Greek Texts & Translations

THE people called Mysians, and Phrygians, who live around the so-called Mysian Olympus, border upon the Bithynians to the south. Each of these nations is divided into two parts. One is called the Greater Phrygia, of which Midas was king. A part of it was occupied by the Galatians. The other is the Lesser, or Phrygia on the Hellespont, or Phrygia around Olympus, and is also called Epictetus.

Mysia is also divided into two parts; Olympic Mysia, which is continuous with Bithynia, and with the Epictetus, (which, Artemidorus says, was inhabited by the Mysians beyond the Danube,) and the part around the Caïcus, ^note and the Pergamene ^note as far as Teuthrania, and the mouths of the river. 2

This country, however, as we have frequently observed, has undergone so many changes, that it is uncertain whether the district around Sipylus, ^note which the ancients called Phrygia, were a part of the Greater or the Lesser Phrygia, from whence Tantalus, Pelops, and Niobe were called Phrygians. Whatever the explanation may be, the change is certain. For Pergamene and Elaitis, ^note through which country the Caïcus passes, and empties itself into the sea, and Teuthrania, situated between these two districts, where Teuthras lived, and Telephus was brought up, lies between the Hellespont, and the country about Sipylus, and Magnesia, which is at the foot of the mountain, so that, as I have said, it is difficult To assign the confines of the Mysians and Phryges.—
3

The Lydians also, and the Maeones, whom Homer calls Meones, are in some way confounded with these people and with one another; some authors say that they are the same, others that they are different, nations. Add to this that some writers regard the Mysians as Thracians, others as Lydians, according to an ancient tradition, which has been preserved by Xanthus the Lydian, and by Menecrates of Elaea, who assign as the origin of the name Mysians, that the Lydians call the beech-tree (Oxya) Mysos, which grows in great abundance near Olympus, where it is said decimated persons ^note were exposed, whose descendants are the