ARNEAI (Ernes) Lycia, Turkey.
About 25 km NW of Finike. Rarely mentioned in antiquity, the city is abundantly identified by its inscriptions and by the evident survival of the name. Its antiquity is proved by an inscription in the Lycian language, but it was never important though in Byzantine times its bishop ranked ninth under the metropolitan of Myra. Arneai was the head of a sympolity of towns, one of which was named Coroae; the small site, with a Lycian inscription, near Çağman was no doubt a member of this sympolity. The very rare coins of Arneai are, as usual in Lycia, of Gordian III. The inscriptions reveal a close association with Myra, whose territory was adjacent on the S.The extant ruins are mostly Byzantine. The ring wall still stands for most of its length, with towers and at least two gates, but the greater part was repaired in mediaeval times. In the interior are two churches and some unrecognizable remains of buildings; the public buildings mentioned in the inscriptions, notably a gymnasium and a public guest house, are not now discernible. From earlier times there survive a few tombs of Lycian type, some parts of the city wall, and numerous inscriptions of the Roman period, mostly built into the late wall; one of them is an ex-voto to a local deity, Tobaloas.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. Ritter, Kleinasien (1859) II 1134-36; H. Rott, Kleinasiatische Denkmäler (1908) 74f; TAM II.3 (1940) 279fM; L. Robert, Hellenica 10 (1955) 215ff.G. E. BEAN