Pamphylia

Pamphylia is a coastal region of southern Asia Minor, lying between Lycia and Cilicia along the northern rim of the Mediterranean. Within the UPDV canon it surfaces only once by name, listed among the Mediterranean states and islands receiving a Roman diplomatic letter on behalf of the Jews during the high priesthood of Simon Maccabeus.

A Roman Circular Letter

When the consul Lucius writes to commend the Jewish nation and to warn its neighbors against harboring fugitives or making war on it, the letter is dispatched to a wide arc of Mediterranean polities. Pamphylia appears in that distribution list, named alongside its regional neighbors and the major island states of the eastern Mediterranean: "and to all the countries: and to Lampsacus, and to the Spartans, and to Delos, and Myndus, and Sicyon, and Caria, and Samos, and Pamphylia, and Lycia, and Halicarnassus, and Cos, and Side, and Aradus, and Rhodes, and Phaselis, and Gortyna, and Cnidus, and Cyprus, and Cyrene" (1Ma 15:23).

The placement in the list is geographically tight. Pamphylia is set between Samos to its west across the Aegean and Lycia immediately to its own west on the Anatolian coast, with Halicarnassus, Cos, Side, and Rhodes named in the same sweep. Side, named two entries later, was itself one of Pamphylia's own coastal cities; the pairing reflects the mixed practice of the letter, which addresses some regions as a whole and other places as individual harbor cities.