Pytheas of Miletus

“ According to some writers, Miletus was the son of Apollo and Deione, though others say that Thia was the name of his mother. He was the founder of the celebrated city of Miletus, in Caria, a country of Asia Minor. ”

“ The Greeks assembled a fleet, but a spirit of insubordination manifesting itself they were defeated at sea in the battle of Lade in 495. Next year Miletus fell but was treated with mercy. At Athens the news caused the greatest consternation; a dramatic poet named Phrynichus ventured to stage the disaster; the people wept and fined him a thousand talents, forbidding any similar presentation in future. Stamping out the last embers of revolt in Asia the Persians coasted along Thrace; before their advance the great Athenian Miltiades was compelled to fly from the Dardanelles to his native city. ”

“ Miletus was no longer secure, and the vengeance of Darius was gathering rapidly around them. After some consultation they agreed to repair to that town and territory in Thrace which had been given by Darius to Histiaeus [267] . Miletus was intrusted to the charge of a popular citizen named Pythagoras, and these hardy and restless adventurers embarked for Thrace. Aristagoras was fortunate enough to reach in safety the settlement which had seemed so formidable a possession to the Persian general ”

“ But quite contrary to this, you will find, O Athenians, all ready to assist me, who have corrupted and injured their relatives, as Miletus and Anytus say. For those who have been themselves corrupted might perhaps have some reason for assisting me; but those who have not been corrupted, men now advanced in life, their relatives, what other reason can they have for assisting me, except that right and just one, that they know that Miletus speaks falsely and that I speak the truth. ”

“ Miltiades, an Athenian, was strongly in favour of withdrawing, but Histiaeus, tyrant of Miletus, begged the Ionians to remain, for Darius would come back, of that he felt certain. Then turning to the other tyrants, he cried, ‘O ye tyrants, be sure of this, that if we leave the Persians to perish, the men of our cities will rise up against us, because it is the king who strengthens us in our power ”

“ Its harbours, once protected by Lade and the other Tragasaean islands, were gradually silted up by the Maeander, and Lade is now a hill some miles from the coast. Ephesus took its place as the great Ionian harbour in Hellenistic and Roman times. Miletus became the seat of a Christian bishopric and was strengthened by a Byzantine castle (κάστρον τῶν Παλατίων) built above the theatre ”

“ Phœnicians, Cretans, and Carians, had inaugurated her world-wide importance, and Attic families, endowed with eminent energy, had founded the city anew. See ASIA MINOR: THE GREEK COLONIES. True, Miletus also had a rich territory of her own in her rear, viz., the broad valley of the Mæander, where among other rural pursuits particularly the breeding of sheep flourished. Miletus became the principal market for the finer sorts of wool; and the manufacture of this article into variegated tapestry and coloured stuffs for clothing employed a large multitude of human beings. ”

“ Attack of Miletus. Complete conquest of the Ionian Greeks. This victory of Lade enabled the Persians to attack Miletus by sea as well as land; the siege was prosecuted with vigor, and the city shortly fell. The adult male population was slain, while the women and children were sent as slaves to Susa. The Milesian territory was devastated and stripped of its inhabitants. The other States hastened to make their submission, and the revolt was crushed, B.C. 496, five years after its commencement. ”

“ Miletus was a maritime town of Ionia, not far from Ephesus; but there was another Miletus, in Crete, which some learned men think to be intended here. It appears that St. Paul went from Macedonia to Corinth, where he left Erastus; from Corinth he proceeded to Troas, where he lodged with Carpus: from Troas he went to Ephesus, where he visited Timothy; from Ephesus he went to Miletus, where he left Trophimus sick; and having embarked at Miletus, he went by sea to Rome. See Calmet. It is most likely, therefore, that the Miletus of Ionia is the place intended. ”

