Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Limyra

by Sophron Pétridès

Limyra, a titular see of Lycia, was a small city on the southern coast of Lycia, on the Limyrus, and twenty stadia from the mouth of this river. It is mentioned by Strabo (XIV, 666), Ptolemy (V, 3, 6), and several Latin authors. Nothing, however, is known of its history except that Caius Cæsar, adopted son of Augustus, died there (Velleius Paterculus, II, 102).

Limyra is mentioned in the "Notitiæ Episcopatuum" down to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as a suffragan of Myra. Six bishops are known: Diotimus, mentioned by St. Basil (ep. ccxviii); Lupicinus, present at the Council of Constantinople, 381; Stephen, at Chalcedon (451); Theodore, at Constantinople (553); Leo, at NicÊa (787); Nicephorus, at Constantinople (879).

The ruins of Limyra are to be seen three or four miles east of the village of Fineka, in the sanjak of Adalia, Vilayet of Konia; they consist of a theatre, tombs, Sarcophagi, bas-reliefs, Greek and Lycian inscriptions, etc.

LEQUIEN, Oriens christianus, I, 971; LEAKE, Asia Minor (London 1893), 186; FELLOWS, Journal of an Excursion in Asia Minor (London, 1859), 214; IDEM, Account of Discoveries in Lycia (London, 1852), 205 sq.; SMITH, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, s. v.; TEXIER, Asie mineure (Paris,1862), 694.

S. Pétridès