Listed 8 sub titles with search on: Homeric world for wider area of: "AYDIN Province TURKEY" .
EFESSOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Homer refers to the Leleges and places them at the western coast of Asia Minor and especially around Pedasus and Lyrnessus opposite Lesbos (Il. 10.429, 20.96, 21.83),
According to Pausanias they belonged to Carian race and lived in Ephesus (Paus. 7,2,8).
Leleges. An ancient race, frequently mentioned with the Pelasgians as the prehistoric inhabitants of Greece. The Leleges were described as a warlike and migratory race, who first took possession of the coasts and the islands of Greece, and afterwards penetrated into the interior. Piracy was probably their chief occupation; and they are represented as the ancestors of the Teleboans and the Taphians, who were notorious for their piracies. The name of the Leleges was derived by the Greeks from an ancestor, Lelex, who is called king of either Megaris or Lacedaemon. They must be regarded as a branch of the great Indo-Germanic race, who became gradually incorporated with the Hellenes, and thus ceased to exist as an independent people. They are spoken of as inhabiting Acarnania and Aetolia, and afterwards Phocis, Locris, Boeotia, Megaris, Elis, and Laconia, which last was originally called Lelegia; also (in Asia Minor) Ionia, the southern part of the Troad, and Caria.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Leleges, an ancient race which was spread over Greece, the adjoining islands,
and the Asiatic coast, before the Hellenes. They were so widely diffused that
we must either suppose that their name was descriptive, and applied to several
different tribes, or that it was the name of a single tribe and was afterwards
extended to others. Strabo (vii. p. 322) regarded them as a mixed race, and was
disposed to believe that their name had reference to this (to sullektous gegonenai).
They may probably be looked upon, like the Pelasgians and the other early inhabitants
of Greece, as members of the great Indo-European race, who became gradually incorporated
with the Hellenes, and thus ceased to exist as an independent people.
The most distinct statement of ancient writers on the origin of the
Leleges is that of Herodotus, who says that the name of Leleges was the ancient
name of the Carians (Herod. i. 171). A later Greek writer considered the Leleges
as standing in the same relation to the Carians as the Helots to the Lacedaemonians
and the Penestae to the Thessalians. (Athen. vi. p. 271.) In Homer both Leleges
and Carians appear as equals, and as auxiliaries of the Trojans. (Il. x. 428.)
The Leleges are ruled by Altes, the father-in-law of Priam, and inhabit a [p.
155] town called Pedasus at the foot of Mount Ida. (Il. xxi. 86.) Strabo relates
that Leleges and Carians once occupied the whole of Ionia, and that in the Milesian
territory and in all Caria tombs and forts of the Leleges were shown. He further
says that the two were so intermingled that they were frequently regarded as the
same people. (Strab. vii. p. 321, xiii. p. 611.) It would therefore appear that
there was some close connection between the Leleges and Carians, though they were
probably different peoples. The Leleges seem at one time to have occupied a considerable
part of the western coast of Asia Minor. They were the earliest known inhabitants
of Samos. (Athen. xv. p. 672.) The connection of the Leleges and the Carians was
probably the foundation of the Megarian tradition, that in the twelfth generation
after Car, Lelex came over from Egypt to Megara, and gave his name to the people
(Paus. i. 39. § 6); but their Egyptian origin was evidently an invention of later
times, when it became the fashion to derive the civilisation of Greece from that
of Egypt. A grandson of this Lelex is said to have led a colony of Megarian Leleges
into Messenia, where they founded Pylus, and remained until they were driven out
by Neleus and the Pelasgians from Iolcos; whereupon they took possession of Pylus
in Elis. (Paus. v. 36. § 1.) The Lacedaemonian traditions, on the other hand,
represented the Leleges as the autochthons of Laconia; they spoke of Lelex as
the first native of the soil, from whom the people were called Leleges and the
land Lelegia; and the son of this Lelex is said to have been the first king of
Messenia. (Paus. iii. 1. § 1, iv. 1. § § 1, 5.) Aristotle seems to have regarded
Leucadia, or the western parts of Acarnania, as the original seats of the Leleges;
for, according to this writer, Lelex was the autochthon of Leucadia, and from
him were descended the Teleboans, the ancient inhabitants of the Taphian islands.
