Lycia was a region of Asia Minor located along the southern coast. It was originally inhabited by the Luwians, but, in 546 BC, the Luwian language was decimated as Persian speakers immigrated to the province, and it became an Achaemenid satrapy. Lycia fought for the Persians during the Greco-Persian Wars, but it became intermittently a free agent after Persia's defeat. In 360 BC, the Carian satrap Mausolus reconquered Lycia for the Persians, but the region was later conquered by the Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great and was rapidly Hellenized, destroying the Lycian language. In 188 BC, following the defeat of the Seleucid successor king King Antiochus III by the Roman Republic, the Romans gave Lycia to Rhodes for 20 years, taking it back in 168 BC. That year, the Romans formed the Lycian League, and it was an early federation with republican principles. In 43 AD, Emperor Claudius dissolved the league and incorporated Lycia into the Roman Empire with provincial status. In the early 15th century, the Ottomans conquered Lycia from the Byzantines, and the Greek and Turkish population was exchanged when the borders of Greece and Turkey were negotiated in 1923.
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