Ramsay, William Mitchell: The cities and bishoprics of Phrygia: being an essay of the local history of Phrygia from the earliest time to the Turkish conquest (Band 1,1): The Lycos Valley and South-Western Phrygia (Oxford, 1895)

2io VI. COLOSSAI AND THE ROADS TO THE EAST.

upon Herodotus's description of the gorge through which the Lycos
flows from the upper to the lower valley. According to Herodotus,
the Lycos falls into a chasm within the city and disappears from
view; and then at a distance of about five stadia reappears and flows
to join the Maeander1.

I must refer the reader to M. Weber's clear description of the gorge,
and agree with his opinion that there is no probability that the Lycos
ever during any historical period2 flowed through an underground
chasm five stadia long in this part of its course. In that case,
Herodotus's description is not strictly accurate. I can only repeat
what I have said years ago : Herodotus had never seen either Colossai
or Kelainai, but depended on the accounts of traders who came down
the Maeander valley to the coast. None of the descriptions that he
gives of places or monuments away from the coast in Asia Minor will
stand minute inspection: all bear the stamp of second-hand informa-
tion, valuable indeed, but blurred.

Next let us turn to a writer who speaks as an eye-witness, viz.
Strabo; and we find that everything he says is clear and true to the
facts of the present day: he spends some time on the marvels of the
Lycos valley, and about the river he says that 'flowing for the greater
part of its course underground, it thereafter appears to view and joins
the other rivers' (Maeander, Kadrnos, Kapros). This can only mean
that the Lycos flows for more than 20 miles underground3, then
appears above ground, and flows towards the Kadmos and the Mae-
ander. It differs entirely from Herodotus's statement that the Lycos,
in the middle of its course of about 20 miles, disappears in a chasm
and reappears after five stades. Now Strabo's account is precisely
that which the natives now give. According to them the real source
of the Lycos is in the lake of Anava, on the higher plain to the east,

1 iv tij Avkos 7TOTafibs is xdoyxa yrjs of facts, Ath. Mitth. 1891 p. 195 f. Ithere-

iafiaWuv acpavifcrtu, eneira Sia aradiav fore have recurred to the opinion gained

as nevre fiaKurrd ktj avacpaivopfvos exSiSoi at my first visit to Colossai in 1881, and

ml ovros es rbv MaiavSpov VII 30. Five published in 1886 in my Antiquities of

stadia is not an unfair estimate of the Southern Phrygia.'

length of the narrowest part of the 3 7-6 irktov 5' oJroy vwo yf/s pvels «t'

gorge. avaKvtyas a-uv'ntz<jiv kt\. p. $j8. The

21 clung for some time after my second Lycos has a clear and marked course

visit to Colossai in 1891 to a theory of more than 20 miles with a good

more favourable to Herodotus (see letter volume of water all that distance. He

in Athenaeum Aug. 15, 1891); but the also speaks of to iro\vTpr]Tov rrjs x">Pas>

facts are too clear, and my theory (which referring not merely to the Lycos, but

was never actually stated in print) must also to the Cadmos Ch. II § 2 and the

yield to M. Weber's simple statement Chrysorrhoas Ch. Ill § 2.