Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/372

 .'356 MILETUS. as tluit in which it had stood to Croesus, and ■vas thereby saved from the calamities inflicted upon otlier Ionian cities. (Herod, i. 141, &c.) In the reign of Darius, the lonians allowed themselves to be prevailed upon by Histiaeus and his un- scrupulous kinsman and successor openly to revolt against Persia, b. c. 500. Jliletus having, in the person of its tyrant, lieaded the expedition, had to pay a severe penalty for its rashness. After re- peated defeats in the field, the city was besieged by land and by sea, and finally taken by storm b. c. 494. The city was plundered and its inhabitants massacred, and the survivors were transplanted, by order of Darius, to a place called Ampe, near the mouth of the Tigris. The town itself was given up to the Carians. (Herod, vi. 6, &c. ; Strab. xiv. p. 635.) The battle of IMycale, in b. c. 479, restored the freedom of iIiletus, which soon after joined the Athenian confederacy. But the days of its greatness and glory were gone (Thuc. i. 15, 115, &c.) ; its ancient spirit cf liberty, however, was not, yet extinct, for, towards the end of the Peloponnesian Var, Miletus threw oft" the yoke imposed upon her by Athens. In a battle fought under the very walls of their city, the Milesians defeated their op- ponents, and Phrynichus, the Athenian admiral, abandoned the enterprise. (Thuc. viii. 25, &c.) Not long after this, the Milesians demolished a fort which the Persian Tissaphernes was erecting in their territory, for the purpose of bringing them to subjection. (Thuc. viii. 85.) In b. c. 334, when Alexander, on his Eastern expedition, appeared be- fore Miletus, the inhabitants, encouraged by the pre- sence of a Persian army and fleet stationed at Mycale, refused to submit to him. Upon this, Alexander im- mediately commenced a vigorous attack upon the walls, and finally took the city by assault. A part of it ■was destroyed on that occasion ; but Alexander par- doned the sui-viving inhabitants, and granted them their liberty. (Arrian, Anah. i. 18, &c. ; Strab. I. c.) After this time Miletus continued, indeed, to flourish as a commercial place, but was only a second-rate town. In the war between the Romans and Anti- ochu.s, Miletus sided with the former. (Liv. sxxvii. 16, xliii. 6.) The city continued to enjoy some de- gree of prosperity at the time when Strabo wrote, and even as late as the time of Pliny and Pausanias. (Comp. Tac. Ann. iv. G3, 55.) From the Acts (xx. 17), it appears that St. Paul stayed a few days there, on his return from JIacedonia and Troas. In the Christian times, Ephesus was the see of a bi- shop, W'ho occupied the first rank among the bishops of Caria; and in this condition the town remained for several centuries (Hierocl. p. 687; Mich. Due. p. 14), until it was destroyed by the Turks and other barbarians. Miletus, in its best days, consisted of an inner and an outer city, each of which had its own fortifi- cations (Arrian I. c), while its harbours were pro- tected by the group of the Tragusaean islands in front of which Lade was the largest. Great and beau- tiful as the city may have been, we have now no means of forming any idea of its topography, since its site and its whole territoiy have been changed by the deposits of the Maeander into a pestilential swamp, covering the remains of the ancient city with water and mud. Chandler, and other tra- vellers not being aware of this change, mistook the ruins of Jlyus for those of Miletus, and describe them as such. (Leake, Asia Minor, p. 239.) MILYAS. Great as Miletus was as a commercial city, it is no less great in the history of Greek literature, being the birthplace of the philosophers Thales, Anaxi- mander, and Anaximenes, and of the historians Cadmus and Hecataeus. The Milesians, like the rest of the lonians, were notorious for their voluptuousness and ef- feminacy, though, at one time, they must have been brave and warlike. Their manufactures of couches and other furniture were very celebrated, and their woollen cloths and carpets were particularly esteemed. (Athen. 1. p. 28, xi. p. 428, xii. 540, 553, XV. 691 ; Virg. Georg. iii. .306, iv. 335; comp. Kambach, De Mileto ejusqne coloniis, Halae, 1790, 4° ; Schroeder, Comment, de Rebus Milesiorum, part i. Stralsund, 1817,4°; &oA2ca, Rerum 31ile- siarum Comment, i. Darmstadt, 1829, 4°.) [L. S.] COIN OF MILETUS. MLE'TUS, a town of Mysia, in the territory of Scepsis, on the river Evenus, which was destroyed as early as the time of Pliny (v. 32.). Another town of the same name in Paphlagonia, on the road between Amastris and Sinope, is mentioned only in the Pouting. Table. [L. S.] MILK'TUS (Mi'Atjtos), a town of Crete, mentioned in the Homeric catalogue. (//. ii. 647.) This town, which no longer existed in the time of Strabo, was looked upon by some writers as the mother-city of the Ionian colony of the same name. (Ephorus, ap. Strab. xii. p. 573, xiv. p. 634; Schol. ApoU. Rhod. i. 186; Apollod. iii. 1, 2, 3; Plin. iv. 12.) Mr. Pashley {Trav. vol. i. p. 269) explored the site of this Homeric city not far frcm Episkopiano, at which, considerable remains of walls of polygonal masonry, both of the acropolis and city are still to beseem (Hock, AVeta, vol i. pp. 15, 418.) [E.B.J.] MILEUM, a Roman "colonia" ("Mileu colonia" Pcut. Tab.') in Numidia, which the Antonine Iti- nerary places at 25 JI. P. from Cirta. There can be little doubt that this place, which, from the cir- cumstance of two councils having been held there, was of some importance ( Jlorcelli, Africa Christiana, vol. i. p. 228), was the same as Mikeum (Mipioy al. Mvpouov, Ptol. iv. 3. § 28). [E. B. J.] MILICHUS. [AciiAiA, p. 13,b.] MILOLITUJI (rt. Ant. p. 322 ; Melalicum, Tt. JJieros. p. 602 ; Mytoliton, Geogr. Eav. iv. 6), a town in the interior of Thrace, on the road from Maximianopolis to Trajanopolis. [A. L.] MILO'NIA. [Mahsi.] MILYAS (MiAuas) is said to have been tlie an- cient and original name of the country afterwards called Lycia (Herod, i. 173) ; but during the period of the Persian dominion, it was the name given to the whole mountainous country in the north of Lycia, the south of Pisidia, and a portion of eastern Phrygia. (Strab. xii. p. 573.) The boundaries of this country, however, were never properly fixed, and the whole of it is sometimes described as a part of Lycia. (Arrian, ^?2«6. i. 25.) After the accession of the dynasty of the Seleucidae in >Syria, the name Milyas was limited to the south-western part of