Midaeium or Midaëum or Midaeion ( Midaium or Midaion), was a town in the northeast of ancient Phrygia 1in the valley of the Sangarius, by the river Porsuk known as Tembris or Termos. As we can conclude from the name of the city it was founded by Phrygian king and was called Midaion after the name of Midas, the famous king of the Phrygians. It was situated on the little river Bathys, on the ancient Roman road from Dorylaeum to Pessinus near today's Karahüyük, 700 m north of the Eskişehir-Alpu road in Eskişehir Province. It was the see of a bishop in antiquity but no longer a residential bishopric.Under the name Midaëum it remains a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church.
The mound is approximately 500x500 m in diameter and ca. 20 m high. The coins minted in Midaion are signed : TON KTICTHN MIDAEWN (Midas, the founder of the city). The site was inhabited during the Early, Middle and Late Bronze, Hittite, Phrygian, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Periods.
Sources:
- Strabo, Geographica XII.8
- Pliny. Naturalis Historia. Vol. V.32.41.
- Smith, William (ed.). «Midaeium». Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854).
- Stephanus of Byzantium. Ethnica. Vol. s.v. Μιδάειον.
- Nejat Bilgen (2007): “Midaion/Karahöyükʼde Tunç Çağı Bulguları.” In: PATRANVS. Coşkun Özgünelʼe 65. Yaş Armağanı, Festschrift für Coşkun Özgünel zum 65. Geburtstag. Erhan Öztepe & Musa Kadıoğlu (eds.), Homer Kitabevi, İstanbul, pp. 111–112.
References
- ↑To Phrygia Epictetus belong the cities Azani, Nacolia, Cotiäeium, Midäeium, and Dorylaeum, and also Cadi, which, according to some writers, belongs to Mysia. Mysia extends in the interior from Olympene to Pergamene, and to the plain of Caïcus, as it is called; and therefore it lies between Mt. Ida and Catacecaumene, which latter is by some called Mysian and by others Maeonian.