Kastabos
City in Caria above Hisarönü, 13 km SW of Marmaris. Until the site was identified in 1960 Kastabos was known only from three sources: 1) a Rhodian inscription found on the island of Megista; 2) a Rhodian decree, found at Gölenye near Marmaris, which locates Kastabos on the territory of the deme of Bybassos; 3) a passage of Diodoros (5.62-63) which places the sanctuary of Hemithea at Kastabos in the Carian Chersonese. The site at Pazarlik was visited in 1860, and a temple, theater, and other remains including a female statue were reported; it was supposed to be the grove of Leto mentioned in Strabo (652). Excavation after WW II revealed an inscription recording that the temple was dedicated to Hemithea, proving that Kastabos was at Pazarhk and that the fortified site at Hisarönü is Bybassos.
Diodoros' account is remarkably detailed. The sanctuary, he says, in the course of time became highly esteemed and visited by pilgrims from far and near who made splendid sacrifices and rich offerings so that the place was filled with dedications although not protected by guardians or any strong wall. Such was its reputation that neither the Persians nor the pirates touched it, vulnerable as it was. The goddess had great powers of healing, especially for women in childbirth; standing over the sleeping patients she treated them in person and had cured many desperate cases. The Gölenye inscription confirms this popularity, recording that the crowds were so great that they could not be accommodated in the existing buildings, and revenue was being lost.
The temple stood on a platform; it succeeded a simple shrine about 5 m square on the hilltop, the sanctuary which had been spared by the Persians. The platform and temple were apparently constructed in the latter part of the 4th c. The platform, some 53 by 34 m, is supported by high walls of local limestone with masonry varying from ashlar to coursed polygonal. The temple was Ionic, with a peristyle of 12 columns by 6, a cella, and a deep pronaos with two columns in antis; there was no opisthodomos. The cella door seems to have been decorated with engaged columns and stood on a high threshold necessitating steps up from the pronaos. Close to this threshold, in the middle of the pronaos and blocking direct approach to the cella door, was a puteal consisting of a circular plinth surmounted by a round monument adorned with half-lifesize figures in relief. Judging from its position this is probably a later addition to the pronaos. At the back of the cella stood a small naiskos 1.22 m wide, which evidently housed the cult statue. Of the whole temple hardly more than the foundation survives.
Round three sides of the platform ran a screen wall, poorly preserved; along this at intervals were placed at least five small buildings, aediculae, of unequal size and uncertain purpose. And on the E, adjoining the outer side of the screen wall, were two larger buildings, also of unequal size; the larger could possibly have served for purposes of incubation, but more likely both rooms were intended for the personnel of the temple. Built into a wall of the larger building, facing the temple, was an inscription recording the dedication of the temple to Hemithea by a man of Hygassos; another inscription from the screen wall named the architects, two men of Halikarnassos.
Outside the temple platform a few foundations are recognizable, but the only identifiable building is the theater, a short way down the slope to the SW. The cavea, facing approximately W, was roughly constructed, but only a small part has been excavated.
We learn from the Gölenye inscription that in the first half of the 2d c. B.C. considerable improvements were made to provide for the crowds and to render the sanctuary more worthy of the goddess; but in the damaged condition of the text it is not clear what steps were taken. Soon after this the sanctuary began to decline, no doubt largely because of the contemporary decline of the Rhodian state itself, and by the Roman period there is little evidence to suggest that the cult of Hemithea continued even to exist.
BIBLIOGRAPHYT.A.B. Spratt, Archaeologia 49 (1886) 351-54; H. Collitz, Sammlung d. griechischen Dialektinschriften III (1899) 4332; P. M. Fraser & G. E. Bean, The Rhodian Peraea (1954) 24-27; Bean, Turkey beyond the Maeander (1971) 162-65; J. M. Cook & W. H. Plommer, The Sanctuary of Hemithea at Kastabos (1966) MI.
G. E. BEAN