Tlos

A titular see in Lycia, suffragan of Myra. Tlos was one of the six cities forming the Lycian confederacy and is said to have been founded by the hero Tlos, son of Tremilus. It is mentioned by Strabo (XIV, 665); Pliny (V, 28); Ptolemy (V, 3, 5); Stephanus Byzant. (s.v.); Hierocles (684, 16). It had its own coinage. It is today the village of Douvar in the caza of Macri, vilayet of Smyrna; this village is beautifully situated in the midst of the ancient acropolis, 984 feet above the Kanthus valley, surrounded by precipices, whose sides form inaccessible walls. On the northern side these rocks are broken by hundreds of tombs, some of which bear inscriptions mentioning the people and the “gerousia” or municipal council. Among its monuments the principal is the theatre. Until the thirteenth century this see is mentioned by the “Notitiae episcopatuum” as a suffragan of Myra. Le Quien (Oriens christ., I, 979) gives a list of five known bishops: Andreas, at Chalcedon, 451 (signed in 458 the letter of the Lycian bishops to Emperor Leo); Eustathius at Constantinople, under the patriarch Menas, 536 (also known by Novella 115 of Justinian); John, at the Council of Trullo, 692; Constantine, at Nice, 787; Constantine, at Constantinople, 879.