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BODRUM |
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BODRUM |
The Ancient Halicarnassus:
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Introduction The Milas-Bodrum road zips past coves of sparkling limpid water, then climbs through the evergreen shrubs to pine-covered hills. Over the last ridge Bodrum breaks into view against a magnificent background of the sea, turquoise or deep indigo or choppy green depending on the day, with the dark hulk of Karaada ("Black Island") looming in the distance and the shadow of Cos silhouetted on the horizon. The town rises from the sea in a sensuous white curve, opening around its double harbor like the shells of a giant oyster. At the center, the Crusaders' Castle sits like an extravagant pearl. Whitewashed and flower-decked Bodrum is the most charming city and sophisticated resort on the Aegean coast (even though its name means "dungeon" in Turkish). Anchored to the southern shore of the Bodrum peninsula, it lies in a sunny region of spectacular scenery and sandy beaches: when approached by land, it makes an unforgettable impression, even at night when its great landmark, the Castle of St. Peter, is bathed in a golden light. The castle built by the Knights of Rhodes guards the entrance to Bodrum's dazzling blue bay. Bodrum Castle houses the Museum of Underwater Archaeology.
[top] The time of Herodotus: the pre-Hellenistic Halicarnassus Herodotus, the father of History, was a native of Bodrum. He was born in 482 B.C. in the city then called Halicarnassus; he later emigrated to Athens, bringing there a tradition of history that was all ready well-established in Asia. His Histories are an enormously entertaining, if mostly unreliable, compendium of world history. Herodotus reports that Halicarnassus was founded around 1000 B.C. by the Dorians. The six Dorian colonies established east of the Aegean Sea (Halicarnassus and Knidos on the main land, three cities in Rhodes and Cos) formed the Dorian Hexapolis, a brotherhood whose members got together periodically at the Triopian mountain, near modern Datca, to discuss matters of common interest and to hold festivities. Halicarnassus was eventually expelled from the union, ostensibly because an athlete carried home a trophy he had won at the Triopian Games instead of dedicating it it to Apollo, as was customary. Herodotus suggests that the real reason was that the Halicarnassians spoke the Ionian dialect. His account has been disputed: if it was a matter of alien speech, it is much more likely that it was Carian, the native language, rather than Ionian. Records of the 5th century B.C. show that half of Halicarnassian taxpayers, including Herodotus' father, had Carian names. Since before the classical era, Carians inhabited the area between the Meander (Buyuk Menderes) and Kaunos in the south. Herodotus writes that the Greeks learned the use of crests on helmets and handles on shields from the Carians. In the north, Carians were marginalized early on: in Miletus Carian men were killed and their women taken captive by the Greek colonist, so that (if we can believe Herodotus) Milesian women never addressed their husbands by name nor shared the dinner table with them in remembrance of their wronged grandmothers. In the south, relations were more peaceful. Greeks and Carian were said to have first come into friendly contact when a man from Halicarnassus opened a tavern at the spring of Salmacis. Natives got into the habit of frequenting his place; gradually they began to fraternize with city-folks and adopted their manners. During the two centuries of Persian rule in Asia Minor (c. 540-334 BC), Halicarnassus was ruled by a series of remarkable autocrats who exercised power in variable allegiance to the Persians or the Athenians. One of them was the tyrant Artemisia the Elder who probably qualifies as the most, if not the only, famous female admiral in history. At the naval battle of Salamis (480 BC) where she personally led the Halicarnassian fleet in the Persian allied armada, she was the only commander to shine in the general rout, to earn the Shah's famous comment: "today men behaved like woman and women like men." A hundred years later the city briefly came to the forefront of world affairs through the empire of Mausolos. Mausolos was the hereditary Carian ruler of Milasa (Milas), who ruled with the nominal title of Persian satrap (governor) of Caria. He transferred his capital to Halicarnassus and exploited the simultaneous weakness of Persia and Athens to expand his influence across much of southwest Anatolia. He was a great builder, starting by rebuilding Halicarnassus, adorning it with public monuments to rival the leading Greek cities. The local Lelegian communities in the peninsula were asked to settle and adopt the urban life style in two new cities: Myndos and Theangela. Mylasa, Iassus, Heracleia, Kaunos and other cities were also expanded, replanned and gained a share of grandiose building projects. Mausolos promoted the institutions and culture of the Greek polis; setting a precedent for the Hellenistic monarchies