“ See ASIA MINOR: B. C. 724-539. In no city was agriculture made a consideration so secondary to industry and trade as here. At Miletus, the maritime trade even came to form a particular party among the citizens, the so-called 'Aeinautæ,' the 'men never off the water.'" E. Curtius, History of Greece, book. 2, chapter 3 (volume 1) . Miletus took an early leading part in the great Ionian enterprises of colonization and trade, particularly in the Pontus, or Black Sea, where the Milesians succeeded the Phœnicians, establishing important commercial settlements at Sinope, Cyzicus and elsewhere. ”

“ Illustrious persons, natives of Miletus, were Thales, one of the seven wise men, the first person who introduced among the Greeks physiology and mathematics; his disciple Anaximander, and Anaximenes the disciple of Anaximander. Besides these, Hecatæus the historian;35 and of our time, Æschines the orator, who was banished for having spoken with too great freedom before Pompey the Great, and died in exile.
Miletus shut her gates against Alexander, and experienced the misfortune of being taken by storm, which was also the fate of Halicarnassus ”

“ And Miletus and the force with him came from Crete fleeing from Minos the son of Europa. And the Carians, who had settled earlier in the neighbourhood of Miletus, admitted the Cretans to a joint share with them. But now when the Ionians conquered the old inhabitants of Miletus, they slew all the males except those that ran away from the captured city, and married their wives and daughters. And the tomb of Nileus is as you approach Didymi, not far from the gates on the left of the road. ”

“ And they all betook themselves to Miletus. But when they were enervated by pleasure and luxury, all the valiant character of the city disappeared, as Aristotle tells us; and indeed a proverb arose from them,—
Once on a time Milesians were brave."
Heraclides of Pontus, in the second book of his treatise on Justice, says,—"The city of the Milesians fell into misfortunes, on account of the luxurious lives of the citizens, and on account of the political factions; for the citizens, not loving equity, destroyed their enemies root and branch. ”

“ For our reply to him will be, that he who is believed among the Greeks to be a god, viz., the Pythian and Didymean Apollo, makes use of such a voice for his Pythian priestess at Delphi, and for his prophetess at Miletus; and yet neither the Pythian nor Didymean is charged by the Greeks with not being a god, nor any other Grecian deity whose worship is established in one place. And it was far better, surely, that a god should employ a voice which, on account of its being uttered with power, should produce an indescribable sort of persuasion in the minds of the hearers. ”

“ Histiæus, despot of Miletus, whose advice had saved the bridge for Darius, was richly rewarded for his service, and attended Darius on his return to Susa, the Persian capital, leaving his son-in-law Aristagoras in command at Miletus. Some ten years afterwards this regent of Miletus made an attempt, with Persian aid, to capture the island of Naxos. The effort failed, and Aristagoras, against whom the Persians were incensed by their defeat and their losses, was threatened with ruin. He began to think of a revolt from Persian rule. ”

“ While Histiaeus was practically a prisoner at the court of Darius, he acted as regent in Miletus. In 500 B.C. he persuaded the Persians to join him in an attack upon Naxos, but he quarrelled with Megabates, the Persian commander, who warned the inhabitants of the island, and the expedition failed. Finding himself the object of Persian suspicion, Aristagoras, instigated by a message from Histiaeus, raised the standard of revolt in Miletus, though it seems likely that this step had been under consideration for some time (see Ionia) . ”

“ Thus accordingly he did; and as soon as ever the hair was grown, he despatched the man to Miletus, giving him no other message than this- "When thou art come to Miletus, bid Aristagoras shave thy head, and look thereon." Now the marks on the head, as I have already mentioned, were a command to revolt. All this Histiaeus did because it irked him greatly to be kept at Susa, and because he had strong hopes that, if troubles broke out, he would be sent down to the coast to quell them, whereas, if Miletus made no movement, he did not see a chance of his ever again returning thither. ”

“ The third physical philosopher produced by Miletus, seemingly before the time of her terrible disasters suffered from the Persians after the Ionic revolt between 500-494 B.C., was Anaximenes, who struck out a third hypothesis. He assumed, as the primordial substance, and as the source of all generation or transmutation, Air, eternal in duration, infinite in extent. He thus returned to the principle of the Thaletian theory, selecting for his beginning a known substance, though not the same substance as Thales. ”

