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Some sites of the Milesian territory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2013

J. M. Cook
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Extract

The territorial possessions of Miletus were acquired piecemeal over a number of centuries. They amounted to six or seven distinct pieces of land on the Asiatic mainland (apart from the adjacent islands, which again seem to have presented differences of status). A triple division of the Milesian territory on the mainland is already made by Herodotus. In the first place, in i. 18 he records that the Milesians suffered defeats at the hands of Sadyattes ἔν τε Λιμενηίῳ χώρης τῆς σφετέρης καὶ ἐν Μαιάνδρου πεδίῳ It might at first sight appear that the Maeander plain here referred to was not Milesian territory. But Strabo (xiv. 647) seems to indicate that Magnesia, which lay far up the plain, suffered Milesian occupation after its destruction by the Treres in the seventh century; and there are various testimonies to Milesian possession of the lower Maeander plain in later times. Again, in vi. 20, Herodotus tells us that after the fall of Miletus (c. 494 B.C.) the captive citizens were removed by the Persians: The distinction between the part round the city and that in the plain evidently corresponds to that already observed in i. 18; and it is matched by the distinction drawn in an inscription of Miletus (of the first half of the second century B.C.) between the ‘Milesia’ proper and the Μιλησίων χώρα lying across the Latmic Gulf. Herodotus' triple division is thus clear: the ‘home territory’ around Miletus itself, the Milesian land in the plain, and third the mountain land, which is evidently Grion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 56 , November 1961 , pp. 90 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1961

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References

1 The treaty with Heracleia, , Milet i. 3Google Scholar, no. 150 (SIG 3 no. 633), ll. 73 f.

2 See Bean's and my discussion in BSA lii (1957) 109 f. (and 135–37 for Leros and Lepsia). Gschnitzer, F., Zetemata (Monographien zur klass. Altertumswissenschaft 17: 1958) 121 n. 4Google Scholar, speaks of the old ‘Sonderstellung’ of Teichiussa and points out that the Greek city-state did not require such governors except in special circumstances like those of the Athenians in Oropos or the Spartans in Cythera. He also, like Bean and me, takes Leros to be a Milesian foundation of the age of colonization (op. cit. 120).

3 Cf. the notice in Anat. Studies vii (1957) 24, and the location given on the Classical Map of Asia Minor (supplement to Anat. Studies vii, 1957); our discussion of the identification, BSA lii. 106 ff.

4 Rev. Phil. 1957, 10 ff.

5 Rev. Phil. 1958, 54 ff.

6 (i) As Robert in fact does not deny, it is very far from likely that the πατριαί are territorial; and the connexion of the Posideis with Teichiussa seems in itself to be mere gossip; in any case it cannot be seriously maintained that the altar of Poseidon at C. Poseidion was the only one dedicated to that god in the Milesia (e.g. Pausanias (vii. 24, 5) mentions one in front of the city). The argument that Teichiussa should be near C. Poseidion therefore appears to me chimerical. (ii) Bean and I remarked on the testimony of Archestratus, but did not find it adverse (BSA lii. 111 n. 203); τρίγλα the (barbouni) is always best eaten at the beach.

7 I keep to the current distinction between Pidasa (with iota in the first syllable) in the hyperakria and Pedasa (with eta) near Halicarnassus. It is not certain how much historical validity this distinction has. But there is no justification for the reversal of the two forms in J. and L. Robert's critique of Bean's and my discussion of the problems of Pedasa, (REG lxxi. 314).Google Scholar This was probably no more than a momentary lapse of memory on their part; it seems to explain their reluctance (for which no other argument is offered) to share our uncertainty which of the two sites was the one garrisoned by Philip V. See below, pp. 95 f.

8 Milet i. 3, no. 77; in the same list a man of Pidasa is shown as married to a woman of Heracleia.

9 We were told locally that this means ‘Good Valley’ (i.e. ‘İyidere’).

10 Cf. BMC Coins, Ionia 39 f., pl. 8, 7 (‘B.C. 350–300’). I read the magistrate's name as Platon (as suggested also for the British Museum specimen, loc. cit. no. 35, and as read on Milne, Kolophon and its Coinage no. 139).

11 JHS xvi (1896) pl. 10 hence no doubt the figure of 84 metres on Philippson's map).

12 Cf. BSA i. 116–28.

13 It is not clear whether the ‘fort de Kurudere’ is one of the two ‘ruines helléniques’ that Robert previously claimed to have discovered (Rev. Arch. 1935, ii. 159); if it is, Robert's discovery was in fact anticipated by Paton. What seems to be clear in his wording in Rev. Phil. 1957 is that Robert regards his Kurudere site as a fort and not as the emplacement of an ancient city.

14 BSA i. 123 ff.

15 For Bean's and my views on these problems see BSA l. 150 f.

16 Didyma ii, no. 40.

17 This treaty is evidently not far removed in date from the Pidasa sympolity treaty; but I have not concerned myself with the exact date of the two inscriptions, for which (pending Robert's promised commentary on the Heracleia treaty) see most recently Didyma ii. 53, 274 (Rehm there dates the Pidasa sympolity 176/5 B.C. and the Heracleia treaty 173/2).

18 Milet i. 3, 239. He holds to this position in Didyma ii. 39.

19 Rev. Phil. 1957, 10 f.

20 For his alternative location of Ioniapolis in the Gulf of Iasus see below, p. 98.

21 BSA l. 131.

22 The treaty between Miletus and Heracleia made special provision for the movement of Milesians with their animals between the Milesian land across the gulf and the Milesia, proper (Milet i. 3, no. 150. 73 ff.)Google Scholar; in that case, since the Latmic Gulf was still an arm of the sea, land traffic had of necessity to pass through the Heracleotis.

23 See above, p. 90.

24 Rev. Phil. 1958, 56.

25 This is the official form of the modern name. ‘Meles’ can still be heard, with the unharmonious locative ‘Melesta’. The late medieval form ‘Melasso’ is heard in the mouths of Greek-speaking Turks of Bodrum

26 Peçin is described by Akarca, A. and Akarca, T., Milâs 116 ff., pls. 29 ff.Google Scholar For its history and inscriptions reference may be made to Wittek, P., Das Fürstentum Mentesche (1934).Google Scholar

27 Op. cit. pls. 30 right, 31 bottom.

28 A photograph ibid. pl. 31 top.

29 See the doubts expressed in REG lxiv (1951) pp. xiv f.; and cf. Laumonier, , Cultes indigènes en Carie 43 f.Google Scholar

Since the above was drafted, I remark that Chandler, , Travels in Asia Minor (1775) 191Google Scholar, observes that the temple of Zeus Carius ‘was not in the town, but had once a village near it. On a steep abrupt rock, in sight from Mylasa, southward, and distant an hour and three-quarters, crossing the plain, is a ruined town called Paitshin, and a castle, which was repaired, as a stronghold against Soley Bey, and still had in it a few cannon. Part of the wall of this fortress stands on a flight of marble steps, which probably have belonged to the latter temple.’

30 JHS lxxii. 106.

31 Ps.-Arist., Oecon. ii. 1348a.