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[3]

And the Lydians and the Maeonians, whom Homer calls the Mëiones, are in some way confused both with these peoples and with one another, because some say that they are the same and others that they are different; and they are confused with these people1 because some say that the Mysians were Thracians but others that they were Lydians, thus concurring with an ancient explanation given by Xanthus the Lydian and Menecrates of Elaea, who explain the origin of the name of the Mysians by saying that the oxya-tree is so named by the Lydians.2 And the oxya-tree abounds in the neighborhood of Mt. Olympus, where they say that the decimated persons were put out3 and that their descendants were the Mysians of later times, so named after the oxya-tree, and that their language bears witness to this; for, they add, their language is, in a way, a mixture of the Lydian and the Phrygian languages, for the reason that, although they lived round Mt. Olympus for a time, yet when the Phrygians crossed over from Thrace and slew a ruler of Troy and of the country near it, those people took up their abode there, whereas the Mysians took up their abode above the sources of the Caïcus near Lydia.

1 Again the Mysians and Phrygians.

2 i.e., the oxya-tree, a kind of beech-tree, which is called "oxya" by the Greeks, is called "mysos" by the Lydians.

3 i.e., one-tenth of the people were, in accordance with some religious vow, sent out of their country to the neighborhood of Mt. Olympus and there dedicated to the service of some god.

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load focus Greek (1877)
load focus English (H.C. Hamilton, Esq., W. Falconer, M.A., 1903)
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