Büyük Menderes River

<h2 id="modern-geography">Modern geography</h2>
<p>The river rises in a <a href="/facts/Spring_(hydrology)/blPBY4VG">spring</a> near <a href="/facts/Dinar_(District),_Afyonkarahisar/4Ay6RHvb">Dinar</a> and flows to <a href="/facts/Lake_I%C5%9F%C4%B1kl%C4%B1/6N1tdmqb">Lake Işıklı</a>. After passing the <a href="/facts/Ad%C4%B1g%C3%BCzel_Dam/Gb8df97r">Adıgüzel Dam</a> and the <a href="/facts/Cindere_Dam/mhNADHhP">Cindere Dam</a>, the river flows past <a href="/facts/Nazilli/gJgKH1WC">Nazilli</a>, <a href="/facts/Ayd%C4%B1n/RcoJvXzW">Aydın</a> and <a href="/facts/S%C3%B6ke/3MgPqvRE">Söke</a> before it drains into the <a href="/facts/Aegean_Sea/Vx4Gg5CT">Aegean Sea</a>.
</p>
<h2 id="ancient-geography">Ancient geography</h2>
<p>The Maeander was a celebrated river of <a href="/facts/Caria/jrWBS8E6">Caria</a> in <a href="/facts/Asia_Minor/vMkrLrPr">Asia Minor</a>. It appears earliest in the <a href="/facts/Trojan_Battle_Order/q1lxng4G">Catalog of Trojans</a> of <a href="/facts/Homer/Xw8Ur53U">Homer</a>'s <a href="/facts/Iliad/HceJKUGB">Iliad</a> along with <a href="/facts/Miletus/E2x1XLYY">Miletus</a> and <a href="/facts/Mycale/kUY3YTnE">Mycale</a>.
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<h3>Sources</h3>
<p>The river has its sources not far from <a href="/facts/Celaenae/D1RDTG2y">Celaenae</a> in <a href="/facts/Phrygia/MvUXE54L">Phrygia</a> (now Dinar),<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:1" href="#fn:1"><sup>1</sup></a> where it gushed forth in a park of <a href="/facts/Cyrus_the_Great/0gB7KwSA">Cyrus</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:2" href="#fn:2"><sup>2</sup></a> According to some<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a> its sources were the same as those of the river Marsyas; but this is irreconcilable with <a href="/facts/Xenophon/d3uAqxEu">Xenophon</a>, according to whom the sources of the two rivers were only near each other, the Marsyas rising in a royal palace.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a> Others<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5"><sup>5</sup></a> state that the Maeander flowed out of a lake on Mount Aulocrene. <a href="/facts/William_Martin_Leake/rMAHkDrl">William Martin Leake</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:6" href="#fn:6"><sup>6</sup></a> reconciles all these apparently different statements by the remark that both the Maeander and the Marsyas have their origin in the lake on Mount Aulocrene, above Celaenae, but that the issue at different parts of the mountain below the lake.
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<h3>Course</h3>

<p>The Maeander was so celebrated in antiquity for its numerous windings, that its classical name "Maeander" became, and still is, proverbial.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:7" href="#fn:7"><sup>7</sup></a> Its whole course has a southwesterly direction on the south of the range of Mount Messogis. South of <a href="/facts/Tripolis_(Phrygia)/umjMy60r">Tripolis</a> it receives the waters of the <a href="/facts/Lycus_(river_of_Phrygia)/M9EExYgu">Lycus</a>, whereby it becomes a river of some importance. Near <a href="/facts/Carura/H7pkneQP">Carura</a> it passes from Phrygia into Caria, where it flows in its tortuous course through the Maeandrian plain,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:8" href="#fn:8"><sup>8</sup></a> and finally discharges itself in the Gulf of Icaros (an arm of the Aegean Sea), between the ancient Greek cities <a href="/facts/Priene/c0lLLtd4">Priene</a> and <a href="/facts/Myus/3Yq7Y393">Myus</a>, opposite to the <a href="/facts/Ionia/aozeldtI">Ionian</a> city of Miletus, from which its mouth is only 10 stadia distant.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:9" href="#fn:9"><sup>9</sup></a>
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<h3>Tributaries</h3>
<p>The tributaries of the Maeander include the Orgyas, Marsyas, Cludrus, Lethaeus, and Gaeson, in the north; and the Obrimas, Lycus, <a href="/facts/Harpasus/6PQPsxhR">Harpasus</a>, and a second Marsyas in the south.
</p>
<h3>Physical description</h3>
<p>The Maeander is a deep river,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:10" href="#fn:10"><sup>10</sup></a> but not very broad. In many parts its depth equals its breadth and, so, it is navigable only by small craft.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:11" href="#fn:11"><sup>11</sup></a> It frequently overflows its banks and, as a result of the quantity of mud it deposits at its mouth, the coast has been pushed about 20 or 30 <a href="/facts/Stadia_(length)/q1Kc19LD">stadia</a> (about 4 to 6 kilometers in modern units) further into the sea and several small islands off the coast have become united with the mainland.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:12" href="#fn:12"><sup>12</sup></a>
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<h3>Mythology</h3>
<p>The associated river god was also called <a href="/facts/Meander_(mythology)/7T2SXdt9">Meander</a>, one of the sons of <a href="/facts/Oceanus/nQwapyjW">Oceanus</a> and <a href="/facts/Tethys_(mythology)/P1kFExsh">Tethys</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:13" href="#fn:13"><sup>13</sup></a>
</p><p>There was a legend about a subterranean connection between the Maeander and the <a href="/facts/Alfeios/f8hmnQQz">Alpheus</a> River in <a href="/facts/Elis_(regional_unit)/kj2W2Mdp">Elis</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:14" href="#fn:14"><sup>14</sup></a>
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<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/K%C3%BC%C3%A7%C3%BCk_Menderes/6tSjNFoJ">Küçük Menderes</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Battle_of_the_Meander/50BhVDov">Battle of the Meander</a></li></ul>
<h2 id="notes">Notes</h2>

