Pamphylia

Ruins at Perga, Turkey.

Pamphylia, ancient maritime district of southern Anatolia, originally a narrow strip of land that curved along the Mediterranean between Cilicia and Lycia but that, under Roman administration, included large parts of Pisidia to the north.

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The Pamphylians, a mixture of aboriginal inhabitants, immigrant Cilicians, and Greeks, never acquired great political significance and ran the gauntlet of Anatolian conquerors: Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, Alexander the Great and his successors, and, finally, the Romans. In the 1st century bce they joined with Pisidians and Cilicians in piratical raids on Mediterranean shipping. The Pamphylians became largely Hellenized in Roman times and left memorials of their civilization at Perga, Aspendus, and Side.