Anatolian Civilizations and Historical Sites - TEDA

ANATOLIAN CIVILIZATIONS:10x19 antik kentler 8/1/11 10:51 AM Sayfa
Miletos
While we do not know precisely when Miletos was founded, excavations at
Kalabaktepe have revealed here in the second half of the 2 nd millennium
BC. The Carians, an indigenous Anatolian people, apparently lived here in
the 12 th century BC and Homer tells us thet they fought in the Troian War
(on the side of the Troians) under the command of Nartes.
According to legend, Ionians under the leadership of Neleus, son of
the Athenian king Kodros, came to Miletos in the 10 th or 11 th century BC.
An important seaport, Miletos flourished considerably in the 6 th and
7 th centuries BC after 650 BC Milesians established ninety colonies around
the Black Sea and the Mediterranean and the city became enormously
wealthy and the most important in Ionia. In the 6 th century BC, Miletos
withstood Lydian aggression but in 546 BC both it and the Lydian
capital Sardis were forced to come under Persian rule.
A proud and independent city, it was the Milesians who instigated the
Ionian revolt against Persian rule but in 494 BC the Persians defeated the
Milesian fleet off the Island of Lade (now a hill on the coastal plain) in
494 BC and then proceeded to seize and demolish their city in retribution.
The defeat of the Persian fleet in the naval battle off the promontory
of Mycale in 479 was the signal for the reconstruction of the city of
Miletos. The Millesian architect Hippodamos began rebuilding the city on
the right-angled grid plan, of which, according to ancient sources, he was
the originator. (Ancient Miletos was justly famous for its reputation
to Hippodamos, the natural philosophers Thales, Anaximandros, and
Anaximenes, the famous historian and geographer Hekataios, and much
later Isidoros, one of the architects of St. Sophia in Constantinople, all
hailed from Miletos.)
The Miletos that rose from the ashes of Persian destruction however
never managed to regain its former power and in Classical times Miletos
importance steadily waned. The city did become an important
commercial and artistic center during Hellenistic times and in the Roman
Period it was an independent city and one of the leading metropolises of
western Anatolia. Since its earliest days, Miletos possessed two
Miletos Theater. The theater, which was built in the Hellenistic Period, was
capable of holding 5300 people It survives to the present time quite intact,
with the help of the repairs in the Roman Period.
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