Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "MYSIA Ancient country TURKEY".
Total results on 24/4/2001: 260 for Mysia.
A district of Asia Minor, called also the Asiatic Mysia (Musia
he Asiane), in contradistinction to Moesia on the banks of the Danube. Originally,
it meant the territory of the Mysi; but in the usual division of Asia Minor, as
settled under Augustus, it occupied the whole of the northwestern corner of the
peninsula between the Hellespont on the northwest, the Propontis on the north,
the river Rhyndacus and Mount Olympus on the east, which divided it from Bithynia
and Phrygia, Mount Temnus and an imaginary line drawn from Temnus to the southern
side of the Elaitic Gulf on the south, where it bordered upon Lydia, and the Aegean
Sea on the west. It was subdivided into five parts: (1) Mysia Minor (he mikra),
along the northern coast;
(2) Mysia Maior (he megale), the southeastern inland region,
with a small portion of the coast between the Troad and the Aeolic settlements
about the Elaitic Gulf; (3) Troas (he Troas), the northwestern
angle, between the Aegean and Hellespont and the southern coast along the foot
of Ida;
(4) Aeolis or Aeolia (he Aiolis or Aiolia), the southern part
of the western coast around the Elaitic Gulf, where the chief cities of the Aeolian
confederacy were planted; but applied in a wider sense to the western coast in
general; and
(5) Teuthrania (he Teuthrania), the southwestern angle, between
Temnus and the borders of Lydia, where, in very early times, Teuthras was said
to have established a Mysian kingdom, which was early subdued by the kings of
Lydia; this part was also called Pergamene, from the celebrated city of Pergamus,
which stood in it. This account applies to the time of the early Roman Empire;
the extent of Mysia and its subdivisions varied greatly at other times.
In the Heroic Age we find the great Teucrian monarchy of Troy
in the northwest of the country and the Phrygians along the Hellespont; as to
the Mysians, who appear as allies of the Trojans, it is not clear whether they
were Europeans or Asiatics. The Mysia of the legends respecting Telephus is the
Teuthranian kingdom in the south, only with a wider extent than the later Teuthrania.
Under the Persian Empire, the northwestern portion, which was still occupied in
part by Phrygians, but chiefly by Aeolian settlements, was called Phrygia Minor,
and by the Greeks Hellespontus. Mysia was the region south of the chain of Ida;
and both formed, with Lydia, the second satrapy. In the division of the Empire
of Alexander the Great, Mysia fell, with Thrace, to the share of Lysimachus, B.C.
311, after whose defeat and death, in 281, it became a part of the Graeco-Syrian
kingdom, with the exception of the southwestern portion, where Philetaerus founded
the kingdom of Pergamus (280), to which kingdom the whole of Mysia was assigned,
together with Lydia, Phrygia, Caria, Lycia, Pisidia, and Pamphylia, after the
defeat of Antiochus the Great by the Romans in 190. With the rest of the kingdom
of Pergamus, Mysia fell to the Romans in 133 by the bequest of Attalus III., and
formed part of the province of Asia. Under the later Empire, Mysia formed a separate
proconsular province under the name of Hellespontus.
The country was, for the most part, mountainous, its chief
chains being those of Ida, Olympus, and Temnus, which are terminal branches of
the northwestern part of the Taurus chain, and the union of which forms the elevated
land of southeastern Mysia. Their prolongations into the sea form several important
bays and capes--namely, among the former, the great Gulf of Adramyttium (Adramytti),
which cuts off Lesbos from the continent, and the Sinus Elaiticus (Gulf of Chandeli);
and, among the latter, Sigeum (Cape Yenicheri) and Lectum (Gulf of Baba), at the
northwestern and southwestern extremities of the Troad, and Cane (Cape Coloni)
and Hydria (Fokia), the northern and southern headlands of the Elaitic Gulf. Its
rivers are numerous; some of them considerable, in proportion to the size of the
country; and some of first-rate importance in history and poetry; the chief of
them, beginning on the east, were Rhyndacus and Macestus, Tarsius, Aesepus, Granicus,
Rhodius, Simois and Scamander, Satnois, Evenus, and Caicus. The peoples of the
country, besides the general appellations mentioned above, were known by the following
distinctive names: the Olympieni or Olympeni (Olumpienoi, Olumpenoi), in the district
of Olympene at the foot of Mount Olympus; next to them, on the south and west,
and occupying the greater part of Mysia proper, the Abretteni, who had a native
divinity called by the Greeks Zeus Abrettenos; the Trimenthuritae, the Pentademitae,
and the Mysomacedones, all in the region of Mount Temnus.
