Explore Ancient Anatolia

When Alexander the Great passed through with his armies in 333 BC and nearly met his death here after a bath in the Cydnus. Strabo praises the cultural level of Tarsus in this period with its philosophers, poets and linguists. The schools of Tarsus rivaled those of Athens and Alexandria. At this time the library of Tarsus held 200,000 books, including a huge collection of scientific works.

Caria was a region of the Asia Minor situated south of Ionia and west of Phrygia and Lycia. The eponymous inhabitants were known as Carians, and came to Caria before the Greeks. The land was originally called "Phoenicia", because a Phoenician colony settled there in early times. Afterwards it received the name Caria from Kar, a legendary king of the Carians. Independent Caria arose as a "Neo-Hittite" kingdom around the 11th century BC, and was incorporated into the Persian Achaemenid empire as the satrapy in 545 BC. The most important town was Halicarnassus, from where its sovereigns reigned. Other major towns were Heraclea, Antiochia, Myndus, Laodicea, Alinda and Alabanda. The Iliad records that at the time of the Trojan War, the city of Miletus belonged to the Carians, and was allied to the Trojan cause.