of the following centuries. He introduced constitutions, built temples, theaters, agoras, etc. On his death in 352 B.C. he was succeeded by Artemisia the Younger, his sister and wife. She loved him with a morbid passion and tried to consummate her love by having his bones pounded in a mortar and drinking the dust with her wine; she soon died of grief. In the mean time she managed to achieve fame on two counts --a naval victory and an architectural wonder. The victory was over the Rhodians. The wonder was the Mausoleum. [top] Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine times Artemisia was succeeded by her brother Idreus, while her sister Ada, (wife of Idreus as well as his sister), assisted Alexander of Macedonia in his conquest of southeast Anatolia. Halicarnassus was seized after putting up a heroic resistance in 334 BC, and Ada was appointed satrap to replace her pro-Persian brother. In the years following Alexander's death the area passed from Persians hands to Roman rule in 188 B.C.. In 133 B.C. western Anatolia including most of Caria was organized as the Roman province of Asia. The first century of Roman rule was chaotic, but the Empire ushered a period of peace. The prosperity that ensued was unprecedented in Asia Minor and has been unrepeated since: cities grew in number and size, acquiring all the standard amenities of Helleno-Roman civilization. Stratoniceaia, Kaunus, Iassus, Alabanda, Heracleia and others joined Halicarnassus and Mylasa as major cities. As they grew fat they also sank into provincial insignificance: they have hardly any individual history under the roman Empire, and virtually nothing is heard of them for the thousand years of Byzantine rule. [top] Warlords and Pirates Turks arrived in eastern and central Anatolia in the 11th century, creating the Seljuk Kingdom on the lands they conquered from the Byzantine Empire. The western seaboard of the country was reduced into a battleground of semi-independent Byzantine and Turkish (and occasionally Italian, even Catalan) warlords. With the simultaneous collapse of Byzantine and Seljuk power in the l3th century, a bevy of Turkish warrior-lords became effectively independent. One of them seized the fortress of Milas, setting up the Mentese Principality which reigned in the former Byzantine province of Caria from ca. 1280 to 1424. Their rule corresponded to a period of political chaos, but also to one of civic and cultural ferment: the only significant post-classical architectural monuments in this part of Turkey belong to the reign of the Mentese lords. Peace as well as inertia returned when one of the warrior principalities, the Ottomans, re-imposed central control in the l5th century. While the Mentese ruled in Milas, remnants of the Crusaders, European adventurers and Italian merchant states held sway in the Aegean. An unusual military power grew from this crucible of chivalry and piracy. The Order of the Knights Hospitallers of St.John of Jerusalem had come into existence during the Crusades when a mandate set up hospitals for pilgrims in the Holy Lands. It drew its members from the ranks of the European nobility, who took a vow of celibacy and obedience and willed all their (often extensive) possessions to the Brotherhood. The Order was organized in seven languages reflecting national origins: Provençal, French, Auvergnois, English, Italian Spanish and German. A Grand Master was elected for life and held absolute authority. In 1309 the knights established their headquarters in Rhodes, taking up the sword for the cause of the Cross. Their military operations expanded fast: they took the islands of Cos and Castellorizo (Meis), where they built great castles; in 1374 they acquired Smyrna (Izmir). Losing the latter in 1402, they were granted Halicarnassus as a quid pro quo by the Ottoman Sultan. Here they built in 1415 the magnificent castle of St.Peter, one of the greatest medieval monuments of the world, and the town was thereafter known as Petrium in reference to its castle; Turks pronounced it Bodrum. [top] Chivalrous as their motives might be, the Knights' crusading activities were seen by the unfortunate Turks (and Greeks) as little better than piracy. Many locals, consequently, took the same path and began to shoot down Christian galleons for honor, religion and (incidentally) profits. Soon these "pirates" created a naval might as strong as that of the Knights. Süleyman the Magnificent called on private fleets to expel the Knights first from Bodrum and eventually from all of their Aegean possessions in the 1520s. (The Order continued to hold Malta until the Napoleonic Wars)
