Μυκάλη

Mykale, Mycale

Translated by David Whitehead9 Jul 2001Vetting: high3 revisions

18 words

[Mykale] and Mykalesos, a name of a city.
[Named] after the fact that the Gorgons bellowed [muka=sqai] there.

Greek original · Adler’s text

Μυκάλη καὶ Μυκαλησός, ὄνομα πόλεως. παρὰ τὸ ἐκεῖ μυκᾶσθαι τὰς Γοργόνας.

Betacode

*muka/lh kai\ *mukalhso/s, o)/noma po/lews. para\ to\ e)kei= muka=sqai ta\s *gorgo/nas.

The entry is wrong to suggest that Mykale and Mykalessos (sic) were alternative names for the same place. Mykale (site of a famous seabattle of 479 BCE) lay on a promontory of Karia, opposite the island of Samos. Mykalessos -- attacked and sacked by Thracians in 413 BCE (Thucydides 7.29-30, strikingly concluding that "its people suffered calamities as pitiable as any which took place in this war": web address 1) -- was in Boiotia. Their ethnika were even more similar than their city-names: Mykalesios and Mykalessios; hence perhaps the confusion. Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Mykalessos cites Ephorus (FGrH 70 F28) to the effect that there was another, Karian Mykalessos; Stephanus nevertheless has an entry for Mykale too.
As regards the etymology, Stephanus has the one given here s.v. Mykale but has a cow doing the bellowing s.v. Mykalessos.

Revision history3 revisions · last 28 May 2013