Cibyra

In 133 BC, the last Attalid king, Attalus III left his kingdom to the Roman Republic, which reconstituted it as the province of Asia. It is not clear whether Cibyra formed part of the new province or was granted its freedom like the rest of Lycia.[5]

In 83 BC, during the First Mithridatic War, the Roman general Lucius Licinius Murena deposed the last tyrant of Cibyra, Moagetes II, who was the son of one Pancrates,[6][2] and dissolved the Tetrapolis. Balbura and Bubon were assigned to the Lycian League.

Writing at the beginning of the 1st century AD, Strabo says that the Cibyratae spoke four languages: Pisidian, Solymian, Greek, and Lydian.[7] This makes Cibyra the last locality where the Lydian language, by then extinct in Lydia itself according to extant accounts, is attested.[8]

Cibyra was heavily damaged by an earthquake in 23 AD in the time of Tiberius, who recommended a Senatus Consultum be enacted relieving it from payment of taxes (tributum) for three years.[9] In the passage discussing these events, Tacitus calls it the civitas Cibyratica apud Asiam (Cibyratic community in Asia).[2] Most of the buildings preserved in the city were erected after the earthquake. Subsequent Roman emperors assisted in reconstruction of the city, particularly Claudius after whom the grateful citizens added Caesarea to its name as indicated by an inscription referring to "The Council and People of the Caesarean Cibyrites" (Καισαρεων Κιβυρατων ἡ βουλη και ὁ δημος) and by the legend "Caesareans" (Καισαρεων), which appears on some of the coins of Cibyra.[2] They also initiated games and started dating a new era from the year of 25 AD.

Hadrian, while travelling through the eastern provinces of the Empire, arrived at Kibyra in 129 and granted many privileges to its inhabitants.

Cibyra was the centre of a conventus (an assize district), which contained twenty-five cities, according to Pliny the Elder. Laodicea on the Lycus was one of the chief cities of this Conventus.

The poet Horace mentions Cibyra as a place of great trade[10] William Smith notes that its position does not seem very favourable for commerce, since it is neither on the sea nor on a great road, and suggests that the city might have exported grain of the Indus valley. Iron ore was plentiful in Cibyratis and a peculiarity was that its iron was easily cut with a chisel, or other sharp tool.[11][2]

Two artists of Cibyra were more famous for their knavery than for their artistic skill.[12]

Another earthquake struck in 417 and the city could not all be rebuilt. The last residents left the city in the 8th century for the settlement of Horzum now known as Gölhisar.

Odeon of Kibyra

The Odeon or music theatre is on the densely occupied southwest corner of the hill and had an orchestra with a Medusa mosaic floor, unlike any other in the world.[13]

From text written on the mosaic floors in front of the odeon, the building was first built in the second half of 2nd c. AD for the city council assembly (Bouleuterion) but shortly afterwards, a stage (skena) was added to the building to make it into a theatre and a court room for the law centre of Asia Minor in the Imperial Roman Period, where important trials were held. The facade was covered with marble. Coloured marble columns and marble cladding decorated the facade of the stage. The orchestra floor was 9.80 X 5.80 m and was covered with very finely cut white, red, purple and gray marble slabs in opus sectile. In the centre of the orchestra was an exquisite Medusa.

Medusa head mosaic

The proskena facade facing the audience was made of thin coloured marble plates decorated with motifs on the doors and columns. A stoa in front of the odeon has nine columns and a mosaic floor whose text records its construction year as 249-254 AD. The mosaic was sponsored by Aurelius Sopatros and the Klaudius Theodoros brothers.

Gladiatorial scene (Burdur Museum)

The stadium, 650 feet in length and 80 in breadth, is at the lower extremity of the ridge on which the city stands.

It was used not only for races, but also for gladiator fights as indicated by the extensive gladiator friezes discovered.

The hillside was partly excavated to make room for it; and on the side formed out of the slope of the hill were ranged 21 rows of seats, which at the upper extremity of the stadium turned so as to make a theatre-like termination. This part of the stadium is very perfect, but the seats on the hill side are much displaced by the shrubs that have grown up between them. The seats overlook the plain of Cibyra. The seats on the side opposite to the hill were marble blocks placed on a low wall built along the edge of the terrace, formed by cutting the side of the hill. Near the entrance to the stadium a ridge runs eastward, crowned by a paved way, bordered on each side by sarcophagi and sepulchral monuments. At the entrance to this avenue of tombs was a massive triumphal arch of Doric architecture, now in ruins.[2]

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  Kibyra Stadium end
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  Kibyra Stadium General view
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  Kibyra Stadium
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  Kibyra Stadium from curved part
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  Kibyra Stadium view high side

The inscriptions from the site are collected in IK Kibyra, volume 60 of the Inschriften Griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien series.[14] That corpus contains 448 Greek and Latin inscriptions, ranging in date from the second century BC to Late Antiquity.

In 2019, archaeologists found a bust of Serapis and a statue of Asclepius.[15] In the 2020 excavation season, another statue of Asclepius and the head of a bust of Serapis were found in Kibyra, date back to 2nd century A.D.[16]

In 2021, archaeologists found 30 graves in a basilica church. The researchers believe that many of them belonged to the important clergy of the city.[17]