Mysia Major
Mysia is a region in the north-west of Asia Minor. It is located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. In ancient times, it was inhabited by the Mysi. It was bounded by Lydia and Phrygia on the south, by Bithynia on the north-east, and by the Propontis and Aegean Sea on the north and west. Its precise limits are difficult to assign. The Phrygian frontier was vague and fluctuating, while in the north-west the Troad was only sometimes included in Mysia. Generally speaking, the northern portion was known as Mysia Minor or Hellespontica and the southern as Major or Pergamene.
The chief physical features of Mysia (considered apart from that of the Troad) are the two mountain-chains, Olympus (7600 ft.) in the north and Temnus in the south, which for some distance separates Mysia from Lydia and is afterwards prolonged through Mysia to the neighbourhood of the Gulf of Adramyttium. The major rivers in the northern part of the province are the Macestus and its tributary, the Rhyndacus, both of which rise in Phrygia, and, after diverging widely through Mysia, unite their waters below the lake of Apollonia about 15 miles from the Propontis. The Calcus in the south rises in Temnus, and from thence flows westward to the Aegean Sea, passing within a few miles of Pergamum. In the northern portion of the province are two considerable lakes, Artynia, or Apolloniatis (Abulliont Geul), and Aphnitis (Maniyas Geul), which discharge their waters into the Macestus from the east and west respectively.
The most important cities were Pergamum in the valley of the Caicus, and Cyzicus on the Propontis. The whole sea-coast was studded with Greek towns, several of which were places of considerable importance; thus the northern portion included Parium, Lampsacus and Abydos, and the southern Assus, Adramyttium. Further south, on the Eleatic Gulf, were Elaea, Myrina and Cyme.
A minor episode in the Trojan War cycle in Greek mythology has the Greek fleet land at Mysia, mistaking it for Troy. Achilles wounds their king, Telephus, after he slays a Greek; Telephus later pleads with Achilles to heal the wound.
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
