[3] The Lydians also, and the Mæones, 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 Elæa, 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 persons1 were exposed, whose descendants are the later Mysians, and received their appellation from the Mysos, or beech-tree growing in that country. The language also is an evidence of this. It is a mixture of Lydian and Phrygian words, for they lived some time in the neighbourhood of Olympus. But when the Phrygians passed over from Thrace, and put to death the chief of Troy and of the country near it, they settled here, but the Mysians established themselves above the sources of the Caïcus near Lydia.
1 Protheüs, who had led the Magnetes to Troy, upon his return from that expedition, and in compliance with a vow which he had made to Apollo, selected every tenth man and sent them to the temple at Delphi. These Magnetes, for some reason, abandoned the temple and embarked for Crete; from thence they passed into Asia, accompanied by some Cretans, and founded Magnesia near the Mæander. B. xiv. c, i. § 11.
The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes, in three volumes. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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