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Miletus - city of philosophers
Today it is a bad example of how to keep ancient values


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The ancient city of Miletus was once one of Ionia's most important ports, but is now stranded 10 kilometres inland. It is situated south of Izmir, in the province of Aydin, 20 kilometres north of Didyma.

Milet - Priene - Didyma

 

When Neleus, son of King Kodros of Athens, decided to found a city, the gods told him that he must choose a site where the earth of a young maiden mingled with water. Neleus wandered through Asia Minor until he came to a place where a young girl named Kaeira was collecting clay from a river bed with which to make pots. Remembering what the gods had said Neleus founded his city here. This was to be the celebrated Miletus.
Another version of the founding myth of the city relates that Akakallis, daughter of the King of Crete, bore a child, Miletus, to the god Apollo. Afraid of her father King Minos, however, she abandoned it in the forest. Wolves cared for the baby, which was subse-quently found by shepherds and brought up by them. Years later Miletus sailed to Asia Minor, where
he founded a city in his name. Later he married Kyane, daughter of the god Maiandros of the Meander river, and they bad two children named Kaunos and Biblys.


Miletus market gate

fascinating - the market gate of Milet. Now Pergamon Museum in Berlin

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Ausgrabungen 1903

Excavation of the theatre in Milet, 1903

 




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Whatever the claims of these respective stories, Miletus became a renowned centre of scholarship and art. Its schools made a very great contribution to the intellectual and scholarly development of the Mediterranean world and one cannot talk of Miletus without mention of the great contributions to geometry and science made by Thales, one of the greatest scholars produced by the city.
Thales first predicted a solar eclipse in 585 BC. Other famous philosophers such as Anaximenes and Anaximandros, and Hippodamos, an innovator in the field of city planning and was later to form the basis of town-planning in all Roman cities.

Miletus is also renowned as the first city to which the principles of modern town-planning were applied. The gridplan introduced by Hippodamos

The Miletus alphabet was accepted as the normal script employed in writing ancient Greek. The following are a few of the philosophical views put forward by Milesian philosophers:

"The healthy and well-educated man is a happy man."
Beauty arises not from a beautiful body but from beautiful actions."
"Expect the same behaviour from your children as you showed your own parents."
Thales of Miletus

"The skilful man is superior to the strong man."
"Don't come to a conclusion before listening to both sides."
"A small spark is enough to burn down a whole forest."
"Lend the fallen a helping hand." Phocylides of Miletus

The Milesians were known for their rationality, and could even better the gods in argument, as one legend illustrates: One day Zeus was debating with a poor man in the city agora. Both were determined not to give in to the other. Finally Zeus shouted angrily, "Look here, do not go too far or I will destroy you with a thunderbolt!" His opponent said: "see great Zeus, you have proved that you are wrong."
Another story relates to the citizens' love of animals. One day a man named Koaranus purchased a dolphin that had been caught by a fisherman and returned it to the sea. Some time passed and Koaranus was on a voyage when his ship sank, but he was saved from drowning by dolphins which carried him to the shore. Years later when Koaranus died, as his funeral procession passed by the harbour, a shoal of dolphins was seen to slowly follow it along.

The ancient city of Miletus was once one of Ionia's most important ports but is now stranded 10 kilometres inland. It is situated south of Izmir, in the province of Aydin, 20 kilometres north of Didyma.

Heilige Straße von Didyma nach Milet

 

 

The theatre here is one of the best preserved on the Aegean coast, and once sat twenty thousand people. The Faustina Baths are one of the largest ancient baths in Turkey. Other ancient remains are a Hellenistic storage building, Temple of Serapis, stoa, harbour monument, Temple of Athena, nymphaion, Temple of Dionysus, Capito Baths, heroons, and two agoras.

Mliletus was first settled as early as the 5th millenium BC, and its heyday was the 5th and 6th centuries BC. In 494 BC the city was razed follow-ing a Persian vic-tory at the naval battle off the island of Lade (now a hill 4 kilometres from the city), but rebuilt according to a plan designed by Hippodamus. The city retained some of its importance through Roman and Byzantine times, but as the four harbours silted up it gradually

The excavations undertaken so far have reached as far as the Bronze Age. The first excavations were conducted by the German archaeologist Theodor Wiegand but these were several times interrupted by wars and various other events. Now a team of German archaeologists is currently engaged in excavating Miletus, whose museum houses finds from  Priene and  Didyma as well as Miletus. Despite its now landlocked position. you can still sit on the tiers of seats in the theatre and watch the sun dip into the distant sea across the alluvial plain of the Meander.



 

Miletus harbor lion

Once he was guarding the Milet harbour, today, covered with muddy water, he shows the understanding for archaeology in Milet - the Miletus-Harbour lion


Statue with chicken,
Milet, 570-560 B.C.

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