urn:pubpipe:wwverticals:article:travel/article/20230906-the-ancient-civilisation-that-inspired-us-democracy

travel.article.20230906-the-ancient-civilisation-that-inspired-us-democracy.page

ngas

Home

News

Israel-Gaza War

War in Ukraine

US & Canada

England

N. Ireland

Scotland

Wales

UK Nations and Regions

Africa

Asia

Australia

Europe

Latin America

Middle East

In Pictures

BBC InDepth

BBC 

Sport

Business

Executive Lounge

Technology of Business

Future of Business

Innovation

Technology

Science & Health

AI v the Mind

Artificial Intelligence

Culture

Film & TV

Music

Art & Design

Style

Books

Entertainment News

Arts

Arts in Motion

Travel

Destinations

World’s Table

Culture & Experiences

Adventures

The SpeciaList

Earth

Natural Wonders

Weather & Science

Climate Solutions

Sustainable Business

Green Living

Audio

Podcasts

Radio

Audio FAQs

Video

Live

Live News

Live Sport

Weather

Newsletters

UK Politics

N. Ireland Politics

Scotland Politics

Wales Politics

China

India

Antarctica

Australia and Pacific

Caribbean & Bermuda

Central America

North America

South America

Places That Changed the World

Adventure & Experience

The ancient civilisation that inspired US democracy

A 540km trail along Turkey's Mediterranean coast introduces hikers to the rich heritage of Lycia, an ancient maritime republic that's recognised as the world's first democratic union.

"The Lycians? But who were they?" said Iskender. "When we Turks came here, all we saw was ruins, and – how do you call them? Where the dead people lie?" the old boatbuilder added, setting down his bottle of Efes beer and making a horizontal gesture with his hands.

"Tombs?" I offered. He adjusted his grubby skipper's cap and nodded.

It was only May, but the afternoon heat already weighed heavy in Simena, a remote village on the Teke Peninsula on Turkey's Mediterranean coast, a region historically known as Lycia. I was two weeks into a hike along the Lycian Way, a 540km trail linking the cities of Fethiye and Antalya, and had met Iskender after seeking refreshment in a roadside cafe near a boatyard.

He gestured towards the crenellated walls of Simena Castle, riding up a rugged ridge. "Those tombs you saw near the castle… How did they move these enormous stones, thousands of years ago?" he asked. "Even five men couldn't carry those tomb lids." Iskender shook his head, as if struggling to reconcile himself to an impossible idea.

From the fortress, I had seen the Lycian sarcophagi with their Gothic vault-shaped lids, littering the hillside in dozens. Earlier, in nearby Kaleüçağız, I had climbed a hillock overlooking the marina to find a vast necropolis of weed-choked tombs, while just metres away, traders noisily set up their stalls. The Turkish presence seemed fragile beside these eerie relics, a reminder that others had once called this land home.

Immortalised in the Iliad as the land of the "swirling river Xanthos", named after its original capital, ancient Lycia was a mountain stronghold peopled by a fiercely independent seafaring race whose origins remain a matter of speculation.

The ancient Greek historian Herodotus claimed that the forebears of the Lycians, the Trm̃mili, "sprang originally from Crete", though modern-day scholars believe they were an Anatolian people who became Hellenised after Alexander the Great seized the region from the Persians in 333 BCE. And although the Lycians vanished into oblivion long ago, assimilated by Byzantines and Turks, their political legacy lingers on, thanks to a curious historical connection.

The Lycian Way

On 30 June 1787, future US president James Madison gave a speech at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. The forum had been convened to identify a more effective system of government for the fledgling nation, where a lack of proportional representation was hampering effective policymaking.

Responding to delegate Oliver Ellsworth's assertion that equality of voices had always been a fundamental principle in confederations, Madison cited the example of Lycia. The Lycian League, he argued, was different.

Formed in the 2nd Century BCE and composed of 23 city-states, the Lycian League was the world's first democratic union, a model of a strong confederacy based on popular and proportional representation. Six cities – including the capital Patara – wielded three votes in the Lycian Council, medium-sized cities commanded two, and small settlements had one.

