Xanthos Through the Centuries

By All Over InformationUpdated August 10, 20268 min read

The history of Xanthos is measured in centuries and written in fire. No other city of the ancient world has a story quite like it: a capital that chose destruction over surrender, not once but twice, and rose again both times. Its centuries run from the Bronze Age to the Byzantine era, taking in the rise of Lycia, the Persian conquest, the golden age of the dynasts, the wars of Alexander, the tragedy of the Roman siege, and the long peace that followed. This article traces Xanthos through the centuries, era by era, and shows how a city could be destroyed, reborn, and remembered for two and a half thousand years.

The Land Before the City

The story of Xanthos begins with the landscape. The Xanthos River rises in the mountains of Lycia and flows to the sea through a broad valley, and that valley has been inhabited since the earliest periods of human history. The hill where the city would stand was occupied long before the first monuments were raised.

The region was known to the Hittites, whose records mention the Lukka people, a name that survives in the word Lycia. The Lukka were a seafaring and warlike people, and they were troublesome enough to appear in the records of empires. When the Bronze Age ended, the Lycians who emerge in later history were the heirs of these earlier peoples, and Xanthos was their capital.

The archaeology of the hill confirms this long continuity. Excavations have uncovered layers of occupation from the Bronze Age through the Byzantine era, and the deep deposits preserve the city’s entire story in sequence. For archaeologists, Xanthos is a rare opportunity to read a city’s history directly in its strata.

The Birth of Lycian Xanthos

The city of Xanthos proper takes shape in the first millennium BC. By the seventh and sixth centuries, it was the leading city of Lycia, controlling the valley and the trade route to the coast. The earliest pillar tombs date from this period, and the city was already rich enough to raise monuments of stone.

The Xanthians of this era spoke their own language, wrote in their own script, and lived under their own dynasts. They were independent, proud, and accustomed to war, and their city was the seat of their power. The Greece that would later admire them was, at this time, only beginning its own rise.

Xanthos, Turkey — Photo by Anestiev on Pixabay

545 BC: The Great Destruction

In the mid-sixth century BC, the Persian Empire reached Lycia. The Persian general Harpagus marched on the cities of the region, and one by one they fell. At Xanthos, the story took a different turn: according to Herodotus, the Xanthians chose to die rather than surrender.

The men gathered their families, their goods, and their slaves, and burned the city and themselves upon it. The acropolis was destroyed, and the city was left to the Persians. The story became the founding legend of Xanthos, told and retold through the centuries, and it is the reason the city has never been forgotten.

The burnt level of 545 BC has actually been found. Beneath the later city, archaeologists uncovered the scorched layer left by the great fire, sealed by the rebuilding that followed. The discovery confirmed the ancient account and gave the legend of Xanthos a physical reality that few myths possess.

The Rebuilding Under Persia

The destruction of 545 BC was not the end of Xanthos. The Persians, who needed a stable city at the mouth of the valley, resettled the site, mixing new populations with the surviving Lycians. The city was rebuilt, and within a generation it was again prosperous.

The rebuilt Xanthos continued the traditions of the old. New pillar tombs were raised, and the dynasts commissioned monuments in the Lycian style. The city was now part of the Persian world, but it kept its language, its customs, and its fierce independence. The phoenix had risen from the ashes, and the memory of the burning was woven into its identity.

The Golden Age of the Dynasts

The fifth and fourth centuries BC were the golden age of Xanthos. The city flourished under its dynasts, who built the monuments that made its name: the great pillar tombs, the Harpy Tomb, and the Nereid Monument, the temple-like tomb that astonished the ancient world.

The city was also a cultural meeting place. Greek influence deepened, and the Xanthians, without losing their own identity, took part in the wider Greek world. The inscriptions of the period, written in both Lycian and Greek, are among the most important documents of ancient history, and the sculpture of the city is among the finest of its age.

The dynasts of the golden age ruled from a palace on the acropolis, and their monuments still define the skyline of the site. Their names survive in the inscriptions, and their tombs still stand where they were raised, more than two thousand years ago.

