Lycia and the American Constitution
Lycia's
system of representative government with privileges and obligations in
direct ratio to a city's classification is the outstanding feature of
the Lycian Union. Its system of elected representatives was unique
in the ancient world and much admired by the ancients and later peoples.
In fact, the writers of the constitution of the United States studied
the Lycian federal system of government with proportional representation
as a possible model for their own government.
Excerpts regrding Lycia in the Federalist Papers.
New York Times, The American Constitution's Example in Ancient Turkey:
Patara Journal
A Congress, Buried in
Turkey's Sand
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN
Published: September 19, 2005
PATARA, Turkey - Alexander the Great
was here, and so was Saint Paul, on his way to Ephesus. Centuries later,
the drafters of the American Constitution took the ancient Lycian
League, which was based here, as an early example - in fact, it was
history's earliest example - of the form of republican government they
envisaged as well.
The Lycian League was
mentioned twice in the Federalist Papers, once by Alexander
Hamilton, once by James Madison, so it could safely be said that it
entered into the history of the formation of the United States. Now,
after centuries of neglect, teams of Turkish and German archaeologists
have been working under the hot sun of this small Mediterranean seacoast
town, uncovering some of its treasures. Among them, liberated from the
many hundreds of truckloads of sand that covered it, is the actual
parliament building (see
it here) where the elected representatives of the Lycian
League met. It has rows of stone seats arranged in a semicircle, the
same arrangement used in the chambers of the American Congress. Its
stone-vaulted main entrances are intact, and so is the thronelike perch
where the elected Lyciarch, the effective president of the League, sat.
The discovery has excited the archaeologists, and some others as well.
"It blew my mind to find out that the parliament building of the first
federation in history, which served as an inspiration for the framers
our own Constitution, was being excavated 15 minutes from my house on
the Mediterranean coast of Turkey," said Stephen J. Solarz, the former
congressman from Brooklyn.
Like a few hundred other foreigners who are attracted to this relatively
undiscovered spot of turquoise waters, rocky coves and cerulean skies,
Mr. Solarz and his wife, Nina, built a house in town nearby and spend a
couple of months of the year there. They have become informal patrons of
the archaeological project, and hope to persuade the United States
Congress to sponsor a celebration here in 2007, the 220th anniversary of
the framing of the American Constitution.
But other things make Patara important besides the inadvertent role it
played in the creation of the United States. It is often said of Turkey
that it has more Greek ruins than Greece. But Patara is a Greek ruin, a
Roman one and a Byzantine one as well, which is what makes the site,
buried in sand for centuries, an important newcomer to the Turkish
archaeological scene, likely to take its place alongside Troy, Pergamon
or Ephesus as one of the most important ones.
"It's very exciting," said Fahri Isik, a professor of archaeology from
Akdeniz University in Antalya who is in charge of the dig. In fact, Mr.
Isik is hopeful that further excavations will not only increase
knowledge of the Lycian League but also help illuminate what are often
referred to as the "dark ages" of early Mediterranean history, the 12th
to the 8th centuries B.C., about which very little is known.
"It's nice to have beautiful buildings," he said, drinking mint tea a few
hundred yards from the ancient Patara parliament, "but we hope that
we'll be able to learn some new things as well."
Mentioned in the "Iliad," Patara was a port city that was used by the
Persians in the fifth century B.C. during the Persian Wars, written
about by Thucydides. One of the archaeological expedition's major
findings so far is the impressive ruins of an ancient lighthouse, which
guided ships crossing the wine-dark sea to harbor two millennia ago.
The Lycian League itself had some 23 known city-states as members, which
sent one, two or three representatives, depending on the city's size, to
the parliament, or Bouleuterion, as it was called. Inscriptions recently
uncovered at the site provide the names of the various Lyciarchs who sat
in special seats about midway up the semicircular chamber.
Later, Lycia was a province in the Roman Empire. An inscription uncovered
by archaeologists at the ruins of an immense granary, which has also
been dug out of the sand in recent times, indicates that the Emperor
Hadrian and his wife, Sabine, visited Patara in the spring of 131 A.D.
Lycia ceased being a federation in the fourth century A.D., when it was
taken over by the Byzantines.
"The whole of international life was here, both in the Roman times and in
the time of the Lycian Federation," said Joachim Ganzert, a professor of
architectural history from Hanover University who, with a team of German
students, worked all summer in Patara.
"It will have a similar importance to Ephesus and Pergamon, but the work
here has only been going on for 15 years," he said. "In Pergamon, they
recently celebrated the 110th anniversary of the start of the
excavation."
Though Patara has been visited by archaeologists for 200 or more years, a
serious, painstaking excavation of the site started only recently,
partly because it is an especially difficult place, afflicted with
shifting sands, vegetation that runs riot in the fall rainy season and
water that seeps in from the nearby Mediterranean. Money is also needed,
most urgently to preserve the many stone inscriptions that, no longer
buried by sand, face the danger of erosion.
But now trucks go to and from Patara, carrying sand away - 5,000
truckloads from the lighthouse alone - and cranes lift immense carved
stone blocks out of the ruins so they can be labeled, studied and
eventually put back into place in reconstructions of the ancient
buildings.
"You couldn't see anything here in the 1980's, only the tops of a few
stones," Gül Isin, an archaeologist from Akdeniz University. The town
itself, with just a few modest guesthouses, is largely isolated from the
hustle-bustle of the nearby Turkish coast, even though it is home to a
pristine white-sand beach.
"But we've made a lot of progress," Ms. Isin said. An impressive
necropolis, a Roman bath, a large semicircular theater, a broad main
avenue leading to the agora, or market square, a Byzantine basilica (one
of 22 churches that were once in Patara) and a fortified wall have been
largely rescued from the sand and scrub brush so far.
Of course, there is also the parliament building, linking this dusty place
to the United States, 7,000 miles away and 1,800 years into the future.