Mycale (redirected from Mykale)

Mycale (mĭk`əlē), promontory, W Asia Minor, opposite Samós island. The center of the Ionian League was there, in the temple of Poseidon. In 479 B.C. the Greeks destroyed the Persian fleet at Mycale. This ended the Persian Wars for European Greece and began the rapid liberation of the Greeks of Asia Minor. Mycale, in modern Turkey, is called Samsun Dağí. It was also known as Mt. Lydia.

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Mycale 

a cape in Ionia in Asia Minor, opposite the island of Samos; it now belongs to Turkey.

In 479 B.C., during the Greco-Persian wars, the Persians built a fortified camp near Mycale for the protection of ships brought ashore. In September 479, a Greek fleet led by the Athenian strategist Xanthippus and the Spartan king Leotychides landed a party of about 20,000 men. Supported by the lonians, who had been forcibly impressed into the Persian Army, the Greeks captured the camp and destroyed the Persian ships.

The battle of Mycale led to the liberation of Ionian Greece; uprisings against the Achaemenids broke out in its cities, and the islands of Chios, Lesbos, and Samos joined the Greek alliance.