Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/396

 380 MUZIRIS. tome i. p. 349) ; as indeed he maintains, tliat some tif the maritime tovms of the coast of Hedjaz and Yemen date more than 400 or 500 years from their foundation, and that the towns whose walls were once washed by the waters of the gulf, and which owed their existence to their vicinity to the sea, have disappeared since its retirement, with the exception of those whose soil was sufficiently fertile to maintain their inhabitants. In a sandy and arid country these were necessarily few, so that there are not more than six or seven that can be clearly identified with ancient sites. Among these Mnm still exists under its an- cient name unchanged (lb. pp. 238, 239, 284) at tlie required distance from the Straits of Bab-el- Mundeh, viz. 300 stadia, reckoning 500 stadia to a degree. (lb. pp. 269, 270.) Vincent makes it short of 40 miles. {Periplns, p. 319.) In the middle ages when the sea had already retired from Jlusa, another town named 3Iosek or Mcmsklj was built as a seaport in its stead, which seems to have usurped the name of the more ancient town, and to have been mistaken for it by some geographers. This Mosek still exists, in its turn abandoned by the sea; but about 25' north of the true position of Mma. (lb. p. 270.) "The mart of Yemen at the present day is Mokha. . . . Twenty miles inland from Mokha Niebuhr discovered a Moosa still existing, which he with great probability supposes to be the ancient mart, now carried inland to this distance by the recession of the coast." (Vincent, ?. e. p. 315.) There is a circumstance mentioned by Bruce of the roadstead of Mokha, which coincides with a state- ment cited from Arrian with regard to Muza. Bruce says that '' the cables do not rub, because the bottom is sand, while it is coral in almost every other port." (lb. p. 313. n. 142.) Moosa itseif Niebuhr found to be 62 hours =4^ German miles, due east o{ Mokha, at the commencement of the mountain country, the intervening space being extremely dry and thinly peopled. It is an ordinary village, badly built, only recommended by its water, which is drunk by the wealthier inhabitants of Mokha. ( Voyage en Arable, tome i. pp. 296, 297; Description de I'Arabie, pp. 194, 195.) [G. W.] MUZIRIS (UovCtpls, Peripl. M. Erijthr. c. 54, p. 297, ttp. Geogr. Graec. Min. ed.Miiller, 1855), a port on the west coast of Hindostdn, situated between Tradis and Xelcynda, and at the distance of 500 stadia from either, where, according to the author of the Periplus, ships came from Ariaca and Greece (that is, Alexandria). Ptolemy calls it an empo- rium (vii. 1. § 8), and places it in Limyrica. There can be little doubt that it is the place which is now called Mangalore, and which is still a considerable port. [v.] JIY'CALE (Mu/cdArj), the westernmost branch of Mt. jIesogis in Lydia ; it forms a high ridge and terminates in a promontory called Trogylium, now cape S. Maria. It runs out into the sea just oppo- site the island of Samos, from which it is separated only by a narrow channel seven stadia in breadth. It was in this channel, and on the mainland at the foot of ilount Mycale, that the Persians were defeated, in B. c. 479. It is probable that at the foot of Mount Jlycale there was a town called Jlycale or Mycallessus, for Stephanus Byz. («. c.) and Scylax (p. 37) speak of a town of Mycale in Caria or Lydia. The whole range of Mount Mycale now bears the name of Samsum. (Horn. II. ii. 869 ; Ilerod. i. 148, vii. 80, ix. 96 ; Thuc. i. 14, 89 ; viii. 79 ; Diod. ix. 34 ; Paus. v. 7. § 3, vii. 4. § 1 ; MYCENAE. Strab. siii. pp. 621, 629; Ptol. v. 2. § 13; Agathem. p. 3.) [L. S.] MYCALESSUS (Mu/faArjtro-ds : Eth. MuJcaArjo-- (Tfos), an ancient to^vn of Boeotia, mentioned by Homer. (//. ii. 498, ffgmn. Apoll. 224.) It was said to have been so called, because the cow, which was guiding Cadmus and his comrades to Thebes, lowed (^ifxvKTjcraTo') in this place. (Paus. ix. 19. § 4.) In B. c. 413, some Thracians, whom the Athenians were sending home to their own country, were landed on the Euripus, and surprised Myca- lessus. They not only sacked the town, but put all the inhabitants to the sword, not sparing even the women and children. Thucydides says that this was one of the greatest calamities that had ever befallen any city. (Thuc. vii. 29 ; Paus. i. 23. § 3.) Strabo (ix. p. 404) calls Mycalessus a village in the teiTitory of Tanagra, and places it upon the road from Thebes to Chalcis. In the time of Pau- sanias it had ceased to exist ; and this writer saw the niins of Harma and Mycalessus on his road to Chalcis. (Paus. ix. 19. §4.) Pausanias mentions a temple of Demeter Mycalessia, standing in the territory of the city upon the sea-coast, and situated to the right of the Euripus, by which he evidently meant south of the strait. The only other indication of the position of ]lycalessus is the statement of Thucydides (/. c), that it was 16 stadia distant from the Hermaeum, which was on the sea-shore near the Euripus. It is evident from these accounts, that Mycalessus stood near the Euripus ; and Leake places it, with great probability, upon the height immediately abore the southern bay of E'gripo, where the ruined walls of an ancient city still re- main. {Northern Greece, vol. ii. pp. 249, seq., 264.) It is true, as Leake remarks, that this posi- tion does not agree with the statement of Strabo, that Mycalessus was on the road from Thebes to Chalcis, since the above-mentioned ruins are nearly two miles to the right of that road ; but Strabo writes loosely of places which he had never seen, ilycalessus is also mentioned in Strab. ix. pp. 405, 410 ; Paus. iv. 7. s. 12. ]rYCE'NAE, a town in Crete, the foundation of which was attributed by an historian of the Augustan .ige (Veil. Paterc. i. 1) to Agamemnon. Harduin (ad Plin. iv. 12) proposed to read ^lycenae for Myrixa, which is mentioned as a city of Crete in the text of Pliny (/. c). Sieber (Reise, vol. ii. p. 280) believed that he had discovered the remains of this city at a place called Maca or Masis, on the river Armyro. (Hock, Kreta, vol. i. p. 435.) [E. B. J.] MYCE'NAE, sometimes JTYCE'NE {HlvKwai; MvKivi/Tj, Hom.//.iv.52: Eth. MvKrjvaios, Mycenaeus, Mycenensis: Kharvdti), one of the most ancient towns in Greece, and celebrated as the residence of Agamemnon. It is situated at the north-eastern ex- tremity of the plain of Argos upon a rugged height, which is shut in by two commanding summits of the range of mountains which border this side of the Argeian plain. From its retired position it is de- scribed by Homer {Od. iii. 263) as situated in a re- cess (fiux^) of the Argeian land, which is supposed by some modem writers to be the origin of the name. The ancients, however, derived the name from an eponymous heroine Mycene, daughter of Inachus, or from the word fivKijs, for which various reasons were assigned. (Paus. ii. 17. §3; Steph. B. s. v.) The position was one of great importance. In the first place it commanded the upper part of the great Ar-