Patara: A Relationship Between An Ancient City and the US Constitution

I know it has been a while; I have been hampered with some big things recently, from starting a new job to a small event meant to celebrate the love Eda and I have for each other. 

The wedding was a great success, and we were very happy with the turnout and the massive extravaganza shared between two individuals, two families, and two cultures. It was certainly a dream come true for Eda, and I couldn’t have been happier to stand beside her and recite my love-filled (albeit borderline cheesy) vows in front of all her relatives, my family, and cherished mutual friends.

Given work commitments, Eda and I couldn’t get away for a honeymoon immediately after the wedding, so instead we opted to have a honeymoon before the wedding. I’m not sure what you call that… but we managed to scheme a nice 10 day vacation exploring the south of Turkey, an area neither of us had been previously.

From March to the end of June, a period of intense work and commuting that culminated in the completion of my employment contract, I decisively had one goal for the summer: to lay on a beach the day after work ended.  With the stress and exertion of the passed year, on both our ends, I’m happy to say that this goal was more than accomplished:

But, of course I had to do a little bit of playing in this colossal historical amusement park of a country. We included museums and monuments, ancient cities and civilizations on the itinerary. We laid eyes and feet on 8 ancient theaters, a myriad of walls, and even a necropolis or two.

I’ve traveled many miles through a couple of regions of Turkey, and I always manage to find something new. A true cornucopia of civilization, this land is abound with mystery and wonder. You encounter a multitude of human accomplishment, achievement and interaction that you never realized were here.

So for this blog post, I’ve decided to report what we saw and learned in Patara, an ancient city on the Mediterranean.

The city of Kaş

For transportation, Eda and I simply took a minibus from the big bus terminal in the coastal city of Kaş to Patara Beach. Often, the flourishing ancient cities were strategically located on a harbor, as a means of access to both commerce and communication. Travelers and traders used these harbors as launching points either for moving inland or en route to Europe. But nowadays, tourists see pictures of a long and beautiful beach, and decide they’d rather soak up the sun than wander around some old stones and shapes. On the minibus, Eda and I looked like idiots, being the only ones in normal clothes and desiring to walk around an old abandoned city in humid 90 degree weather. We even got a few weird looks, but as we were dropped off, we had the upper hand, having almost the whole city to ourselves.

Main street

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Lycia is northwest of Cyprus.

As far as the history of Patara, prior to the Roman annexation in 43 CE, Patara served as the capital of a region called Lycia. Before Roman colonization, it maintained autonomy, and was even labeled a free and self-governing city by the Roman Senate in the 160s BCE. The Lycians were the endemic peoples of the region, Greek in origin. The city is mentioned in the Bible's Acts of the Apostles, while St. Paul was on his conversion journeys. As Paul traveled in an effort to share the gospel and convert people of other faiths and backgrounds to Christianity, he landed in several cities across modern Turkey, spreading thousands of miles, including on the roads we walked on in Patara. 

(On a separate note, Paul spent extended time preaching in parts of modern Turkey. Launching from his base in Antioch (modern Antakya), he moved all the way west, living in Ephesus, passing through Assos, and more. As a method of pilgrimage and a technique of feeling what Paul experienced and endured to spread the Word, many Christians and non-Christians alike to this day move through Turkey on a St. Paul walk, to recreate the path he took all for the sake of communicating Christ's message.)

Paul was specifically instructed not to enter this theater for a sermon

Being the capital of the region, Patara housed the Assembly Hall where representatives would debate and draft policy.

The Lycian League served as a confederation between 23 and 36 city-states scattered across what is now the Mediterranean region of modern Turkey. The most important cities, including Patara, were allowed 3 votes in the Council, while smaller settlements and cities were allotted 1 to 2 votes. Representation of each city was determined proportionally, depending on factors from population size to economic status.

City states in Lycian region

Now, this political system might sound pretty standard: passionate, ambitious, potentially corrupt, politicians arguing and disagreeing, possibly even fighting to the death, in efforts to represent constituents and establish a sense of law, order and civil society. But what many people don’t realize is the connection this system of government has to the system declared by the founding fathers of the USA.

   vs.  

After the Black Plague in the 1300s, Europe entered into a resurgence and revival of arts, sciences and pursuit of knowledge. Subsequently, after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Europe knew it needed to get its act together, escape the array of smoke we call the Dark Ages, and restore itself to an anchor of standard and human achievement. This inspired a rebirth of natural philosophy, educational pursuits and literature on science, arts, politics and character, the first time Europe experienced something like this since the accomplishments of ancient Greece.

One of my personal favorite paintings.

While that All-Star team of philosophers featured Socrates, Hippocrates, Aristotle and Euclid, this new period, what we call the Renaissance, included writers from all across Europe over centuries; the new placing of value in the pursuit of knowledge, ideas, science and principle comprised of scientists and philosophers from Machiavelli and Petrarch to Galileo and Copernicus, as well as the religiously inclined like Martin Luther. The invention of the Printing Press in the 1460s certainly helped disseminate these groundbreaking and often times subversive and maverick ideas.

The Renaissance opened the door for many critical but controversial movements. Poetic pariahs of science, religion, literature and art felt their work was worth the risk of defamation, widespread discrediting from the establishment, and even decapitation. The Scientific Revolution of course opened new perspectives on physics and astronomy, such as the theory of the Heliocentric Universe, which seriously challenged the Catholic Church. The Protestant Reformation from Martin Luther, John Calvin and King Henry VIII of England also challenged the status quo and encouraged new movement and ideas on theology, religious ritual, and the relationship between the religious institutions and economic/social conditions. But one of the most important movements, my personal favorite, which really opened a whole different kind of Pandora’s Box was the Enlightenment, which revived not only the ideas set forward from the texts of Greece and Rome, but for the purposes of this blog post, forms the relationship between the Lycian League of Asia Minor and what would eventually become the United States of America.

