Choma
CHOMA (Χῶμα), a place in the interior of Lycia, according to Pliny (Plin. Nat. 5.27), on a river Aedesa. Ptolemy (Ptol. 5.3) makes Choma one of the four cities of the Milyas, and places it near Candyba.
The site, 14.5 km SW of Elmali, is first mentioned by Pliny (HN 5.101), then by Ptolemy and Hierokles and in the Byzantine bishop lists. In the 2d c. A.D. it received 7000 denarii from Opramoas of Rhodiapolis for a stoa and a Temple of the Augusti. Its character as a genuine Lycian city in the Classical period is proved by a rock tomb with inscription in the Lycian language in the hills a few miles to the W. It was probably included in the Lycian League in the 1st c. A.D.; the earliest coins, of the 1st c. B.C., were of nonfederal type. Otherwise coinage is confined to Gordian III.
The site was identified in 1963 on the strength of a number of inscriptions. The name alludes evidently to the mound, low but conspicuous in the flat plain, about 0.8 km from the present village. The river Aedesa, mentioned by Pliny (HN 5.101), is clearly the modern Akçay. Nothing whatever of the ancient city remains standing, either on the mound or in the neighborhood, and there are no tombs to be seen. The remnants of antiquity consist merely of sherds and ancient blocks in the villages of Hacimusalar and Sarilar.
BIBLIOGRAPHYG. E. Bean & R. M. Harrison in JRS (1967) 40-44; Bean, Journeys in Northern Lycia 1965-1967 (Österreichische Akademie Denkschriften 104, 1971) 22-23.
G. E. BEAN