CARIA kâr’ ĭ ə (Καρία). Caria lies in SW Asia Minor, a fertile area of genial climate cut off by coastal hills from the Aegean seaboard. The Carians, to judge from scant and elusive references in ancient writers, were once a notable people who exercised considerable sea power in the 8th cent. b.c., and extended some form of imperial control over part of the Aegean area. How their naval supremacy fell is not known, but in the early days of recorded history the Carians were noted chiefly as good mercenary troops. The area was a separate satrapy under Persia, and appears to have been involved in the Ionian revolt against Pers. rule. The Hellenization of the region was swift in the 3rd and 2nd centuries b.c., but it was one of those remote areas where control was difficult for the Syrian Seleucids, and Caria frequently changed hands in the westward ebb and flow of power. In 129 b.c. it became part of the province of Asia. In 1 Maccabees 5:23 it is mentioned as an area to which Rome sent communications at the time of her first support for the Jews.