a country of Asia Minor, was bounded on the W. by Caria, on the N. by Phrygia and Pisidia, and on the E. and S. by the Mediterranean Sea. From the account given by Herodotus, we may infer that the country was originally called Milyas, and was inhabited by two tribes, the Solymi and Tremile; or Termina, that a band of adventurers under Lycus, son of Pandion, drove the former tribe back to the northern mountains, and subdued the latter; and that, while the northern parts of the country still retained the ancient name of Milyas, the remaining parts were called Lycaea, after the name of their conqueror. The northern part of Lycaea is rendered rugged by offsets from Mount Taurus. The two principal rivers, the Limyrus in the E., and the Xanthus in the W., both flow southward into the Mediterranean. Pliny represents the country as fruitful, and noted for its firs, cedars, and plane trees. It appears to have been governed in the time of Homer by kings, but afterwards by a congress of deputies from the different free cities. By this congress, the chief magistrate, called Lycarch, the judges, and other officials, were chosen, and the general affairs of the country administered. In the time of Strabo the free cities amounted to twenty-three. Of these, the principal were Xanthus, Patara, Olympus, Myra, Pinara, and Tlos. All these had three votes each in the decisions of the assembly. Of the remaining towns, some had two votes each, others only one. So productive of peace and good order was this constitution, that it was left in full operation by the Romans after they had subdued the country. Finally, however, it became disordered and incompetent, and was abolished by the Emperor Claudius.

According to Herodotus, the Lycians had derived their customs partly from the Cretans, and partly from the Carian; but differed from these nations as well as from all others in assuming the name of their mothers and not of their fathers.

Recent discoveries have ascertained that the Lycians had an alphabet compounded of the Greek and some other character. Although possessing a language of their own, they seem also to have been intimate with that of the Greek, a circumstance that might be partly the result and partly the cause of their want of a national literature. The remains of their temples and richly ornamented tombs show, that in architecture and sculpture they were not far behind the Greeks.

At a very early period the Lycians seem to have waged a protracted warfare with the Solymi, the aborigines of the country; and to this struggle the legends of the Lycian hero Bellerophon, as related by Homer, bears reference. In the Iliad the Lycians are enumerated among the allies of the Trojans; and their two champions, Glaucus and Sarpedon, act a prominent part in the war. Strongly banded together by their excellent government, the towns of Lycaea successfully repulsed the arms of Croesus. Yet they were forced by Cyrus to submit to the yoke of the Persians, and are mentioned by Herodotus as contributing their contingent of fifty ships to the fleet of Xerxes. They succumbed after a slight resistance to the power of Alexander the Great; and after the dismemberment of the Macedonian empire, came successively under the sway of the Ptolemies, the Seleucids, and the Romans. Adopting the cause of Octavianus and Antony, they were subdued and severely taxed by Brutus. After the government of Lycaea had been abolished by the Emperor Claudius, that country became part of the prefecture of Pamphylia. However, in the reign of Theodosius II., it was constituted a separate province. (See A Journal written during an Excursion in Asia Minor, London, 1839; and An Account of Discoveries in Lycaea, being a Journal kept during a Second Excursion in Asia Minor, London, 1841, both by Sir C. Fellows.)