Ionia
Ionia is a historically significant region located on the west coast of Asia Minor, bordered by Aeolis to the north and Caria to the south. It was originally colonized by Greek migrants fleeing from invasions in the early 1st millennium BC, particularly during the Greek Dark Ages. The Ionian people, a prominent branch of the Greek population, developed their own distinct dialect, recognized from the Homeric poems associated with the region. By the late 7th century BC, Ionia had established twelve city-states, including notable cities such as Miletus, