Heraclea at Latmus

The city, which was known as Latmos during the Archaic and Classical periods, was originally located approximately 1 km east of the later city of Herakleia, where a smaller set of fortifications and remains of houses and other buildings have been found, together with pottery of the 6th and 5th centuries BC. During the 5th century BC Latmos was a member of the Delian League, with a tribute assessment of one talent. Stephanus of Byzantium records that it was also briefly known as Pleistarcheia, after Pleistarchos, the son of Antipater and brother of Cassander, who ruled Caria for several years following the battle of Ipsos in 301 BC. Herakleia is thought to have been Christianised early, as an early bishopric is attested. No longer a residential see, it remains a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church. == Archaeology ==

The Hellenistic city was built on a Hippodamian grid plan, with streets aligned to the points of the compass. Near the southern end of the city is an unusual structure built into a rocky outcrop, facing southwest and not aligned with the urban grid. It consists of a horseshoe-shaped chamber, 14 m across, its walls partly built of masonry, partly incorporating the existing bedrock, closed off by a cross wall with a central door, in front of which was a facade consisting of a square pier at each corner and five or six columns in between. It has been suggested that this was a shrine to Endymion, the shepherd or hunter loved by the goddess Selene, who in some versions of the myth lived on Mount Latmos and passed his perpetual sleep in a cave on the mountain. Strabo places Endymion's tomb a short distance away, across a small river. Among the other buildings whose remains have been identified are three other temples, a theater, a nymphaeum, and a Roman bath. On the slopes of the peninsula at the southern end of the city (now occupied by a Byzantine fort) many rock-cut tombs are visible, some of them underwater because of the rise in the level of the lake. Although the construction of the wall has sometimes been attributed to king Maussollos of Caria in the mid-4th century BC, most scholars favor a date in the late 4th or early 3rd century BC and associate the wall with Asander, Lysimachos, Pleistarchos, or Demetrios Poliorketes. The original circuit had a total length of 6.5 km, punctuated at intervals by gates and by 65 towers, many of which survive to nearly their original height, preserving doors, windows, stairs, and other architectural features. The circuit was later reduced to 4.5 km by a diateichisma or cross wall that eliminated the highest elevations to the northeast. ==References==