He also regarded them as the same people as the Locrians, in which he appears
to have followed the authority of Hesiod, who spoke of them as the subjects of
Locrus, and as produced from the stones with which Deucalion repeopled the earth
after the deluge. (Strab. vii. pp. 321, 322.) Hence all the inhabitants of Mount
Parnassus, Locrians, Phocians, Boeotians, and others, are sometimes described
as Leleges. (Comp. Dionys. Hal. i. 17.) (See Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, vol.
i. p. 42, seq.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Leleges : Perseus Encyclopedia
A river in Ionia, that flows near Ephesus (Il. 2.461).
Cayster, Caystrus (Kaustros, and Kaustrios, Hom. Il. ii. 461 ; Kara-Su and Kutschuk
Meinder, or Little Maeander), a river of Lydia, which lies between the basin of
the Hermus on the north, and that of the Maeander on the south. The basin of the
Cayster is much smaller than that of either of these rivers, for the Cogamus,
a southern branch of the Hermus, approaches very near the Maeander, and thus these
two rivers and the high lands to the west of the Cogamus completely surround the
basin of the Cayster. The direct distance from the source of the Cayster to its
mouth is not more than seventy miles, but the windings of the river make the whole
length of course considerably more.
The southern boundary of the basin of the Cayster is the Messogis
or Kestane Dagh. The road which led from Physcus in Caria to the Maeander, was
continued from the Maeander to Tralles; from Tralles down the valley of the Maeander
to Magnesia; and from Magnesia over the hills to Ephesus in the valley of the
Cayster. From Magnesia to Ephesus the distance was 120 stadia (Strab. p. 663).
The northern boundary of the basin of the Cayster is the magnificent range of
Tmolus or Kisilja Musa Tagh, over the western or lower part of which runs the
road (320 stadia) from Ephesus to Smyrna. Strabo's notice of the Cayster is very
imperfect. According to Pliny the high lands in which it rises are the Cilbiana
juga (v. 29), which must be between the sources of the Cayster and the valley
of the Cogamus. The Cayster receives a large body of water from the Cilbian hills,
and the slopes of Messogis and Tmolus. Pliny seems to mean to say that it receives
many streams, but they must have a short course, and can only be the channels
by which the waters descend from the mountain slopes that shut in this contracted
river basin. Pliny names one stream, Phyrites (in Harduin?s text), a small river
that is crossed on the road from Ephesus to Smyrna, and joins the Cayster on the
right bank ten or twelve miles above Aiasaluck, near the site of Ephesus. Pliny
mentions a stagnum Pegaseum, which sends forth the Phyrites, and this marsh seems
to be the morass on the road from Smyrna to Ephesus, into which the Phyrites flows,
and out of which it comes a considerable stream. The upper valley of the Cayster
contained the Cilbiani Superiores and Inferiores: the lower or wider part was
the Caystrian plain. It appears that these natural divisions determined in some
measure the political divisions of the valley, and the Caystriani, and the Lower
and Upper Cilbiani, had each their several mints. (Leake, Asia Minor, &c. p. 257.)
The lower valley of the Cayster is a wide flat, and the alluvial soil, instead
of being skirted by a range of lower hills, as it is in the valleys of the Hermus
and the Maeander, abuts at once on the steep limestone mountains by which it is
bounded. (Hamilton, Asia Minor, &c. vol. i. p. 541.) After heavy rains the Cayster
rises suddenly, and floods the lower plains. The immense quantity of earth brought
down by it was a phenomenon that did not escape the observation of the Greeks,
who observed that the earth which was brought down raised the plain of the Cayster,
and in fact had made it. (Strab. p. 691.) The alluvium of the river damaged the
harbour of Ephesus, which was at the mouth of the river.
The flat swampy level at the mouth of the Cayster appears to be the
Asian plain (Asios leimon) of Homer (Il. ii. 461), a resort of wild fowl. (Comp.
Virg. Georg. i. 383, Aen. vii. 699.) Except Ephesus, the valley of the Cayster
contained no great town. Strabo mentions Hypaepa on the slope of Tmolus, on the
descent to the plain of the Cayster. It was of course north of the river. The
ruins at Tyria or Tyre, near the river, and about the middle of its course, must
represent some ancient city. Metropolis seems to lie near the road from Ephesus
to Smyrna, and in the plain of the Phyrites; and the modern name of Tourbali is
supposed to be a corruption of Metropolis.
This is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Father of Ephesus.(Paus. 7,2,7)
MILITOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Miletus, ionian city of Caria, participated in the Trojan War on the side of the Trojans (Il. 2.868).
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!
