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Κελαινάς: an important town in the plain at the junction of the Marsyas and the Maeander. To the north-east was its acropolis on an outlying spur of the range Djebel-Sultan. Xerxes, on his return from Greece, is said to have built him a palace by the source of the Marsyas and a fortress on the acropolis above, while the younger Cyrus had a palace at the source of the Maeander and a large park round it (Xen. Anab. i. 2. 7, 8). Apameia was built by Antiochus I (circ. 275 B. C.) above the old town on the banks of the Marsyas. [For a full description see Ramsay, C. B. pp. 396-483.] Its most striking feature is the group of springs that form the headwater of the Maeander. A coin of Apameia, struck under Gordian, shows the local goddess surrounded by four river-gods entitled Μαίανδρος), Μαρσύας), Θέρμα), Ὀργάς). Of these the Therma must be the modern Ilidja, the only hot-spring of the place, while the Orgas may be the modern Norgas Chai; the Maeander is probably the Sheik Arab Su, rising in or near a lake behind a protruding ridge of Mount Djebel-Sultan, thence rushing down a ravine into the plain, but afterwards flowing gently round the spur of the protruding ridge and through the plain till it is joined by the Marsyas in the lower city of Celaenae. The Marsyas, called by H. Καταρρήκτης, was a rapid stream 25 feet broad, rising in a cave beneath the acropolis, and flowing through the city; cf. Xen. Anab. i. 2.7; Strabo 577-8. Clearly this is the Dineir Water, described by Hamilton (i. 499): ‘At the base of a rocky cliff a considerable stream of water gushes out with great rapidity. . . . It appeared as if it had formerly risen in the centre of a great cavern and that the surrounding rocks had fallen in from the cliffs above.’ This entirely agrees with the descriptions of undoubted eyewitnesses, Xenophon and Strabo, who state that it rose from beneath the Acropolis hill. Possibly the Agora was just below, but more probably H. is in error. For a full discussion of the streams, with many references, cf. Ramsay, C. B. 397-412, 451-7.

Xenophon (l. c.) says he saw the skin of Marsyas in the cave where the stream rose. Perhaps the local river-god, Masnes or Masses (Müller, F. H. G. iv. 629), whose stream made music and whose symbol was a water-skin, was confused with the spirit of flute-music. At any rate the mythical contest of Apollo and Marsyas typifies the struggle between the wilder Phrygian flute-music and the soberer music of the Greek lyre. Hence Marsyas is connected with other local heroes, ‘inventors’ of the flute and Phrygian mode, Hyagnis and Olympus, and also with the worship of the Mother of the Gods, and of Dionysus.

Σιληνοῦ. Marsyas is also called a Satyr, but this is a distinction without a difference, according to Miss Harrison (Prolegomena, p. 388).

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