The circumstances surrounding the League's creation are unclear, but it was probably a response to the tyranny of Rhodes, which was briefly assigned control of Lycia in 190 BCE by Rome. The League could not determine foreign policy, but elected a governing executive, a Lyciarch, as well as local judges, and collected taxes. The 18th-century French philosopher Montesquieu called it "the most perfect constitution of antiquity",

Professor Anthony Keen, an expert on Lycia from the University of Notre Dame, describes the system as "a meeting of Greek ideas about democracy with pre-existing Lycian ideas about how a community of individual urban settlements works together".

Many of the paths I was walking were once roads, millennial arteries connecting the cities of Lycia, whose story ended after Roman emperor Claudius annexed the region in 43 CE. It was an interest in these ancient byways that spurred Kate Clow to create the Lycian Way in the 1990s after moving to the region.

"I wasn't inspired to make a trail; I was inspired to collect old roads," she said.

Clow continues to expand the route and  local communities: this year a volunteer group transformed a building in the village of Sidyma into a cultural centre.

Hikers were few on the Lycian Way, but the trail was full of life: shaggy-haired goats, ponderous tortoises and, more alarmingly, the black snakes that occasionally darted across the path.

In mountain villages spangled with poppies and wildflowers, women in baggy şalvar tros brought me goat cheese, fresh honey and gozleme flatbread, washed down with glasses of tea. During the hottest hours I plunged into the sea, sheltered in forested canyons or stretched out in thyme-scented groves of oak, wild olive and dogwood. After dusk, a thick silence enveloped the land, and my campfire trembled beneath the whispering pines, as if urging me to  the people who built these roads.

Indeed, on the Lycian Way, memory is such a pervasive presence that you walk, rest and sleep in the company of phantoms. For despite its dramatic beauty, this is a land of ghosts. In The Lycian Shore, an  of a journey along the peninsula by sea in the 1950s, the explorer Freya Stark called it "the most haunted coast in the world". Empty tombs lie in every thicket and grove, like mute envoys sent down from a vanished embassy. 

An ostentatious part of Lycia's urban fabric, tombs were an expression of the central role of ancestor worship and the afterlife. Strangest of all were the tower-like pillar tombs found in the ruins of Xanthos, capital of Lycia under the Persians. The Lycian Way diverts inland to the site, which sits on a rocky outcrop surrounded by greenhouses and orange plantations. Two pillar tombs dominate the acropolis: the Harpy Tomb, adorned with reliefs of female winged figures; and the Xanthian Obelisk, a giant stele covered in Lycian script that has not yet been fully deciphered.

Xanthos' greatest pillar tomb, the Tomb of Payava, with its bas-reliefs and Lycian inscriptions, was removed in 1841 by British archaeologist Sir Charles Fellows, who carted off all he could to London on the HMS Beacon. Today the tomb stands in the British Museum, alongside the original friezes from the Harpy Tomb, and the Nereid Monument, a spectacular sculptured tomb in the form of a Greek temple.

From the 4th Century BCE onwards, the Lycians built rock-hewn "house" tombs – often funeral chambers carved into cliffs, with the rock face around the doorway cut to imitate the façade of a wooden Lycian house, complete with "timbers" and protruding "joists". Most common are the sarcophagi, oblong tombs cut from Lycian limestone, typically sitting atop a lower sepulchre.

There is this idea in Lycia of literally elevating important people in death

Dr Catherine Draycott, an archaeologist from Durham University, explained that in Lycian tombs the deceased would be buried in the upper sarcophagus, while relatives or slaves were interred in the chamber beneath. "There is this idea in Lycia of literally elevating important people in death," she said. "So, in that sense, they're heroising whoever is put in there."

While the ubiquitous tombs have given archaeologists an understanding of the Lycians' elaborate burial rituals, the picture of everyday life is sparse: finds of personal items or jewellery are incredibly rare. "The difficulty is that a lot of the hard evidence is Roman. There's so little from the earlier periods," said Draycott. Plundered long ago, the tombs are inevitably empty – even the bones are gone.

Two days on from Xanthos, the trail brought me back to the coast by the ruins of Patara, capital of the Lycian League. Once a thriving port, Patara was gradually abandoned after its river silted up. The colonnaded main street now disappears into a pool, and the walls of the shops that once lined the avenue have long since collapsed. The most significant building here is the Council Chamber, or bouleterion. Containing a semi-circular auditorium with 20 rows of stone benches, this recently restored assembly house was the political centre of the Lycian League.

Sitting high up in the bouleterion, it wasn't hard to imagine hundreds of robed delegates discussing public affairs while the Lyciarch conducted proceedings, and my thoughts drifted from Patara to distant Philadelphia, and Madison's invocation of the Lycian League.

