River Meles

His figure was one of the stock types on coins of Smyrna, one class of which showed the poet sitting, holding a volumen on his knees, and supporting his chin on his right hand was called "Homerian" by numismatists.

In the light of descriptions by Aristides and other accounts dating from the Roman imperial age, this stream seems, in fact, to be the weakest candidate for association with Homer's Meles.

The discovery in the 19th century of one complete statue and the head of another, which were thought to represent Artemis, gave way to the name "Diana's Baths" attached to it, while no other traces with claim to antiquity was found in the area.

Because of the existence of the cave in Buca and with Kemer Brook flowing through İzmir's neighboring district of Konak before reaching the sea, these two localities are particularly insistent in their claims for associating Meles with the westernmost stream, for understandable reasons.

A third candidate takes as basis an anonymous Homeric hymn of unknown date to Artemis which relates that the goddess, "having watered her horses in deep-reeded Meles, drove swiftly through Smyrna to Klaros rich in vines".