Listed 6 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "MYOUS Ancient city TURKEY".
Total results on 17/5/2001: 28 for Myus, 7 for Myous.
Town in lonia, near Avsar, 16 km E-NE of Miletos. One of the least
important of the 12 cities of the Ionian League. Tradition said that the site
was taken from the Carians by a son of Kodros, Kyaretos (Paus. 7.2.10) or Kydrelos
(Strab. 633). According to Diodoros (11.57.7) and Strabo (636) Myous was presented
by Xerxes to Themistokles to supply him with fish in his retirement. At the battle
of Lade in 494 B.C. Myous contributed three ships to the Ionian fleet. In the
Delian Confederacy the city was assessed at the modest sum of one talent. In 201
B.C. Myous was given away for the second time. Philip V received a quantity of
figs from the Magnesians, and by way of payment, when he captured Myous, he presented
it to them (Polyb. 16.24.9). The city was gradually cut off from the sea by the
silting of the Maeander, and by degrees lost her independence to Miletos; by Strabo's
time the two cities were in actual sympolity, and Myous could only be reached
by sailing 30 stades up the river in small boats (Strab. 636). Finally the Maeander
converted an inlet of the river to a lagoon, which bred such swarms of mosquitoes
that the inhabitants were forced to remove themselves and their possessions to
Miletos (Paus. 7.2.11).
The site, half an hour's walk NW from the village of Avsar, is now
deserted, and the extant remains are scanty. A low hill, crowned by a Byzantine
castle, stands beside the river; in its lower slope two terraces have been constructed.
On the lower of these are the foundations of the Temple of Dionysos noticed by
Pausanias; it was Ionic, 30 by 17 m, with a peristyle of (apparently) 10 columns
by 6, a deep pronaos and cella, but no opisthodomos. It dated from the mid 6th
c. and faced W. All that can now be seen is a single column drum of white marble.
The upper terrace carried a larger temple in the Doric order, probably that of
Apollo Terbintheus, the principal deity of Myous. Only a part of the foundation
remains. Between the two terraces is a supporting wall of large irregular blocks,
with a shallow recess and a number of cuttings. No other buildings survive, though
on the hill to the E, which seems to have carried the main occupation, there are
traces of rock-cut houses, tombs, and cisterns.
The almost total absence of any sculptured, inscribed, or even worked
stones on an excavated site is remarkable; it seems that they must have been taken
by the inhabitants when they moved to Miletos.
G. E. Bean, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
It is located near Avsar village, 15 km. east of Milletos, at the shore of Bafa Lake.
(Muous). The least city of the Ionian confederacy. It stood in Caria, on the bank of the Maeander.
Myus (Muous: Eth. Muousios), an Ionian town in Caria, on the southern bank of the Maeander, at a distance of 30 stadia from the mouth of that river. Its foundation was ascribed to Cydrelus, a natural son of Codrus. (Strab. xiv. p. 633.) It was the smallest among the twelve Ionian cities, and in the days of Strabo (xiv. p. 636) the population was so reduced that they did not form a political community, but became incorporated with Miletus, whither in the end the Myusians transferred themselves, abandoning their own town altogether. This last event happened, according to Pausanias (vii. 2. § 7), on account of the great number of flies which annoyed the inhabitants; but it was more probably on account of the frequent inundations to which the place was exposed. (Vitruv. iv. 1.) Myus was one of the three towns given to Themistocles by the Persian king (Thucyd. i. 138; Diod. Sic. xi. 57; Plut. Them. 29; Athen. i. p. 29; Nep. Them. 10.) During the Peloponnesian War the Athenians experienced a check near this place from the Carians. (Thucyd. iii. 19.) Philip of Macedonia, who had obtained possession of Myus, ceded it to the Magnesians. Athen. iii. p. 78.) The only edifice noticed by the ancients at Myus was a temple of Dionysus, built of white marble. (Paus. l.c.) The mmense quantity of deposits carried down by the Maeander have considerably removed the coast-line, so that even in Strabo's time the distance between Myus and the sea was increased to 40 stadia (xii. p. 579), while originally the town had no doubt been built on the coast itself. There still are some ruins of Myus, which most travellers, forgetting the changes wrought by the Maeander, have mistaken for those of Miletus, while those of Heracleia have been mistaken for those of Myus. (Comp. Leake, Asia Minor, p. 239, &c.) The mistake is repeated by Sir C. Fellows (Journal of a Tour in As. Min. p. 263), though it had been pointed out long before his time.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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