MYOUS
Turkey.
Town in lonia, near Avşar,
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
Avşar, 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.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
D. Magie,
Roman Rule in Asia Minor
(1950) 883-84; H. Weber,
AnatSt 17 (1967) 31; G. E.
Bean,
Aegean Turkey (1966) 244-46.
G. E. BEAN