[top] Once the heroic days were over, pirate activities degenerated into straightforward slave-trading, and the southwestern corner of Turkey remained notorious for its lawlessness through Ottoman times. Population and wealth declined. One of the earliest European travellers in these parts, Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, described in 1786 it as a land of utter misery. Things got better in the l9th century: stately townhouses in Milas and Bodrum stand as the witnesses to a period of commercial and cultural revival. The main beneficiaries of this recovery, however, were the local Greeks, and prosperity did not survive their departure. At the turn of the century, Greeks formed approximately half the population of Bodrum and Milas, and smaller but no less influential minorities in other towns. Following the Turkish-Greek war of 1919- 1922 they were expelled from Turkey in exchange for Turkish immigrants from Greece. Bodrum was resettled by refugees from Crete; more immigrants came from Rhodes and Cos when these islands, which had been under Italian administration from 1912 to 1942, joined Greece after World War II. [top] A contemporary Bodrum Figure: "Fisherman of Halicarnassus" Cevat Sakir Kabaagaçli, the scion of a prominent Ottoman family and Oxford don, was convicted in 1925 of some obscure crime and exiled to Bodrum. Bodrum was then considered beyond the pale of the civilized world, a simple and poor place that eked out a meager existence from the sea by fishing and sponge-diving. The journey was long and arduous, with the shadows of bandits lurking in the hills; the last stretch of the route from Milas was passable only on foot and muleback. Cevat Sakir, who was to become the great raconteur of Turkish literature under the name "Fisherman of Halicarnassus," tells the story of his forced march in his memoirs. On a curve of the road, he reminisces, the sea "cracked upon the horizon without warning like a vast blue thundering infinity." The sea dominated the town, where it "infiltrated through alleys and courtyards with a shimmering transparent light." It "sparkled to an incomprehensible depth full of yearning and beauty and terror." The air was "dry and bright as if lit by an inner light." The town was "modest and dazzling white with straight lines that cut the sky's blue with knife-like precision." People lived close to the basics of existence with simple direct passions and the distilled wisdom of countless civilizations. The exile fell in love with Bodrum and elected to remain there for most of the rest of his life. He became the towns grand old man, introduced new fishing techniques, planted trees (the palms lining the quay are his) and above all told the fantastic tales of an ancient Aegean civilization and of the passionate, broad-spirited, fatalistic people of the sea. Two generations of Bodrum's youth grew up under his spell. In the early 60s a group of the Fisherman's disciples from Istanbul began to visit him in Bodrum in search of aesthetic ecstasy and spiritual purification. They included a classical scholar, the Turkish translator of Homer, two prominent painters, a political philosopher, a socialist theorizer. They initiated the tradition of the "Blue Voyage" sailing into the Aegean for a few weeks on a simple boat and confronting nature with as few amenities as possible. The late 60s, with its culture of the rejection of middle-class values, swelled their ranks. This was a time of staying in fishermen's houses and paying for room and board with a bottle of raki. In the 70s, members of the middle class who were bold enough to experiment with the unconventional began to spend vacations in Bodrum. The turning point arrived when the singer Zeki Müren, the ultimate impersonation of the Turkish kitsch, announced his decision to settle in Bodrum. Around 1985, the number of tourists in town for the first time exceeded that of the native. Bodrum became the principal vacation haven of western Turkey, with all the conveniences and curses that ensue. [top] The Castle of the Hospitaller Knights occupies the tip of the wedge-like peninsula at the center of Bodrum. It is a splendid incarnation of medieval western military architecture, built at a time when the European Middle Ages were quite over and castles of this type were fast becoming objects of nostalgia. Its massive conglomeration of courtyards, turrets, crenellated walls, galleries and sunken gardens is best explored in the stillness of noon.. Amateurs of heraldry may recognize the Plantagenet, d'Aubusson, Loredan and other prominent coats-of arms on the ramparts. Much to the delight of the tourist guides, each of the five turrets are called by the nationality of their original sponsors: the English, French, German, Italian and Spanish Towers. Parts of the walls are built of large slabs of greenish granite which the knights removed from the ruins of the Mausoleum. Other classical fragments are gathered for display in the inner courts. Peacocks strut among marble statues and mollusk-encrusted amphorae. As interesting as the castle itself are the collections of the Museum of Underwater Archeology housed within the premises. The museum, the most important of its kind in the world, is the brainchild of Professor George Bass, and his Institute of Nautical Archaeology, and contains treasures from a series of historic wrecks discovered on Turkey's southern shores. Mycenaean and Canaanite artifacts recovered from a l2th century B.C. wreck found off Cape Gelidonya (Antalya) in 1960 formed the original core of the museum. On display in the castle's Gothic Chapel is a full scale reconstruction of one