The Enlightenment authors, philosophers and scholars featured quite a lineup, one that would easily take the New York Yankees of the late 1990s. We have many cultural and linguistic groups represented; spread between the 16th and 19th centuries, great writers here included the likes of Voltaire, John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emmanuel Kant and Thomas Hobbes. I was always interested in the ideas set forth in the Enlightenment; even if I disagreed with them. Ideas about freedom, liberty, justice, law, political engagement, obligation, representation and so many more arose.

These philosophers used reason, logic and principle as their basis. Frequently, for evidence, they cited the work of the ancient Greek city-states as inspiration and proof of just systems of government, from Athenian direct democracy to the laws of the Roman Republic and strength of its institutions.

One particular philosopher was the Baron de Montesquieu, who advocated, among other things, representative government and a separation of powers. To prove his point, Montesquieu used the practical application of democracy in…which ancient governing body…?

The Lycean League. With its capital at Patara. Montesquieu lauded the system in place at Patara, calling the Lycean League “a perfect example of democracy throughout the ages,” in his 1748 work Spirit of the Laws. The Lycean League set a timeless example of an ideal representative government that maintained power and represented its people across a vast region.

Now this idea of “representation” obviously sounds familiar for my fellow countrymen.

Of course, the founding fathers of the USA, in addition to the authors and architects of the Declaration of Independence and the Continental Congress, all had backgrounds and expertise in law. Furthermore, educated at some of the greatest universities, they experienced full training in ancient Greek and Roman language, history and philosophy. They looked to the ancients for influence, and also connected deeply to the ideas set forward in the Enlightenment Age; of course, we can immediately look to John Locke’s noble rights of Life, Liberty and Property, which directly inspired Jefferson’s construction of the phrase “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” believing these were self-evident truths from a force greater than humanity itself, as well as feeling it was their moral duty to overthrow the unjust government presiding over them, an idea planted by John Locke and his “consent of the governed” thesis. 

Between the ideas that fomented the revolution and the inspiration drawn from the institutions of the ancient world, the Founding Fathers went to work to prove that the system they planned to implement would be a lasting success.

Well-versed in Greek and Roman tradition, other founding fathers took to the pen to instigate the sentiment of ratification. For instance, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, under the pseudonym Publius, published the Federalist Papers to discuss the principles that inspired the model delineated in the Constitution. As you may have guessed, followed the precedent of principle laid by Montesquieu, Publius venerated the Lycian League, “history’s earliest and perfect example of the republican form of government.” The Founding Fathers specifically used Lycia as a model example of proportional representation based on population, which naturally manifested itself in the House of Representatives (hence why New York has more representatives than Rhode Island in this chamber). Furthermore, it also represented constituents well, covering all of its bases across a large span of territory. 

Hamilton and Madison also identify Lycia as an exemplary consolidated and firm national government. Hamilton frequently raises the point that in ancient Lycia, laws applied both to governments and to individuals. Additionally, ancient Lycia's common council was enumerated the ability to appoint local judges in certain cities. Hamilton always advocated a strong federal government with durable powers, as opposed to the weak hodgepodge of adjacent territories we experienced in the loose Articles of Confederation days, where government didn't have the authority, the willpower, the legitimacy, the capacity, or even the talent to enforce universally applicable law across its territory. He managed to pull influence from ancient Lycia, with its capital at Patara, as a great springboard and model of how an institution can be structured with authority, a stronghold, and representation of its people. 

He wasn't giving away his shot to share the
strength of the Lycian League

Looking to history and the innovative work of the ancients, the Founding Fathers used these influences’ strengths and weakness to bust out a system of consolidated representative government that runs to this day. With ancient Lycia, the firm delegated powers to the council and assembly helped justify why Congress needed to be granted similar power and authority to manage many aspects of life, such as the powers to confirm appointments, declare war, and generate laws they deem "necessary and proper." Given the feebleness of the Articles of Confederation, they needed something better, a stronger institution that would be able to create a strong national force to be reckoned with. The success of Lycia only made Hamilton and Madison's case for a firm but fair and representable institution stronger, and with constant lobbying and publishing, they were able to convince the states to ratify the US Constitution, whose institutions have lasted over 200 years.

To me, it’s amazing that this stands right here, housing an open space and forum for the implementation and execution of the pursuit of life under certain values and ideas, including finding the fine balance between legitimate authority and fair representation. The practice of republican government here in this ancient city in modern Turkey contributed to the creation and confirmation of the very government I grew up under, hundreds of miles and thousands of years later.

So we had a great day at Patara. We encountered some excavation and restoration works, took a nice walk along the old agora, and did the symbolic passing through the renowned tri-arched gate.

We later on advanced to Xanthos, another ancient city close to Patara. We had this World Heritage Site all to ourselves, we’re happy to say.

We also saw a picture of a building that used to be at Xanthos, but was moved to the British Museum several decades ago; however, since Eda and I just went to London the week before, we didn’t feel like we missed out on anything :)

And a final note on Patara, it’s the birthplace of St. Nicholas, better known as Santa Claus. So you can tick that off the list of cool historical fact with origins in Turkey. It may win you a few Jeopardy dollars.

Thanks for reading!

Information acquired from the Patara Ancient Ruins Site, the British Museum, Mark Wilson's "Biblical Turkey," and knowledge learned and recalled from lectures and readings. Also cited information from this great article, http://www.tc-america.org/issues-information/us-turkey-relations/the-lycian-confederation-and-the-american-constitution-153.htm, about the relationship between ancient Lycia and the US Constitution.