It is thanks to Madison that today the US House of Representatives is founded on the Lycian principle, with the 435 seats apportioned among the 50 states in proportion to their population. Of all the Lycians' attempts to defy the age of time and preserve themselves for the next world, the one that turned out to have a true afterlife was the most intangible of things – an idea.

Places That Changed the World is a BBC Travel series looking into how a destination has made a significant impact on the entire planet.

 more than three million BBC Travel fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter called "The Essential List". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

Turkey

A woman who allegedly was the head of the Catholic Church became one of the most controversial Middle Ages tales.

Pope Joan: the woman who fooled the church

Hiding in an attic, Jewish man Curt Bloch found inspiration through crafting anti-Nazi parody.

The secret WW2 magazine ridiculing Hitler's mother

Valentine’s Day is thought to celebrate romance but rude cards soured the holiday for its recipients.

The insulting 'Vinegar Valentine' of Victorian England

An unexpected WW2 experiment by behaviourist B F Skinner proved that pigeons could be used for missile guidance.

The WW2 experiment to make pigeon-guided missiles

The actor recalls being at the Mandela film premiere when he heard the anti-apartheid politician had died.

Idris Elba on moment he learned about Mandela's death

How Mary Mallon, an Irish cook for New York's elite, became known as the 'most dangerous woman in America'.

Mary Mallon: 'The most dangerous woman in America'

The battlegrounds of World War One are still giving up their revealing evidence of bitter fighting.

World War One relics live on in the fields of Europe

How a 1892 photo from Rougeville, Michigan, became the most iconic image of the bison massacre in America.

The picture that tells a lesser-known chapter of US history

The US Presidential elections did not always depend on just these seven states.

The history of swing states in the US

In 1890 an estimated cargo of 180,000 ancient felines, weighing 19.5 tonnes, were auctioned off in Liverpool.

Why tonnes of mummified cats ended up in England

The Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak was accidentally discovered by Bulgarian soldiers digging up shelters in 1944.

Inside the ancient royal tomb found by accident

The Varna treasure is considered the world's oldest human processed gold, dating back 6,500 years.

Varna Necropolis: World's oldest gold treasure

Hiding in a London cathedral is an intricate wooden mock-up of Sir Christopher Wren's masterpiece.

The giant 350-year-old model of St Paul's Cathedral

Bettany Hughes goes underwater in search of ancient archaeological finds in historic Sozopol, Bulgaria.

Uncovering the sunken relics of an ancient city

In 1911, a fence was constructed on the US-Mexico border. But its purpose was not to stop humans.

Texas fever: The lesser-known history of the US border

A look through footage from the Paris 1924 Olympics gives viewers a chance to reflect on how much has changed.

Century-old Olympics footage brought back to life

One of Europe's oldest residential streets hides in the heart of the English countryside.

The rare medieval street about to reveal its secrets

One month after the famous discovery, photographer Harry Burton recreated the first view of Tutankhamun's tomb.

Tutankhamun: The first ever view inside the tomb

Thomas Edison wasn't the first person to record sound. It was a Frenchman who invented sound recording in 1857.

Listen to the oldest known recording of a human voice

On the 80th anniversary of D-Day, veterans who were on the beaches of Normandy recount that fateful day.

D-Day veteran re: We didn't have time to be scared

Watch

The site in Cuckfield is home to an underground bunker from 1925, once used by the Royal Observer Corps. 

The Cold War bunker brought back to life

A ring found in a 17th Century box was likely stored for safety but ended up lost, an expert says.

'Saddest story' for owner who lost ring in 1600s

The discovery is "a drum roll of Roman coins from the late republic through to the early empire".

Coin hoard spans Roman republic to first emperor

Protests may be returning this summer, but so are new ideas to make travel more sustainable, from smart tech to visitor taxes and travel rewards.

Can Europe beat the overtourism crisis?

There are huge gaps in what we know about sperm, from how they navigate to why sperm counts are tumbling. The BBC unravels why we know so little about this perplexing cell.

The ancient civilisation that inspired US democracy

The Cold War bunker brought back to life

'Saddest story' for owner who lost ring in 1600s

Coin hoard spans Roman republic to first emperor

Can Europe beat the overtourism crisis?

Why sperm is still so mysterious