Miletus

The History and Legacy of the Ancient Greek City in Anatolia

By: Charles River Editors

Narrated by: Bill Hare

Miletus was an ancient city located on the west coast of present-day Turkey. It was the main city in the land of Ionia, a territory that stretched over 2,000 square kilometers of western Anatolia. With its four great harbors and a strategic location, Miletus became one of the most important coastal cities of western Anatolia, linking the Hellenistic world with the great civilizations of Babylon, Egypt, and eventually, Persia. Over time, Miletus was ruled by the Minoans, Mycenaeans, Hittites, Ionians, Persians, Seleucids, Attalids, Romans, Byzantines, Seljuk Turks, and Ottomans.

Western civilization is directly linked to the incredible things that happened in Miletus during the BCE, sixth and fifth centuries. In the context of the dynamic political and mercantile interactions between different lands, philosophy and science were able to arise in Miletus because of the presence of a group of rich traders who, as an extremely rare luxury, had spare time to ponder about things beyond the necessities of life - to take an interest in knowledge for knowledge's sake. A revolution in human thinking took place there, most notably thanks to a man named Thales, who is widely recognized as the first philosopher - at least within the Western tradition. Little is known for certain about the life of Thales, other than what was said about him by other philosophers, but he is renowned to this day for being the first recognized pre-Socratic philosopher. He developed a new, incredibly optimistic idea, from the conflicting mythologies that existed in Miletus: the belief that human beings can uncover the true workings of nature through their minds and senses. This was the basic premise of the pre-Socratics, who paved the way for the classical Athenian philosophers that would go on to establish the major themes in Western philosophy.

©2017 Charles River Editors (P)2017 Charles River Editors