Mysia (Musia: Eth. Musos, Mysus), the name of a province in the north-west
of Asia Minor, which according to Strabo (xii. p. 572) was derived from the many
beech-trees which grew about Mount Olympus, and were called by the Lydians musoi.
Others more plausibly connect the name with the Celtic moese, a marsh or swamp,
according to which Mysia would signify a marshy country. This supposition is supported
by the notion prevalent among the ancients that the Mysians had immigrated into
Asia Minor from the marshy countries about the Lower Danube, called Moesia, whence
Mysia and Moesia would be only dialectic varieties of the same name. Hence, also,
the Mysians are sometimes mentioned with the distinctive attribute of the Asiatic,
to distinguish them from the European Mysians, or Moesians. (Eustath. ad Dion.
Per. 809; Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. i. 1115.)
The Asiatic province of Mysia was bounded in the north by the Propontis
and the Hellespont, in the west by the Aegean, and in the south by Mount Temnus
and Lydia. In the east the limits are not accurately defined by the ancients,
though it was bounded by Bithynia and Phrygia, and we may assume the river Rhyndacus
and Mount Olympus to have, on the whole, formed the boundary line. (Strab. xii.
pp. 564, &c., 571.) The whole extent of country bearing the name of Mysia, was
divided into five parts : - 1. Mysia Minor (Musia he mikra, that is, the northern
coast-district on the Hellespont and Propontis, as far as Mount Olympus; it also
bore the name of Mysia Hellespontiaca, or simply Hellespontus, and its inhabitants
were called Hellespontii (Ptol. v. 2. §§ 2, 3, 14; Xenoph. Ages. i. 14) ; or,
from Mount Olympus, Mysia Olympene (Musia he Olumpene (Strab. xii. p. 571). This
Lesser Mysia embraced the districts of Morene, Abrettene and the Apian plain (Apias
pedion; Strab. xii. pp. 574, 576.) 2. Mysia Major (Musia e megale), forming the
southern part of the interior of the country, including a tract of country extending
between Troas and Aeolis as far as the bay of Adramyttium. The principal city
of this part was Pergamum, from which the country is also called Mysia Pergamene
(Musia he Pergamene; Strab. l. c.; Ptol. v. 2. §§ 5, 14.) 3. Troas (he Troas),
the territory of ancient Troy, that is, the northern part of the western coast,
from Sigeium to the bay of Adramyttium. 4. Aeolis the southern part of the coast,
especially that between the rivers Caicus and Hermus. 5. Teuthrania (he Tenthrania),
or the district on the southern frontier, where in ancient times Teuthras is said
to have formed a Mysian kingdom. (Strab. xii. p. 551.)
These names and divisions, however, were not the same at all times.
Under the Persian dominion, when Mysia formed a part of the second satrapy (Herod.
iii. 90), the name Mysia was applied only to the north-eastern part of the country,
that is, to Mysia Minor; while the western part of the coast of the Hellespont
bore the name of Lesser Phrygia, and the district to the south of the latter that
of Troas. (Scylax, p. 35.) In the latest times of the Roman Empire, that is, under
the Christian emperors, the greater part of Mysia was contained in the province
bearing the name of Hellespontus, while the southern districts as far as Troas
belonged to the province of Asia. (Hierocl. p. 658.)