<ul><li><a href="/facts/Herodotus/hTgRSAnv">Herodotus</a> (1910). <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/History_of_Herodotus"><i>History of Herodotus</i> </a>. Translated by <a href="/facts/George_Rawlinson/cCReIHwS">George Rawlinson</a> – via <a href="/facts/Wikisource/TrMdylNf">Wikisource</a>.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Hesiod/3H9u3g7n">Hesiod</a> (1914). <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Theogony"><i>Theogony</i> </a>. Translated by Hugh Gerard Evelyn-White – via <a href="/facts/Wikisource/TrMdylNf">Wikisource</a>..</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Strabo/dzQ59zwn">Strabo</a>. H.C. Hamilton; W. Falconer (eds.). <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0239">"Geography"</a>. Tufts University: The Perseus Digital Library.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Xenophon/d3uAqxEu">Xenophon</a>. <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Anabasis"><i>Anabasis</i> </a>. Translated by <a href="/facts/Henry_Graham_Dakyns/9CCo9KEI">Henry Graham Dakyns</a> – via <a href="/facts/Wikisource/TrMdylNf">Wikisource</a>..</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Xenophon/d3uAqxEu">Xenophon</a>, <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Xen.+Anab.+1.1.1"><i>Anabasis</i></a>, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts; William Heinemann, Ltd., London. 1980. OCLC 10290977. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-674-99100-1.</li>
<li>Thonemann, P., <i>The Maeander Valley: A historical geography from Antiquity to Byzantium</i> (Cambridge, 2011) (Greek Culture in the Roman World Series)</li></ul>
<h2 id="attribution">Attribution</h2>
<ul><li> This article incorporates text from a publication now in the <a href="/facts/Public_domain/YWKMDKw4">public domain</a>: <a href="/facts/William_Smith_(lexicographer)/FMSstmWB">Smith, William</a>, ed. (1854–1857). "MAEANDER". <i><a href="/facts/Dictionary_of_Greek_and_Roman_Geography/rIQmdKEM">Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography</a></i>. London: John Murray.</li></ul>
<h2 id="external-links">External links</h2>
<p> Media related to Büyük Menderes River at Wikimedia Commons
</p>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1"><p>Herodotus, Histories, Book 7 section 26. <a href="/wiki/Herodotus" target="_blank">/wiki/Herodotus</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:2"><p>Xenophon, Anabasis, Book 1 Chapter 2. <a href="/wiki/Xenophon" target="_blank">/wiki/Xenophon</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:3"><p>Strabo xii. p. 578; Maximus of Tyre viii. 38. <a href="/wiki/Strabo" target="_blank">/wiki/Strabo</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:4"><p>Xenophon, Anabasis 1.2.8. <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:5"><p>Pliny (v. 31), Solinus (40. § 7), and Martianus Capella (6. p. 221). <a href="/wiki/Pliny_the_Elder" target="_blank">/wiki/Pliny_the_Elder</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:6"><p>Asia Minor, p. 158, &c. <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:7"><p>Hesiod, Theogony, line 339; Strabo, Geography, Book 12, Chapter 8, Section 15; Pausanias viii. 41. § 3; Ovid Met. viii. 162, &c.; Livy xxxviii. 13; Seneca Herc. Fur. 683, &c., Phoen. 605. <a href="/wiki/Hesiod" target="_blank">/wiki/Hesiod</a> <a href="#fnref:7" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:8"><p>comp. Strabo xiv. p. 648, xv. p. 691 <a href="#fnref:8" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:9"><p>Pliny l. c.; Pausanias ii. 5. § 2. <a href="#fnref:9" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:10"><p>Niketas Choniates, p. 125; Livy l. c. <a href="/wiki/Niketas_Choniates" target="_blank">/wiki/Niketas_Choniates</a> <a href="#fnref:10" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:11"><p>Strabo xii. p. 579, xiv. p. 636. <a href="/wiki/Strabo" target="_blank">/wiki/Strabo</a> <a href="#fnref:11" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:12"><p>Pausanias viii. 24. § 5; Thucydides viii. 17.) <a href="/wiki/Thucydides" target="_blank">/wiki/Thucydides</a> <a href="#fnref:12" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:13"><p>Hesiod, Theogony, 334 [1] <a href="/wiki/Hesiod" target="_blank">/wiki/Hesiod</a> <a href="#fnref:13" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:14"><p>Pausanias il. 5. § 2. <a href="#fnref:14" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
</ol>

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Büyük Menderes River