Alexander and the Hellenistic Age

In 334 BC, Alexander the Great marched through Lycia, and the cities of the region submitted to him. Xanthos passed into the world of the Hellenistic kingdoms, and a new age began. The dynasts faded, and the city became part of the wider Greek world.

The Hellenistic centuries were a time of change and prosperity. The Lycian League, the federation of Lycian cities, grew in importance, and Xanthos remained one of its leading members. The theatre was built, and the city’s public life flourished. The age of Alexander had transformed the Mediterranean, and Xanthos was part of the transformation.

The Roman Siege of 42 BC

The Roman era brought Xanthos its second great tragedy. In 42 BC, during the civil wars that followed the murder of Julius Caesar, the Roman general Brutus demanded the submission of Lycia. The Xanthians refused, and Brutus laid siege to the city.

The siege ended as it had ended six centuries before. According to the historians, the citizens set fire to their own city and died in the flames, repeating the sacrifice of their ancestors. The story horrified the ancient world, and it cemented the legend of Xanthos forever. The city was destroyed a second time, and a second time it was rebuilt, now under the shadow of Rome.

The memory of the sieges shaped the city’s place in the Roman imagination. Writers told and retold the story of the Xanthians, and the city became a moral example, cited by historians and orators. Even in its prosperity, Xanthos was known less for its buildings than for its refusal to bend.

The Roman Peace

Under the Roman Empire, Xanthos finally found peace. The wars ended, the trade routes were secured, and the city settled into a long period of prosperity. The Romans rebuilt and enlarged the city, adding a new agora, new public buildings, and a new phase of the theatre.

The Lycian League was reorganized under Rome, and the cities of Lycia kept a measure of their old institutions. Xanthos remained a center of the region, and its monuments were maintained and celebrated. The Roman centuries were the longest period of stability in the city’s history, and its ruins today are largely the ruins of this settled, prosperous era.

The Byzantine Centuries

In the Byzantine era, Xanthos slowly declined. The city became a bishopric and a provincial town, and its great days were over. The ancient monuments were adapted for new uses, and a basilica church was built within the old city.

The population shrank, the monuments crumbled, and the city’s importance passed to other places along the coast. By the Middle Ages, Xanthos was nearly deserted, and the hilltop returned to the quiet of the valley. The name survived in the river and in the legends, but the city itself had passed into the long silence of the past.

The centuries after antiquity left their mark as well. The Byzantine church, the later houses, and the medieval reuse of ancient blocks all show a city that never quite died, even as it shrank into a village. The final layers of Xanthos are quieter, but they are part of the same long story.

Rediscovery and the Modern Age

The nineteenth century brought Xanthos back to the world. The British explorer Charles Fellows visited the region in the 1830s and 1840s, and his reports astonished Europe. He returned with expeditions that carried off the greatest monuments, including the Nereid Monument and the Harpy Tomb, to the British Museum in London.

The removals saved the sculptures but stripped the site. In the twentieth century, systematic excavation began, and in 1988, Xanthos and the sanctuary of Letoon were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Today, the city is a place of scholarship and pilgrimage, and its stones still tell the story of the centuries that made it legend.

For the modern visitor, the centuries of Xanthos unfold in a single walk. The burnt layers, the pillar tombs, the theatre, and the scattered blocks of the medieval village are all visible on the hilltop, and the view across the valley links them to the landscape the ancients knew. It is history you can trace with your own feet.

Frequently asked questions

How many times was Xanthos destroyed?

Xanthos was famously destroyed twice. Around 545 BC, the citizens burned their city rather than surrender to the Persian general Harpagus. In 42 BC, they did the same rather than surrender to the Roman general Brutus. Both times, the city was rebuilt, and both sacrifices entered history.

When was Xanthos abandoned?

Xanthos declined gradually during the Byzantine era and was largely deserted by the Middle Ages. It survived as a bishopric and provincial town, but its population shrank and its monuments fell into ruin. The site was rediscovered by European travelers in the nineteenth century.

Why were the monuments taken to London?

In the 1840s, expeditions led by the British explorer Charles Fellows removed the greatest sculptures of Xanthos, including the Nereid Monument and the reliefs of the Harpy Tomb, and transported them to London. They remain in the British Museum, where they are major exhibits, while copies and foundations remain at the site.

All Over Information

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