Myous
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.
BIBLIOGRAPHYD. 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