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CHRISTOPHER BARON

University of Notre Dame

Modern Mengerevtepe, in the territory of ancient MILETUS (see Map 4 in Gorman 2001, 283), site of an archaic temple of ATHENA. Herodotus reports (1.19–22) that the temple was accidentally burned down by the invasion force of the Lydian king ALYATTES, who then fell ill. He was instructed by the PYTHIA at DELPHI to restore it. In the meantime, he came to a peace agreement with Miletus, after which he built not one but two temples to Athena.

German excavations in the 1990s (Graeve 1995) approximately 4 miles southeast of the ancient city of Miletus uncovered evidence for a sanctuary, including Greek SCULPTURES from the tenth through the sixth century BCE and a cup (phiale) bearing an inscription to Athena Assesia (Herrmann et al. 2006, 173). The temple appears to have been destroyed around 600—which would fit Herodotus’ Alyattes story—and then again in 494, when the Persians sacked Miletus during the IONIAN REVOLT.

The mention of an archon (magistrate) of Assesus in a fragment of Nicolaus of Damascus (FGrHist 90 F52) may indicate the presence of a community there with some measure of autonomy in the ARCHAIC AGE.

SEE ALSO: Archaeology; Temples and Sanctuaries