Tlos
TLOS(Τλώςor Τλῶς), an ancient and important city of Lycia. It is not often mentioned by ancient writers, but we know from Artemidorus ( ap. Strab. 14. p. 665) that it was one of the six cities forming the Lycian confederacy. Strabo only remarks further that it was situated on the road to Cibyra. (Comp. Plin. Nat. 5.28; Ptol. 5.3.5; Steph. B. s. v.;Hierocl. p. 659.) Until recently the site of this town was unknown, though D'Anville had correctly conjectured that it ought to be looked for in the valley of the Xanthus. Sir C. Fellows was the first modern traveller who saw and described its beautiful remains, the identity of which is established beyond a doubt by inscriptions. These ruins exist in the upper valley of the Xanthus, at a little distance from its eastern bank, almost due north of the city of Xanthus, and about 5 miles from the village of Doover. They are, says Sir Charles, very extensive, consisting of extremely massive buildings, suited only for palaces; the design appears to be Roman, but not the mode of building nor the inscriptions. The original city must have been demolished in very early times, and the finely wrought fragments are now seen built into the strong walls, which have fortified the town raised upon its ruins. The theatre was large, and the most highly and expensively finished that he had seen; the seats not only are of marble, but the marble is highly wrought and has been polished, and each seat has an overhanging cornice often supported by lions' paws. There are also ruins of several other extensive buildings with columns; but the most striking feature in the place is the perfect honeycomb formed in the sides of the acropolis by excavated tombs, which are cut out of the rock with architectural ornaments, in the form of triangles, &c., some showing considerable taste. (Fellows, Asia Minor, p. 237, foil., Lycia, p. 132, foll., where some of the remains are figured and a number of inscriptions given.)
[L.S]Near the village of Dilver, 24 km N of Xanthos on the E side of the Xanthos river. One of the six cities possessing three votes in the Lycian League; the name appears in the Lycian language as Tlava or Tlave, and eight or ten Lycian inscriptions have been found on the site. Panyassis mentions Tlous as one of the sons of Tremiles, Termilae (Tremili) being the name by which the Lycians called themselves. At an uncertain date in the 2d c. B.C. a certain Eudemus attempted to establish a tyranny at Tlos, but was suppressed by the forces of the League. Otherwise the city has no recorded history. The citizens were divided into demes, named mostly after local heroes, Bellerophon, Iobates, Sarpedon. Coinage, of League types, begins after 168 B.C.; imperial coinage, as elsewhere in Lycia, is confined to Gordian III.
The ruins consist chiefly of a theater and tombs. The theater, outside the city on the E, is of very fine Roman work excellently preserved, but at present badly overgrown. It is large and purely of Roman type, standing on almost level ground with a surrounding wall of masonry; the cavea is an exact semicircle, except that the ends of the retaining wall are straight for a few meters. Much of the stage building survives. Numerous Lycian rock tombs, of house and temple types, are cut in the N and E faces of the hill on which the city stands; the most remarkable is a temple tomb carrying a number of reliefs, one of which represents Bellerophon on Pegasos.
BIBLIOGRAPHYC. Fellows, Lycia (1840) 132-37; T.A.B. Spratt & E. Forbes, Travels in Lycia (1847) I 32-36; E. Petersen & F. von Luschan, Reisen in Lykien (1889) 138-40; TAM II.2 (1930) 204-5.
G. E. BEAN