Write about the history of a settlement that was almost entirely wiped out and was then rebuilt.

— Settlement

The City of Mysia

The City of Mysia, located near Troy on the western coast of Anatolia, was a peaceful city of traders ruled by the kindly King Telephus. Their chief exports were cookies and milk, which paired well together and brought seafarers for a pleasant stop on their way through the Hellespont and into the Dardanelles. But early in the Trojan war, Mysia's proximity to its more famous ally proved disastrous.

The Erroneous Conquest

On an otherwise uneventful day in the reign of King Telephus, an armada of Achaean warships pulled into the harbor, greeted by groups of children frolicking in the tides. But the frolicking would not last long, and neither would the children, as the warships disgorged wave after wave of angry warriors.
The Achaeans broke the city gates, although they were already wide open. Then they tore down the walls for good measure. The invaders burned and ravaged and killed their way through the unresistant peasantry, taking an unnecessarily indirect route to the palace, and leaving behind a smoke-choked landscape littered by the corpses by the thousand.
"You are welcome to enter as honored guests," said the ceremonial guards, friendly and unarmed as they were. There had been no crime in Mysia for decades, and so the ceremonial guard had trained in smiling and cheerful banter instead of aggression or battle. The guards met a particularly gruesome fate but, true to their training, they never stopped smiling.
The invaders slaughtered the royal family, one at a time, in front of the tearfully pleading King Telephus. He offered all of the considerable treasures of his city to the invaders if they would just go away. "And have a nice day," he couldn't stop himself from adding.
The Achaeans weren't interested in treasure, although they were glad to take it, but kept asking the same questions over and over again.
"Where is Paris? Where is Helen? Where are you hiding them?"
As the puzzled king insisted that he knew no such couple, the foreigners became even more enraged, until their destruction extended to every person, every sheep, and every horse they could find in the kingdom.
"Paris sometimes goes by the name Alexandros, and Helen is the most beautiful woman in the world. Surely you can't have missed them, and we have it on divine authority that they are here!"
When the Achaeans ran out of Mysian royals to kill, King Telephus was tortured by the largest and strongest Achaean warrior of them all, a man called Achilles, who used a rusty spear to cause the greatest amount of pain and greatest chance of causing tetanus. But even at the edge of death, King Telephus couldn't reveal information he didn't have.
"Last chance before you die, old man," said Achilles. "And with you, your city dies as well, as you are now the last living thing in all of Troy."
"Troy?" King Telephus rasped. "This isn't Troy. This is Mysia."
"Oh," said Achilles. "Are you sure? Wow. This is really embarrassing. Sorry."
"Apology accepted," said the king.
Red-faced and sheepish, the Achaeans tromped back through the rubble of the destroyed city to their ships.
And as they set sail from Mysia, the last they heard was King Telephus's raspy voice calling, "Have a nice day, and come back soon!"

The Aftermath

The City of Mysia was later rebuilt, and the Achaeans eventually found the city they were looking for.

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Mythology

Greek/Roman

Type

City

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Poetry! (Mythic Verse, Vol. 1)

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