komnene writes bitterly about the first Italo-Norman invasions). This situation surprisingly empowered the Byzantine presence versus the new Seljuk arrivals from the East.
But the nomadic nature of the Turks put the long-settled Greek and Armenian population at terrible disadvantage, and since then, imperial power became increasingly fragmented around this region. Many Byzantines converted to Islam, sometimes for practical reasons but often also forced; other populations welcomed the Ottomans in protest of the oppressive Byzantine taxation and even fought alongside them, and since then both Muslims and Christians (and a minor Jewish population) lived in a complex archipelago of settlements, in which facing each other was unavoidable.
The highland gave advantage to the Turkish bandits in terms of inaccessible geography, but in terms of battle it is a place where scarce resources and water make it impossible to remain hidden for long, therefore mobility between the valleys was a necessity. Birgi fell (1307) long before Constantinople and the Aydın sultanate was established rapidly, but it wasn’t going to be the last time Turks and Greeks would be facing it off in battle: On May 15, 1919 the Greek forces advanced as far as Birgi during the independence war and not unlike other battles in the Anatolian Aegean, Greeks were defeated with devastating consequences.
Application by A. Stavrakoudis, οικοισμοι προσφυγες
An online application, created by Anastasios Stavrakoudis, at the University of Ioannina, maps out all the locations from which Greeks were expelled on the aftermath of the Greek-Turkish war in 1922, when Greece and Turkey exchanged their entire minority populations (after hundreds of thousands were massacred, the vast majority in Turkey), with the exception of Istanbul. You easily can find Birgi and Ödemiş in this map. A documentary film by Turkish filmmaker Nefin Dinç and Herkül Millas, a Greek writer from the minorities of Anatolia, “The Other Town” (2011), takes place in two towns, one in Turkey (Birgi) and one in Greece (Dimitsana), on the mountains of Peloponnese, a place very similar to Mt. Tmolus, and a borderland with the Ottomans that played a role in the Greek independence in 1821. In both towns, Millas discusses the ‘other’, with both the young and the elderly, in places where people have learnt about each other only through the history textbooks that present only one version of events, being both versions quite symmetrically based on the similar events and nationalistic discourse that has led to multigenerational ethnic hatred.
The Greek presence on the Aegean coast and the Tmolus is something that cannot be expunged from memory, the play of Euripides tells us. In the vicinity of Lübbey, the remote yayla we just visited, a Hellenistic inscription was found by Foss, bearing the uncommon name Nicopolis, attested only in Hypaepa, but all of this disappeared from public memory in Turkey, and traces are difficult to pin down without specialized archaeological knowledge, how is this process possible? The 500 km path of Efeler Yolu, almost unknowingly, on its twenty-something village stops – chosen for a number of strategic reasons, highlights not only the history of ancient roads in a remote and importantly connected region of historical Lydia, but also uncovers an unfinished, multilayered, historical memory, both recent and in the far past, rich in archaeological implications and made invisible not only by the overgrown nature but also by the political maneuvers of modern nation states. According to Millas, myths mean more than they narrate, “Nations believe in myths even if the myths are not sensible and rational, they are not documented, they are full of contradictions, even if they are proven fake.”
Whether a project so ambitious (it’s still not fully operational, and I suspect, much work remains to be done), and so deeply embedded in institutions of the state at a time of turmoil will be capable of independently achieving aims other than presenting a neutral (or neutralized) image of the past/present, remains to be seen. As we know from the struggles of indigenous peoples in many countries at present, the environment is never neutral, and represents a key factor in the frontline of decolonization, especially against the background of redrawing historical borders and questions of belonging. In a country that has historically struggled with complexity and cultural memory, and where the history of minorities has been largely erased and archaeology is a contentious point in the construction of national identity, it is not possible to turn the clock back. Nevertheless, the hope remains that a vision of sustainable development comes not at the expense of a serious consideration of the value of material culture that might problematize the past not as myth, but as shared heritage. So much remains to be seen insofar as what lies ahead in the rest of the month-long trail.
Hellenistic inscription, the rare name Nicopolis, Lübbey Yaylası, Clive Foss, 1978
George Seferis, “Mythistorima”, XIX, 1935
Even if the wind does blow it brings us no relief
the shade cast by the cypress-tree is tight and narrow
and all around are steep paths leading to the mountains;
they weight upon us
those friends who no longer know how to die.
Κι αν ο αγέρας φυσά δε μας δροσίζει
κι ο ίσκιος μένει στενός κάτω απ’ τα κυπαρίσσιακι
όλο τριγύρω ανήφοροι στα βουνά·
μας βαραίνουν
οι φίλοι που δεν ξέρουν πια πώς να πεθάνουν.
*In the course of the coming year, I will visit a number of points in the trail of Efeler Yolu, seeking the map out details and stories from classical antiquity, Byzantine and pre-modern past of the region. Efeler Yolu is on Instagram, only in Turkish.
