Short answers, pulled from the story.
In Greek myth, the region took its name from Lycus, an Athenian exile who settled among its original inhabitants, the Termilae, after being driven out by his brother King Aegeus. The name existed far earlier as Lukka, a term already used in Hittite and Egyptian records in the 2nd millennium BC.
Written Lycian is attested only from about 500 to 300 BC, and no inscription in the language has been found dated later than 300 BC. It faded as Greek settlement increased following Alexander the Great's conquest in the 4th century BC, after which the population assimilated fully into Greek language and culture.
The Lycian League, called in Greek the Lykiakon systema, was a federation of Lycian city-states that Rome formally recognized as self-governing in 168 BC. Its republican, federal structure was studied centuries later by the framers of the United States Constitution, including James Madison.
When the Persian general Harpagus's forces closed in on Xanthos in 546 BC, its defenders retreated to their citadel and, rather than surrender, burned their own families, slaves and property before fighting to the death. Herodotus reports that about 80 Xanthian families who had been away from the city helped repopulate it afterward.
The Roman emperor Claudius annexed Lycia in 43 AD, dissolving its home rule and folding it into the province of Pamphylia. Cassius Dio wrote that Claudius acted because the Lycians had revolted and slain some Romans, while Suetonius attributed the annexation to deadly intestine feuds among the Lycians.
The Lycian Way is Turkey's first waymarked long-distance footpath, following part of the Lycian coastline. It was launched as a private initiative by a British-Turkish woman named Kate Clow to support sustainable tourism in depopulating mountain villages.