Mycale

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Location of Mycale mountain range at the former Latmischen Gulf

Mycale (now Dilek Dağları or Samsun Dagi ) in ancient times was the name of a peninsula with a mountain range in Ionia on the west coast of Asia Minor in modern Turkey, north of the mouth of the Meander, near the ancient cities of Priene, Miletus and Ephesus. The steep mountains rise up to 1,265 m above sea level. The central sanctuary of the twelve Ionian cities, the Panionion, is 750 meters high. In the Archaic through ancient times the Mycale Mountains formed a promontory at the former Latmischen Gulf, the entrained sediments increasingly silted up by the Great Meander ( Büyük Menderes today ), bringing the coastline steadily shifted to the southwest.

In the strait between this promontory and the island of Samos gave the Greek and Persian fleet 479 BC during the Persian Wars a naval battle.

The Greek tyrant Polycrates was lured and executed at Mycale in an ambush.