GRYNEION
(Temaşalik Burnu) Turkey.
City
in Aiolis, 30 km S of Pergamon, a member of the
Aiolian League. Its settlement by Greeks is not recorded,
and legend spoke of an earlier town founded by the
Amazon Gryne. The city was enrolled in the Delian
Confederacy, with a tribute of 1000 to 2000 dr. In 335
B.C. Gryneion was captured from the Persians by Parmenio and its people enslaved. During the Hellenistic
period the city fell to the status of a dependency of
Myrina.
Gryneion was noted chiefly for the temple and oracle
of Apollo, described by Strabo (
622) as a costly temple
of white marble; Pausanias (
1.21.7) spoke of a beautiful
grove of Apollo. Pliny (
HN 5.121), on the other hand,
says there is nothing now but a harbor where Gryneion
once existed. Surprisingly little is known of the oracle of
Gryneian Apollo, and it has been doubted whether it
functioned at all after the Classical period. However, a
consultation by the men of Kaunos about 200 B.C. and
the visit by Aelius Aristides in the 2d c. A.D. (
Or. 51.7-8)
show that its activity did in fact continue.
Virtually nothing now remains on the site. The tiny
promontory at Temaşalik is largely occupied by a large
rectangular mound which is supposed to have carried the
temple, but no convincing remains of it have been found.
The city must have stood on the mainland, but here again
nothing is to be seen. A small excavation brought to light
only several sarcophagi of about 500 B.C. and a late
Roman mosaic pavement. The harbor mentioned by Pliny
is in fact of poor quality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. Schuchhardt,
Altertümer von Pergamon I, 1 (1912) 98; G. E. Bean,
JHS 74 (1954) 85, no.
21 (oracle); id.,
Aegean Turkey (1966) 110-12.
G. E. BEAN
