Lycus or Lykos was the name of a river in ancient Phrygia

Phrygia

In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. The Phrygians initially lived in the southern Balkans; according to Herodotus, under the name of Bryges , changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the...

, a tributary of the Maeander, which it joins a few km south of Tripolis

Tripolis (Phrygia)

Tripolis – also Neapolis, Apollonia, and Antoninopolis – was an ancient city of Phrygia Tripolis – also Neapolis, Apollonia, and Antoninopolis – was an ancient city of Phrygia Tripolis – also Neapolis, Apollonia, and Antoninopolis – was an ancient city of...

. It had its sources in the eastern parts of Mount Cadmus

Mount Cadmus

Topçambaba Dağı is a mountain in Aydın Province, Turkey.Cadmus or Cadmos was the ancient Greek name; it was then in Phrygia Magna. In antiquity, the sides were well wooded. A river Cadmus flowed from the mountain that flowed into the Lycus, a tributary of the Maeander....

 (Strabo

Strabo

Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...

 xii. p. 578), not far from those of the Maeander itself, and flowed in a westerly direction towards Colossae

Colossae

Colossae or Colosse , was an ancient city of Phrygia, on the Lycus, which is a tributary of the Maeander River. It was situated about 12 miles South East of Laodicea, and near the great road from Ephesus to the Euphrates...

, near which place it disappeared in a chasm of the earth; after a distance of five stadia, however, its waters reappeared, and, after flowing by Laodicea ad Lycum, it discharged itself into the Maeander. (Herod.

Herodotus

Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

 vii. 30; Plin.

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

 v. 29; Ptol.

Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...

v. 2. § 8; Hamilton, Researches, vol. i. p. 508, &c., and Journal of the Royal Geogr. Soc. vii. p. 60.)