1. Location and Name

Candyba was built on a hill to the west of modern Kasaba in central Lycia, near the modern Turkish village of Gendeve, whose name is a corruption of the ancient Candyba. While Pliny¹ mentions the city as one of the most important cities of Lycia, Stephanus of Byzantium makes a brief mention also providing the etymology of the word. The ruins in the area do not justify a particular significance of the city, which was named after Deucalion’s son, Candybus. As for the pre-Hellenic, Lycian name of the city, it is evidenced as ΧΚΑΒΑ, although Bean considers it a version of ΚÑΤΑΒΑ, which would be more suitable for the Greek Candyba.²

2. History

Candyba must have played some political role towards the late 5th c. BC, when coins of the city depicting Athena appeared for a short period.³ The prevailing view is that the coins were minted towards the late 5th c. by the tyrant of Lycia Kheriga, who used the neighbouring city of Phellos as his headquarters and central mint.⁴

In the Hellenistic period Candyba was governed like a city, although it is quite unlikely that in that period it minted its own coins, while its relations with the two most influential cities of the region, Xanthus and Cadyanda, which had formed their own federations, may be disputed.⁵ The city minted coins again in the 2nd c. AD, in the years of Gordian III. It should be noted that at least one of these coins depicts Tranquillina, Gordian’s wife, on the one side and Deucalion, Candybus’ father, on the other side.⁶ In that period Candyba was a member of the Koinon of Lycia.⁷

The city must have been quite important in Late Antiquity,⁸ when it probably became a bishopric. The view that the city was continuously inhabited was mainly based on L. Roos, who travelled in the area in the mid-19th century. His viewpoint resulted from the similarity between the Turkish name and the ancient name as well as from the continuous habitation of the settlement by Christians. According to information he collected, a large part of the Christians of Gendeve had migrated to Kastellorizon, but were still governed and taxed by their birthplace.

3. Archaeology

However, archaeological remains are very rare and therefore not very helpful in identifying the importance of the city in antiquity. The acropolis is preserved in poor condition, on the top of a hill with a N-S orientation. The half-destroyed wall surrounding the acropolis dates to medieval years but it is clear that it was built on the site of an earlier wall, which means that the original settlement must have had been enclosed. A stone groundwork was found at the foot of the hill, on the southern side. It belonged to a building described as “palace” and dated to the 5th or 4th c. BC. On the side of the hill a hollow area probably suggests the existence of a theatre. In any case, the most important findings are some Lycian vaulted tombs, two of which include a Lycian inscription and can be dated to the Early Classical period, as well as some sarcophagi. All burial monuments were found at the foot of the acropolis.⁹

4. Religion