The greater part of Mysia is a mountainous country, being traversed
by the north-western branches of Mount Taurus, which gradually slope down towards
the Aegean, the main branches being Mount Ida and Mount Temnus. The country is
also rich in rivers, though most of them are small, and not navigable; but, notwithstanding
its abundant supply of water in rivers and lakes, the country was in ancient times
less productive than other provinces of Asia Minor, and many parts of it were
covered with marshes and forests. Besides the ordinary products of Asia Minor,
and the excellent wheat of Assus (Strab. xv. p. 725), Mysia was celebrated for
a kind of stone called lapis assius (sarkophagos), which had the power of quickly
consuming the human body, whence it was used for coffins (sarcophagi), and partly
powdered and strewed over dead bodies. (Dioscorid. v. 141 ; Plin. ii. 98, xxxvi.
27; Steph. B. s. v. Assos.) Near the coasts of the Hellespont there were excellent
oyster beds. (Plin. xxxii. 21; Catull. xviii. 4; Virg. Georg. i. 207; Lucan ix.959;
comp. Theophrast. Hist. Plant. i. 6. 13.) The country of Mysia was inhabited by
several tribes, as Phrygians, Trojans, Aeolians, and Mysians;. but we must here
confine ourselves to the Mysians, from whom the country derived its name. Mysians
are mentioned in the Iliad (ii. 858, x. 430, xiii. 5), and seem to be conceived
by the poet as dwelling on the Hellespont in that part afterwards called Mysia
Minor. Thence they seem, during the period subsequent to the Trojan, War, to have
extended themselves both westward and southward. (Strab. xii. p. 665.) Herodotus
(vii. 74) describes them as belonging to the same stock as the Lydians, with whom
they were always stationed together in the Persian armies (Herod. i. 171), and
who probably spoke a language akin to theirs. Strabo (vii. pp. 295, 303, xii.
pp. 542, 564, &c.) regards them as a tribe that had immigrated into Asia from
Europe. It is difficult to see how these two statements are to be reconciled,
or to decide which of them is more entitled to belief. As no traces of the Mysian
language have come down to us, we cannot pronounce a positive opinion, though
the evidence, so far as it can be gathered, seems to be in favour of Strabo's
view, especially if we bear in mind the alleged identity of Moesians and Mysians.
It is, moreover, not quite certain as to whether the Mysians in Homer are to be
conceived as Asiatics or as Europeans. If this view be correct, the Mysians must
have crossed over into Asia either before, or soon after the Trojan War. Being
afterwards pressed by other immigrants, they advanced farther into the country,
extending in the south-west as far as Pergamum, and in the east as far as Catacecaumene.
About the time of the Aeolian migration, they founded, under Teuthras, the kingdom
of Teuthrania, which was soon destroyed, but gave the district in which it had
existed its permanent name. The people which most pressed upon them in the north
and east seem to have been the Bithynians.
In regard to their history, the Mysians shared the fate of all the
nations in the west of Asia Minor. In B.C. 190, when Antiochus was driven from
Western Asia, they became incorporated with the kingdom of Pergamus; and when
this was made over to Rome, they formed a part of the province of Asia. Respecting
their national character and institutions we possess scarcely any information;
but if we may apply to them that which Posidonius (in Strab. vii. p. 296) states
of the European Moesians, they were a pious and peaceable nomadic people, who
lived in a very simple manner on the produce of their flocks, and had not made
great advances in [p. 390] civilisation. Their language was, according to Strabo
(xii. p. 572), a mixture of Lydian and Phrygian, that is, perhaps, a dialect akin
to both of them. Their comparatively low state of civilisation seems also to be
indicated by the armour attributed to them by Herodotus (vii. 74), which consisted
of a common helmet, a small shield, and a javelin, the point of which was hardened
by fire. At a later time, the influence of the Greeks by whom they were surrounded
seems to have done away with everything that was peculiar to them as a nation,
and to have draw n them into the sphere of Greek civilisation. (Comp. Forbiger,
Handbuch der alten Geographie, vol. ii. p. 110, &c.; Cramer, Asia Minor, i. p.
30, &c.; Niebuhr, Lect. on Anc. Hist. vol. i. p. 83, &c.)
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
Placus (Plakos), a woody mountain of Mysia, at the foot of which Thebe is said
to have been situated in the Iliad (vi. 397, 425, xxii. 479); but Strabo (xiii.
p. 614) was unable to learn anything about such a mountain in that neighbourhood.
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!
