Mysi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Mysi (Mysians) were the eponymous inhabitants of Mysia, a region in northwest Asia Minor. Herodotus wrote that they were brethren of the Carians and Lydians (Herod. 1.171), and that the Mysians were "Lydian colonists" (7.74). This identification may be supported by the fact that only Mysians, Carians, and Lydians were allowed to worship at the temple of Carian Zeus in the country of the Mylasians (1.171), based on the tradition that the eponymous figures Car (Carians), Lydus (Lydians), and Mysus (Mysians) were brothers (1.171).

Assuming Herodotus was correct, the Mysian language or dialect (an Indo-European tongue) would likely have been an Anatolian language, akin to Carian and Lydian. A passage in Athenaeus suggests that Mysian was akin to the barely attested Paionian language of Paionia, north of Macedon.

According to Homer, the Mysians fought in the Trojan War on the side of Troy (Iliad, 2.858). Herodotus recorded the tradition that Mysians (along with Teucrians) invaded Europe, conquering "all of Thrace" and invading Greece as far as Elis in early times (7.20).