“ Of all the Ionians these two states alone, rather than submit to slavery, forsook their fatherland. The others (I except Miletus) resisted Harpagus no less bravely than those who fled their country, and performed many feats of arms, each fighting in their own defence, but one after another they suffered defeat; the cities were taken, and the inhabitants submitted, remaining in their respective countries, and obeying the behests of their new lords. Miletus, as I have already mentioned, had made terms with Cyrus, and so continued at peace. ”

“ With this power the barbarians advanced upon Miletus. Most, if not all, of the Ionian states prepared themselves for the struggle—delegates met at the Panionium—it was agreed to shun the Persians upon land—to leave to the Milesians the defence of their city—to equip the utmost naval force they could command—and, assembling in one fleet off the small isle of Lade, opposite to Miletus, to hazard the battle upon the seas. Three hundred and fifty triremes were provided, and met at the appointed place. The discipline of the navy was not equal to the valour of the enterprise ”

“ In wealth and in population, Miletus, at the epoch of the Persian conquest, must have been far ahead of any city of European Greece. Sybaris, in Magna Graecia, can have been its only rival outside Ionia. There were two respects, however, in which the comparison was in favour of the mother-country. In warfare, the superiority of the Spartan infantry was unquestioned; in politics, the Greek states showed a greater power of combination than the Ionian. ”

“ This is pretty nearly all that we know of Anaximenes. So far as the few known facts reveal him, we can hardly say that except as supplying a step towards the completer development of the motive [22] idea in being, he greatly adds to the chain of progressive thought.
IV. HERACLITUS.—Although not a native of Miletus, but of Ephesus, Heraclitus, both by his nationality as an Ionian and by his position in the development of philosophic conceptions, falls naturally to be classed with the philosophers of Miletus. ”

“ HECATAEUS OF MILETUS (6th-5th century B.C.) , Greek historian, son of Hegesander, flourished during the time of the Persian invasion. After having travelled extensively, he settled in his native city, where he occupied a high position, and devoted his time to the composition of geographical and historical works. When Aristagoras held a council of the leading Ionians at Miletus, to organize a revolt against the Persian rule, Hecataeus in vain tried to dissuade his countrymen from the undertaking (Herodotus v. 36, 125) . ”

“ Another historic episode, the Fall of Miletus, was made the subject of a tragedy by Phrynichus, and if it displeased the Attic audience, who fined the poet, it was not because the subject was failing in tragic interest, but because it possessed too much, for it melted the whole audience into tears, and brought home to them their present misfortunes, as well as their recent blunders in policy, and their craven desertion of their kindred in Ionia. ”

“ Miltiades falls into Disgrace.—The distinguished services Miltiades had rendered his country, made him the hero of the hour at Athens. Taking advantage of the public feeling in his favor, he persuaded the Athenians to put in his hands a fleet for an enterprise respecting the nature of which no one save himself was to know anything whatever. Of course it was generally supposed that he meditated an attack upon the Persians or their allies, and with full faith in the judgment as well as in the integrity of their favorite, the Athenians gave him the command he asked. ”

“ Miletus: a city of Ionia, subject in a measure to Athens, revolted in 412 B.C. The next year the Lacedæmonians, or Spartans, who were the enemies of Athens, sent over a fleet to aid the people of Miletus. Tissaphernês, the Persian satrap, desiring to see the power of Athens completely overthrown, promised to pay the Spartan soldiers (of whom Klearchus was one) , but afterwards made up his mind not to do so, and left them to fight at their own expense.
[33] Arcadian: an inhabitant of Arcadia, a district of the Peloponnesian peninsula, Greece. ”

“ Miletus soon fell after the victory of Ladé, and the Phoenician fleet was then employed for some time in chastising the islanders who had taken part in the revolt, and in reducing various towns upon the European shores of the Hellespont, the Propontis, and the Bosphorus, including Perinthus, Selymbria, and Byzantium.14288 Miltiades, the destined hero of Marathon, narrowly escaped capture at the hands of the Phoenicians at this time, as he fled from his government in the Thracian Chersonese to Athens. ”