Visiting Lübbey Kışlağı with İzmir Vakfı
Bibliography:
Dimiter Angelov, The Byzantine Hellene: The Life of Emperor Theodore Laskaris and Byzantium in the Thirteenth Century, Harvard University Press, 2019
Emin Başaranbilek, Lübbey Kışlağı ve Lübbey Camisi, 2015
Clive Foss, Explorations in Mount Tmolus, California Studies in Classical Antiquity, Vol. 11 (1978), pp. 21-60
Dimitri Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks in the Thirteenth Century, Oxford Studies in Byzantium, Oxford University Press, 2014
George Ramsay, The Historical Geography of Asia Minor, Royal Geographical Society, Supplementary Papers, Vol. 4, John Murray, 1890
Alexandros Rizos Rankabes, Antiquités Helléniques ou répertoire d’inscriptions et d’autres antiquités, Athens Archaeological Society, 1842
Louis Robert, Monnaies grecques de l’époque impériale, Revue Numismatique, Vol. 18 (1976), pp. 25-56
Christopher Roosevelt, The Archaeology of Lydia, Cambridge University Press, 2014
Christopher H. Roosevelt, Christina Luke, Mysterious Shepherds and Hidden Treasures: The Culture of Looting in Lydia, Western Turkey, Journal of Field Archaeology, 31-2 (2016), pp. 185-198
Speros Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of California Press, 1971
G. Weber, Hypaepa, le Kaleh d’Aïasourat, Birghi et Oedémich, Revue des Études Grecques, Vol. 5-17 (1892), pp. 7-21
Arie Amaya-Akkermans is a writer and art critic based in Istanbul. He is interested in the Greek heritage of the Asia Minor and the relationship between (pseudo)archaeology and nationalism in the Eastern Mediterranean. He’s also tweeting about Classics, Byzantium, contemporary art and Turkey/Greece.
John Tzetzes, Allegories of the Iliad, (Prolegomena 113-132):
Since you now know well the chronology of Homer’s life, learn too in what way he died. He remained a beggar, and became blind in old age; he wandered through all of the lands of Greece, reciting his poems, and being honorably received. As he came to Arcadia, he was offered hospitality there by a certain Kreophylos.
Homer remained there enjoying the hospitality for several days, when he took a little stroll down to the beach. There he came upon some fishermen who had not caught any fish, but sat there picking lice off themselves and killing them. When Homer heard the fishermen chatting among themselves, he asked, ‘Well my Arcadian fishermen, do we have anything?’ They responded to him, joking about the lice, ‘We do not have those which we have caught, but we still have the ones we have not caught.’
Not understanding the joke, Homer was afflicted by a rather disproportionate sadness, and turned back to the house where he was staying. Because it was muddy, he slipped, struck a rock, and broke a rib. Three days later, he died.
“The people who go into ecstasies over St. Sophia must surely get them out of the guide-book (where every church is spoken of as being ‘considered by good judges to be the most marvelous structure, in many respects, that the world has ever seen.’) Or else they are those old connoisseurs from the wilds of New Jersey who laboriously learn the difference between a fresco and a fire-plug and from that day forward feel privileged to void their critical bathos on painting, sculpture and architecture forever more.”
Telephos the Pergamêne, a scholar. He also wrote […] in which he specifies all the things a scholar needs to know. In addition: On Homeric Figures of Speech (two books); On Attic Syntax (five books); On Rhetoric in Homer; On Agreement of Homer and Plato; On A Varied Love of Knowledge; The Lives of Tragic and Comic Poets; On Expert Knowledge of Books, three books in which he lists the books which are worth having. Only Homer of the Ancient Poets Speaks Greek, A Description of Pergamon; On the Sebasteion in Pergamon (two books); On the Courts of Athens; On Athenian Laws and Customs; On the Kings of Pergamon (five books); Concerning the Names or Use of Clothing and Other Items which We Use (an alphabetical catalogue); On the Wandering of Odysseus; Swift-Born (a collection of epithets prepared for use in the same situation as a treasure-trove for description), ten books.”
“Baldwin, then, having become king, left for the western lands, not with the intention of subduing them (for he considered everything easy to conquer ‘wherever I step, I will shake the earth with my spear,’ as he put it, boasting in his regal way that it was of no great difficulty), but so that he could go through friendly lands, saluted before all as the King of the Romans, for the sake of which he did not deem some of the people in the Roman army and political system worth his attention, so he sent them all away at once. This seemed like the right treatment for the other leaders and marshals of the Romans. For they separated manliness from the other kindred virtues and claimed it as their own as though it were innate and habitual to them, and they allowed none of the other races to be compared to them in the works of war. But none of the Graces or the Muses was ever given hospitable treatment by these barbarians. Beyond that, I think that they were by nature savage and possessed of an anger which far outran their faculty of reason.”
“Not only the Persians, but even some of the Romans sing his praises and value him beyond his merit because he was a lover of words and went to the summit of philosophy as it exists among us, the Greek writings having been translated into the Persian language for his benefit. They say that he drank in Aristotle more than the Paianian orator [Demosthenes] absorbed the works of the son of Oluros [Thucydides], that he was filled up with the beliefs of Plato and that even the Timaeus would not escape him, even though it was painted over with geometrical speculation and traces back the beginnings of nature, nor would the Phaedo or Gorgias elude him, nor any other of those subtle and intricate dialogues such as – so I think – the Parmenides.
Yet I cannot believe that he had such excellent education, achieving the pinnacles of learning. For, how could the purity of those ancient terms, and the freedom, and the utter suitability of the speech to the works of nature be preserved in a barbaric tongue utterly foreign to the Muses? How could someone enchanted by regal incense and flattery from childhood, receiving a mode of life entirely barbaric and looking always toward war and its preparation – how, I ask, could someone who has lived thus enjoy and get hold of something great and worthy of notice in these studies?”
