Physkos
Town in Caria, the most important deme of the Rhodian Peraea, attached to the city of Lindos. An inscription shows that it was incorporated in the Rhodian state at least by the mid 4th c. B.C. It fell normally under the command of a hagemon of Apeiros, Physkos, and Chersonasos, and is the only Peraean deme except Kedreai to be individually named in a governor's command. Its importance is explained by its superb harbor. Strabo (652) mentions a grove of Leto at Physkos, and built into a wall of the castle at Marmaris is a 4th c. dedication to her. Strabo (659) makes the curious statement that Physkos was the port of Mylasa; the error is the more surprising as elsewhere (652, 665, 677) he is aware of its true position.
The acropolis was on a hill some 2 km NW of Marman, now heavily overgrown, but some stretches of wall of Classical and Hellenistic date can be made out. In Marmaris itself nothing of the ancient city remains standing, but numerous inscriptions and sculptured blocks have been found there, especially in the Eyliktaşi quarter; some of these are collected at the school. The castle on the low hill at the S end of the town is mediaeval.
BIBLIOGRAPHYC. T. Newton, Travels and Discoveries II (1865) 40; H. Collitz, Sammlung d. griechischen Dialektinschriften III (1899) 4266; E. Meyer, Die Grenzen der Hellenistischen Staaten (1925) 50; C. Blinkenberg, Lindos II, Inscriptions (1941) I, 51; P. M. Fraser & G. E. Bean, The Rhodian Peraea (1954) 57, 79, 97; Bean & J. M. Cook, BSA 52 (1957) 58; id., TürkArkDerg 9, 2 (1960) 7-10.
G. E. BEAN