third of an Eastern Roman wreck from the 7th century A.D. excavated by Dr. Bass. Finds from the world's oldest known shipwreck, a 14th century B.C. vessel recently excavated off Uluburun (Kas), will soon join the collection. The Italian Tower houses coins and jewelry from all periods. Most impressive of all is the Glass Hall containing a spectacular cargo of medieval glassware from an 11th century Islamic wreck. Traditional Architecture The thing that sets Bodrum apart from other Turkish vacation destinations is its architecture. Turkey is of course rich enough in towns with attractive old neighborhoods, but few retain their traditional town structure as intact as Bodrum. We owe this to 1970s legislation which declared the entire town a historic preservation zone, banned buildings of more than two stories and stipulated that new construction should "harmonize with" the traditional environment. [top] Paved roads first penetrated the Bodrum Peninsula in the 80's. The pack camels which provided the chief means of transport before are still alive, left unemployed by the advent of trucks and minibuses. The quaint fishing villages of the Peninsula have only recently begun to shed their solitude, although the process is moving fast. Ortakent, until recently called Müsgebi, is the largest village of the Peninsula. Its architecture is rather striking, having kept an even purer traditional appearance than Bodrum. Many older houses are built in the form of small private fortresses, evidently with defense in mind. The tallest of them, the Mustafa Pasa tower-house is dated to 1601. A row of disused windmills line the ridge of hills behind the village. Ortakent Beach, a few kilometers off, offers pretty countryside and a dozen simple pensions on a pebbly bay. West of it are a series of attractive coves with tiny settlements which are not accessible by paved road: Kargi, Bagla, Karaincir, Akyarlar. Turgutreis can be disappointing, sadly exhibiting resort development at its most brutal. Its redeeming features are a matchless sea-view with a great number of islands, some Turkish and some Greek, and a delicious fish soup which locals eat for breakfast. Tiny Kadikalesi remains a charming place with its tiny quayside square, church converted into a barn and considerable fortress. The latter gives the village its name ("Judges-fort") and originates in the l8th century, a period when the distinction between, judge, bandit and warlord was not always clear. Gumusluk has become a favorite quiet spot for those wishing to escape the crowds of Bodrum; as a result it stands in danger of getting too crowded itself. The village proper is in the hills and offers a few exquisitely pastoral pensions. The coastal part consists in a single row of tumbledown fish restaurants along a deep, lake-like harbor. Gumusluk shares its site with that of ancient Myndos, the city which Mausolus had ordered built to bring urban ways to the local Lelegians. The area is full of bits of the old city, mostly in the form of stones used in villagers' houses. More can be seen submerged under the harbor, making a snorkeling tour of the bay a memorable event. The islet at the harbor entrance remains home to families of rabbits an enterprising villager introduced a few years ago for breeding. The actual purpose of the experiment is somewhat vague but the result delights villagers and tourists alike. Yalikavak remains a predominantly fishing village with more sponge divers among its residents than pension and restaurant owners. It also keeps the only functional windmills in the entire Peninsula. Gündogan, a pleasant large village in a neck of craggy hills, remains similarly unspoiled. Hidden in the ridge above the village and accessible by an arduous climb are the ruins of a small Greek monastery offering a splendid view of the countryside. The twin villages of Gölköy and Türkbükü offer a good overnight alternative for those wishing to stay close to Bodrum without committing themselves to its hustle and bustle. Türkbükü is also recommended for a lunch trip to any one of the fine seafood restaurants lining its pleasant quayside. The hills on the far side of Türkbükü are rich in the relics of an ancient Lelegian/Carian settlement including many rock tombs of the Carian style. Several islands and secluded coves accessible by rowboat from the harbor offer quiet swimming opportunities. [top] |
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The most famous of the Turkish pirates was Barbaros ("the
Redbeard") Hayreddin of Lesbos. After the expulsion of the Knights from Rhodes,
Barbaros created an independent state in Algiers and held the entire Mediterranean in
terror until he was co-opted into Ottoman service in the 1540s. Second to him was Turgut
Reis, known to Europeans as the dreadful Dragut. Turgut was born in the village of
Karatoprak (now Turgutreis) at the tip of the Bodrum peninsula. After earning his spurs as
a youthful fighter against the Knights, he became a confederate of Barbaros, raiding
Spain, Italy, Malta from his stronghold in the Island of Djerba in Tunis. Unlike Barbaros,
he never joined the Ottoman service.