Carians in the context of "Thessalus"

Caria (/ˈkɛəriə/; from Greek: Καρία, Karia; Turkish: Karya) 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 mainlanders and they called themselves Caria because of the name of their king. He reports the Carians themselves maintained that they were Anatolian mainlanders intensely engaged in seafaring and were akin to the Mysians and the Lydians. The Carians spoke Carian, a native Anatolian language closely related to Luwian. Also closely associated with the Carians were the Leleges, which could be an earlier name for Carians.

The Carian language is an extinct language of the Luwic subgroup of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family, spoken by the Carians. The known corpus is small, and the majority comes from Egypt. Approximately 170 Carian inscriptions from Egypt are known, while only about 30 are known from Caria itself.

Caria is a region of western Anatolia between the ancient regions of Lycia and Lydia, a name possibly first mentioned in Hittite sources. Carian is closely related to Lycian and Milyan (Lycian B), and both are closely related to, though not direct descendants of, Luwian. Whether the correspondences between Luwian, Carian, and Lycian are due to direct descent (i.e. a language family as represented by a tree-model), or are due to the effects of a sprachbund, is disputed.

The Leleges (/ˈlɛlɪdʒiːz/; Ancient Greek: Λέλεγες) were an aboriginal people of the Aegean region, before the Greeks arrived. They were distinct from another pre-Hellenic people of the region, the Pelasgians. The exact areas to which they were native are uncertain, since they were apparently pre-literate and the only references to them are in ancient Greek sources. These references are casual and (it is alleged) sometimes fictitious. Likewise, little is known about the language of the Leleges.

Many Greek authors link the Leleges to the Carians of south-west Anatolia. Homer names the Leleges among the Trojan allies alongside the Carians, Pelasgians, Paeonians and Gaucones.

Myus (Ancient Greek: Μυοῦς), sometimes Myous or Myos, or Myes, was an ancient Greek city in Caria. It was one of thirteen major settlements of the Ionian League, and was one of three that spoke the same Ionic subdialect, the other two being Miletus and Priene. All three were Ionian colonies placed at the mouth of the Maeander River in the middle of the west coast of Anatolia.

Miletus was more ancient than the Ionians, having been occupied by various ethnic groups since the Neolithic. It was partly Hellenized in the Late Bronze Age by Achaeans, who are termed Mycenaeans in scholarly language. The previous inhabitants at that time were Anatolian language speakers, ancestors of the Carians. The Ionians secured it along with its multi-cultural population during the Submycenaean period between the Bronze Age and the Dark Age. If the re-colonization is the remote start of the Ionian League, Myus and Priene must have been in existence then, although there is no evidence that they were pre-Ionian.

In Greek mythology, Eidothea or Idothea (Ancient Greek: Εἰδοθέα) was the name of the following women:

• Idothea, a daughter of Oceanus and possibly Tethys, thus considered to be one of the Oceanids. Together with her sisters Adrasta and Althaea (Amalthea), she was one of the nurses of young Zeus.
• Eidothea, a sea goddess and daughter of Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea. She told Menelaus how to hold her father so that he could not escape. Eidothea was simply called Eido who changed her name into Theonoe. Another of her name was Eurynome.
• Eidothea, a nymph of Othreis, mother of Cerambus by Eusiros (son of Poseidon). Cerambus who was metamorphosed by the nymphs into a gnawing beetle because of his insolence. In some myths, her son was borne up into the air on wings by the nymphs escaping the flood of Deucalion.
• Eidothea or Eidothee, a Carian woman, daughter of King Eurytus and possible spouse of Miletus who bore him Byblis and Caunus.
• Eidothea, second wife of Phineus, king of Thrace. She was the sister of Cadmus and thus, maybe the daughter of Agenor, king of Tyre. Eidothea put out the eyes of her stepsons (Gerymbas and Aspondus) with the sharp shuttle in her blood-stained hands and also caused to imprisoned them.