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Datça is a
small harbour and holiday resort located south of the
Datça Peninsula, which provides a natural boundary
between the Aegean Sea to the north and the Mediterranean Sea to
the south. The town, which is located 75 km /47 miles away from
Marmaris, can be reached by a scenic winding road overlooking the
beautiful Gulf of Hisarönü where the beautiful
beaches of the confortable holiday villages are washed by crystal-clear
waters. Around Datça marina, bars, cafés, restaurants and shops
keep the tourists interest, but old Datça with its restored
houses should not be missed.
Datça is the nearest town (38 km/ 24 miles) to the ancient site of
Cnidus located at the end of the Peninsula.
A daily ferry line links Datça (from Körmen Harbour located 10 km
/6.2 miles of Datça, on the northen coast of the peninsula) to
Bodrum, and hydrofoils link Datça to Rhodos via small Greek Symi
island located at a short distance.
A scenic road
overlooking the Gulf of Hisarönü connects
Marmaris to Datça and leads to this ancient city.
Located at the far end of the Datça Peninsula (Cape Krio) in a
beautiful natural environment, Cnidus, a city of Dorian origin in
Caria, belonged to the Dorian confederacy together with
Halicarnassus, Cos on the island of the same name, Camirus,
Lalysus and Lindus on Rhodes Island. Together they formed what
used to be called the Hexapolis, in Greek "the six cities". Yet it
became the Pentapolis, "the five cities", when Halicarnassus was
excluded from the confederacy because one of its citizen,
Agasicles, neglected to make the offering of the tripod he won
during the games of the hexapolis, to Apollo. The cities had a
common sanctuary, a temple to Apollo named the Triopion, on the
promontory on which Cnidus was located. Already in the 7C BC,
Cnidus had reached its cultural, artistic and commercial apogée.
Spared by the Persians , contested by the Athenians and the
Spartans, the city was occupied by Alexander the Great in 333.
Around 350 BC Praxiteles sculpted two statues,
one draped and one nude of the goddess of love and beauty,
Aphrodite. Praxiteles' model was Phryne, one of the greatest hetaerae,
or courtesans, of his time. Cos prefered the more decent draped
version and Cnidus purchased the rejected one, the Nude
Aphrodite, the first female nude statue in classical
sculpture, whose renown immortalized the city. However the statue
of the goddess, which was exhibited in her temple, is known only
through copies. The following description from the Amores,
attributed to rhetorician, satirist and traveler Lucian
(Samosata/ Commagene ca. 125 ? ca. 192), praises vehemently the
statue:
We stopped in Cnidos, at the Temple of
Aphrodite (Venus), where stands her famous statue made by
Praxiteles. When we entered the precincts we felt the caressing
breath of the goddess coming towards us. The walled space was not
made sterile with pavements but was devoted to fertility as suits
Aphrodite. The fruit-trees towered all over the place, forming a
dense vault. The myrtle, her favourite species, unfolded its
branches, laden with berries..... In the midddle of the temple
stood the goddess a most beautiful statue of Carian marble -
smiling just a little haughty with a grin that slightly parted her
lips. Draped by no garment, all her beauty was uncovered and
revealed, except in so far for her private parts hidden
unobtrusively with one hand. So great was the power of the
craftsman's art that the hard unyielding marble did justice to
every limb....The temple had a door on both sides for the benefit
of those who also wished to have a good view of the goddess from
behind, so that no part of her be left unadmired. It was easy
therefore for people to enter by the other door and survey the
beauty of her back. And so we decided to see all of the goddess.
Then, when the door had been opened by the woman responsible for
keeping the keys, we were filled with an immediate wonder for the
beauty we beheld."
Eudoxus, the great astronomer and mathematician
pupil of Plato and inventor of the horizontal sundial,
Ctesias the physician who stayed at the court of the
Persian king Artaxerxes was the author of the History of the
Persian and History of India, and Sostratus
the architect of the famous Lighthouse of Alexandria (one of the
Seven Wonders of the World) were all native of the city. Like Cos
(the birthplace of Hippocrates), Cnidus was the location of a
famed school of medicine.
Around 188 BC, Cnidus was devastated by plunderers. Later in 129
BC, Cnidus joined the Roman Province of Asia. The city was
deserted little by little during the Byzantine period.
The city was built partly on the mainland and partly on the Island
of Tropion which anciently were connected by a causeway and bridge,
and now by a narrow sandy isthmus. The channel between island and
mainland was formed into two harbours. The
southern and larger harbour was further enclosed by two strongly-built
moles.
The Hellenistic walls, both insular and
continental, can be traced in many places, especially round the
acropolis.
The main ruins of the city which rose in tiers on the hill slopes,
consist of the agora, the great upper and the small lower theatres,
the odeon, the Temple of Aphrodite, the
Corinthian Temple, the Temple of Demeter.
The Statue of Demeter, discovered during the
excavations executed by Newton in 1857-1858, was sent to the
British Museum, as well as the colossal Statue of a Lion,
carved out of one block of Pentelic marble, which crowned the
pyramid roof of a mausoleum located 3 km/ 1.9 miles south-east of
the city.
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