Pygela () or Phygela (Φύγελα) was a small town of

ancient Ionia Ionia ( ) was an ancient region encompassing the central part of the western coast of Anatolia. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionians who h ...

, on the coast of the Caystrian Bay, a little to the south of

Ephesus Ephesus (; ; ; may ultimately derive from ) was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek city on the coast of Ionia, in present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province, Turkey. It was built in the 10th century BC on the site of Apasa, the former Arzawan capital ...

. It is located near

Kuşadası Kuşadası () is a municipality and district of Aydın Province, Turkey. Its area is 265 km2, and its population is 130,835 (2022). It is a large resort town on the Aegean coast. Kuşadası is south of İzmir, and about west of Aydın. T ...

, Asiatic Turkey. The ruins are right down on Pygela Plaji, "Pygela Beach." They are obviously partly drowned. According to

Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

, it was said to have been founded by

Agamemnon In Greek mythology, Agamemnon (; ''Agamémnōn'') was a king of Mycenae who commanded the Achaeans (Homer), Achaeans during the Trojan War. He was the son (or grandson) of King Atreus and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of C ...

, and to have been peopled with the remnants of his army; it contained a temple of Artemis Munychia.

Dioscorides Pedanius Dioscorides (, ; 40–90 AD), "the father of pharmacognosy", was a Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist, and author of (in the original , , both meaning "On Materia medica, Medical Material") , a 5-volume Greek encyclopedic phar ...

commends the wine of this town. It was a ''

polis Polis (: poleis) means 'city' in Ancient Greek. The ancient word ''polis'' had socio-political connotations not possessed by modern usage. For example, Modern Greek πόλη (polē) is located within a (''khôra''), "country", which is a πατ ...

'' (city-state) and a member of the

Delian League The Delian League was a confederacy of Polis, Greek city-states, numbering between 150 and 330, founded in 478 BC under the leadership (hegemony) of Classical Athens, Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the Achaemenid Empire, Persian ...

. Silver and bronze coins dated to the 4th century BCE bearing the legends «ΦΥΓΑΛΕΩΝ» or «ΦΥΓ» are attributed to the town.

Etymology

The ancient authors provided it with a folk-etymology based on its obvious resemblance to Greek backside. It is said to have taken its name because some of the men of Agamemnon remained there after they had had a disease of the buttocks (πυγαί).

Harpocration __NOTOC__ Valerius Harpocration ( or , ''gen''. Ἁρποκρατίωνος) was a Greek grammarian of Alexandria, probably working in the 2nd century AD. He is possibly the Harpocration mentioned by Julius Capitolinus (''Life of Verus'', 2) as ...

wrote that according to Theopompos it took its name when some of the men with Agamemnon stayed there on account of a disease to do with their buttocks (pygai, πυγαί).

Suda The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; ; ) is a large 10th-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine encyclopedia of the History of the Mediterranean region, ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas () or Souidas (). It is an ...

wrote the same about the name of the place. The folk etymology is, of course, ridiculous, as it was always meant to be, in the tradition of naming subject places and peoples with derogatory

exonym An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...

s. The settlement was never a part of the

Ionian League The Ionian League (; , ; or , , in ), also called the Panionic League, was a confederation formed at the end of the Meliac War in the mid-7th century BC comprising twelve Ionian Greek city-states (a dodecapolis, of which there were many other ...

, even though it was in Ionia. As it was part of the spoils of the Meliac War, chances are it was

Caria Caria (; from Greek language, Greek: Καρία, ''Karia''; ) was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia (Mycale) south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Carians were described by Herodotus as being Anatolian main ...

n. It does have a bronze-age history (see below) under the Hittite name of Piggaya, which, if too early for the Carian language, at least was Anatolian, probably Luwian, as the place then would have been in

Arzawa Arzawa was a region and political entity in Western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age. In Hittite texts, the term is used to refer both to a particular kingdom and to a loose confederation of states. The chief Arzawan state, whose capital wa ...

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...

wrote that Demetrius was speaking of the existence of

Amazons The Amazons (Ancient Greek: ', singular '; in Latin ', ') were a people in Greek mythology, portrayed in a number of ancient epic poems and legends, such as the Labours of Hercules, Labours of Heracles, the ''Argonautica'' and the ''Iliad''. ...

near Pygela.Strabo, Geography, book 12, chapter 3
/ref>

History

In the "Indictment of

Madduwatta Madduwatta (or Madduwattas) was a Late Bronze Age warlord who conquered a portion of southwest Anatolia. He is known from the Hittite text known as the ''Indictment of Madduwatta''. Textual background Madduwatta is known solely from the ''Indi ...

", it is mentioned, under the Hittite name Piggaya, as being allied to the

Ahhiyawa The Achaeans or Akhaians (; , "the Achaeans" or "of Achaea") is one of the names in Homer which is used to refer to the Greeks collectively. The term "Achaean" is believed to be related to the Hittite term Ahhiyawa and the Egyptian term Ekwe ...

king Attarissiya. The "Indictment" is dated to the early-fourteenth century BC in the Reign of

Arnuwanda I Arnuwanda I was a Hittite great king during the early 14th century BC, ruling in c. 1390–1380/1370 BC. Origins Arnuwanda's parents are unknown. Because both Arnuwanda and his wife, Queen Ašmu-Nikkal, are described on their respective seals a ...

, and Attarissiya is popularly identified with

Atreus In Greek mythology, Atreus (, ) was a king of Mycenae in the Peloponnese, the son of Pelops and Hippodamia (daughter of Oenomaus), Hippodamia, and the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. His descendants became known collectively as the Atreidae ...

, which would mean that the city predates a founding by Agamemnon and the traditional date of the Trojan war.

References

Attribution

External links

Pygela, photographs and a brief description in Turkish.
Populated places in ancient Ionia Former populated places in Turkey Greek city-states Members of the Delian League Places in Greek mythology Kuşadası District History of Aydın Province Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Turkey {{AsiaMinor-geo-stub