Anatolia
In Homer's Iliad, the Leleges are allies of the Trojans (10.429), though they do not appear in the formal catalogue of allies in Book II of the Iliad, and their homeland is not specified. They are distinguished from the Carians, with whom some later writers confused them; they have a king, Altes, and a city Pedasus which was sacked by Achilles. The topographical name "Pedasus" occurs in several ancient places: near Cyzicus, in the Troad on the Satniois River, in Caria, as well as in Messenia, according to Encyclopædia Britannica 1911. Gargara in the Troad was counted as Lelegian. Alcaeus (7th or 6th century BCE) calls Antandrus in the Troad "Lelegian", but later Herodotus substitutes the epithet "Pelasgian", so perhaps the two designations were broadly synonymous for the Greeks.
Pherecydes of Leros (ca 480) attributed to the Leleges the coast land of Caria, from Ephesus to Phocaea, with the islands of Samos and Chios, placing the true Carians farther south from Ephesus to Miletus. If this statement derives from Pherecydes, both native and knowledgeable, it has great weight.
Pausanias was reminded that the temple of the Goddess at Ephesus predated the Ionian colony there, when it was rededicated to the Goddess as Artemis. He states with certainty that it antedated the Ionic immigration by many years, being older even than the oracular shrine at Dodona. He says that the pre-Ionic inhabitants of the city were Leleges and Lydians (with a predominance of the latter) and that, although Androclus drove out of the land all those whom he found in the upper city, he did not interfere with those who dwelt about the sanctuary. By giving and receiving pledges he put these on a footing of neutrality. These remarks of Pausanias find confirmation in the form of the cult in historic times, centering on a many-breasted icon of the "Lady of Ephesus" whom Greeks called Artemis. Other cult aspects, being in all essentials non-Hellenic, suggest the indigenous cult was taken over by the Greek settlers.
Often historians assume, as a general rule, that autochthonous inhabitants survive an invasion as an under-class where they do not retreat to mountain districts, so it is interesting to hear in Deipnosophistae that Philippus of Theangela (a 4th century BCE historian) referred to Leleges still surviving as serfs of the "true Carians", and even later Strabo attributes to the Leleges a distinctive group of deserted forts and tombs in Caria that were still known in his day as "Lelegean forts"; the Encyclopædia Britannica 1911 identified these as ruins that could still be traced ranging from the neighborhood of Theangela and Halicarnassus as far north as Miletus, the southern limit of the "true Carians" of Pherecydes. Plutarch also implies the historic existence of Lelegian serfs at Tralles (now Aydin) in the interior.
Read more about this topic: Leleges