Carians (Μίλητος) — a Homeric kingdom of the Odyssey, c. 1200 BC

Carians — The gold-decked Karians of Miletos, "uncouth of speech" — whose captain came to war arrayed like a bride, and drowned for it under Achilles' hand.

The Carian realm of Miletus, a far-flung Trojan ally on the Anatolian coast. Its lords Nastes and Amphimachos, sons of Nomion, both fell at Troy — the gold-decked captain slain by Achilles in the river and stripped of his ornaments — so no homecoming ever came to Miletus.

Leader at Troy: Nastes.

Ruler in the Odyssey's present: Nastes.

Role in the Trojan War: Trojan ally from the Carian coast of Anatolia. Nastes and Amphimachos led the levies of Miletus, the Maeander and Mykale to fight under Hektor; the gold-decked captain was cut down by Achilles in the Skamandros and his ornaments stripped as spoil.

The homecoming: No return — its lords stripped of their gold and slain in the Trojan river.

Along the far southwestern shore of Anatolia lay the land of the Karians, "uncouth of speech" — the barbarophonoi, whose tongue rang strange in Greek ears. Their seat was Miletos, and their reach ran inland over wooded Mount Phthires "of leafage numberless," down the winding streams of Maiandros, and up to the steep crest of Mykale that fronts the sea. When Priam called his allies, the Karians answered from the edge of the known world. Two lords led them: **Nastes and Amphimachos, the glorious children of Nomion**. Of Amphimachos the Catalogue keeps a single unforgettable image — he came to the fighting decked in gold like a bride, a fool's finery that "held not back in any wise grievous destruction." When Achilles ran mad along the Trojan river, choking the Skamandros with the dead, the gold-decked Karian was among those he cut down; and wise-hearted Achilles waded through the corpses to strip the ornaments from the drowned man and carry off his gold. Nastes, too, the king in whose name the contingent marched, fell before Troy. So this realm's story is a nostos that never was: its lords lie in the mud of a foreign river, and no ship of Miletos turns for home. This was a **Trojan-aligned** people, and its neighbours in the great muster read like a roll of the eastern allies. In the Catalogue the Karians stand between the **Maeonians** (MAE), Mesthles and Antiphos of the Gygaian mere beneath Tmolos, and the far-famed **Lykians** (LYC) of Sarpedon and Glaukos by eddying Xanthos — the strongest of all Troy's helpers. Above them all fought the **Trojans** (TRO) themselves under Hektor, for whose city these coast-dwellers had come so far to die. It was **Achilles**, lord of the **Myrmidons** (MYR), who ended Amphimachos in the river — the same aristeia that swallowed so many of Troy's defenders that the Skamandros itself rose in wrath against him. Yet Miletos was old before the war, and its lineage crossed the Aegean. The Milesians themselves told how their land was once called Anactoria, under Anax the earth-born and his son Asterios, until Miletos landed with an army of **Cretans** (CRE), fleeing Minos son of Europa — and the Karians, the former dwellers of the land, made common cause with the newcomers, so that both land and city took the name Miletos. Thus the gold-loving coast that sent Nastes and Amphimachos to Hektor's aid carried Cretan blood in its founding. At the dramatic present, ten years into the returns, the city stands with its captains stripped and gone — no homecoming, only the memory of a king who fought and fell, and of a golden fool who learned too late that finery wards off nothing.

“He came to battle with golden attire like a girl, fond man; that held not back in any wise grievous destruction, but he was vanquished by the hands of fleet-footed Aiakides in the river, and wise-hearted Achilles carried away his gold.” — Iliad 2.872-875