726
LYCIA
LYDIA
ished) to Cappadocia, -while he attached south- Avestern Lycaonia (considerably increased) to the province of Cilicia. Mark Antony gave the last part, including Iconinni and Lystra, to Polemon in 39 B.C., but transferred it in 36 to King Aniyntas of Pisidia, 'who at the same time became king of all Galatia. Soon afterwards this brilliant soldier — the most interesting of AsiaticGaels — over- threw Antipater of Derbe, Avith the result that the whole of Lycaonia, except the so-called Eleventh Strategia (-which about this time was given to King Antiochus of Commagene, to be henceforth called Lycaonia Antiocliiana) was now included in the Galatian realm. After the untimely death of Amyntas in 25 B.C., his kingdom was converted into the Roman province of Galatia. This ar- rangement lasted for nearly a century, except that Claudius apparently presented the S.E. corner of Lycaonia, including the important city of Laranda, to the king of Commagene.
When St. Paul brought Christianity to Lycaonia, he confined his mission to that part of it which was in the pro\ance of Galatia. On reaching the frontier citj' of Derbe, he retraced his steps. Laranda, in Antiochian Lycaonia, -was beyond his sphere. If the S. Galatian theory is to be ac- cepted, he passed through Galatic Lycaonia four times (Ac 14°- -^ 16^ 18-^) ; he addressed the mixed population of its cities — Lycaonians, Greeks, and Jews — as all alike ' Galatians ' ; and the Christians of Lycaonian and Phrygian Galatia, not the in- habitants of Galatia proper, are the ' foolish Gal- atians' (Gal 3M about whom he -was so ' perplexed ' (Gal 420). But see Galatians.
Nothing remains of the Lycaonian language except some place-names ; but the Christian in- scriptions found in Lj'caonia are very niunerous, and show how widely diffused the new religion was in the 3rd cent, throughout this country which -was evangelized by St. Paul in the 1st.
LrrERATCRE. — -W. M. Ramsay, Hist. Geog. of Asia Minor, 1S90, also if ist. Com. on Galatians, 1S99; J. R. S. Sterrett, M'olfe Expedition in Asia Minor, ISiS; C. Wilson, in Murray's Handbook to Asia Minor, 1S95.
James Strahan.
LTGIA (AvKia, Eth. Avklos). — Lycia was a se- cluded mountain-land in the S.W. of Asia Minor, bounded on the W. by Caria, on the N. by Phrygia and Pisidia, on the N.E. by Pamphilia, and on the S. by the Lycian Sea. It was ' beyond the Taurus' (e/cr6s rod Tavpov). The ribs of that huge backbone of the country extended from N. to S. (in some places over 10,000 ft. in height), and be- tween them were -well- watered and fertile valleys, the homes of a highly civilized race, who in their love of peace and freedom resembled the Swiss. They were not Greek by race, but they were early hellenized. They had many overlords — Persians, Seleucids, Ptolemys, Romans — but for the most part their autonomy -was undisturbed, and they had one of the finest constitutions in ancient times.
As the Lycians were suspected of favouring the Imperial party in the Civil Wars of Rome, Brutus and Cassius almost annihilated the beautiful city of Xanthus (43 B.C.), and the country never re- covered its old prosperity. Pliny says that in his time the cities of Lycia, formerly 70 in number, had been reduced to 36 (HX v. 28). In A.D. 43 it was made a Roman province, and in A.D. 74 Vespasian formed the united province of Lycia- Pamphylia. Lycia is named in 1 Mac 15-^ as one of the Free States to which the Romans sent letters in favour of the Jewish settlers. Two of its principal seaports — Patara and Myra — are mentioned in Acts (21^ 27*). But it appears to have been one of the last parts of Asia Minor to accept Christianity. Among the provinces ad- dressed in 1 P 11 as having been partly evangel-
ized, neither Lycia nor Pamphylia — both south of the Taurus — finds a place.
LiTBRATDRE.— C. Fellows, Discoveries in Lycia during Snd Excursion in Asia Minor, 1S41 ; T. A. B. Spratt arid E. Forbes, Travels in Lycia, Milyas, and the Cibyratis, 1S47 ; Benndorf-Niemann, i2etse7imsi4c<M'es«Z. Eleinasien,i.: 'Eeisen in Lykien und Karien,' 1S84. JAMES STRAHAN.
LYDDA (Ai'55a, Heb. L6d, Ar. Lndd).—l.jdda was a town about 10 miles S.E. of Joppa, on the line where the Maritime Plain of Palestine merges into the Shephelah or Lowlands of Judaea. Its importance was largely due to its position at the intersection of two highways of intercourse and traffic — the road from Joppa up to Jerusalem by the Vale of Ajalon, and the caravan route from Egypt to Syria and Babylon. Re-occupied by the Jews after the Exile (Neli 11^^), it was nevertheless governed by the Samaritans till the time of Jona- than Maccabteus, when the Syrian king Demetrius II. made it over to Judcea (1 Mac 11^). In the time of Christ it was the capital of one of the eleven toparchies ' of Avhich the royal city of Jeru- salem was the supreme' (Jos. BJ ill. iii. 5). During the civil strife of the Romans (c. 45 B.C.) Cassius sold the inhabitants of Lj-dda into slavery for refusing the sinews of war, but Antony gave them back their liberty {A7it. XIV. si. 2, xii. 2-5). Lydda was visited by St. Peter, whose preaching, aided by the miraculous healing of .^neas, is said, 'in a popular hyperbolical manner' (Meyer on Ac 9^*), to have resulted in a general conversion of the Jewish population to Jesus as the Messiah. From this town the Apostle was called to Joppa on behalf of Dorcas (9^"). In the Jewish Wars Lydda was a centre of strong national feeling. It was captured and burned by the Syrian governor, Cestius Gallus, on his march to Jerusalem (A.D. 65), and it surrendered without a struggle to Ves- pasian in 68 (BJll. xis. 1, IV. viii. 1). After the fall of the holy city it became one of the refuges of Rabbinical learning. Later, it was known as Diospolis, though its old name was never dis- placed, and it became the seat of a bishop. At the Council of Diospolis in A.D. 415 the heresiarch Pelagius -n^as tried, but managed to procure his ac- quittal. By this time Lydda had begun to have a wide fame as the reputed burial-place of a Christian soldier named Georgios, who in Nicoaiedia had torn dowTi Diocletian's edict against Christianity and Avelcomed martyrdom. His relics were taken to Lydda, and round his name was gradually woven a tissue of legend, in which the Greek myth of Perseus and Andromeda (see JoPPA), the Moslem idea of Elijah (or alternatively of Jesus) as the destined destroyer of the Impostor (al-dajjdl) or Antichrist, and the old Hebrew story of the fall of Dagon before the ark, were all inextricably inter- twined, till Lydda became the shrine of St. George the Slayer of the Dragon, whom the English Crusaders made the patron-saint of their native land.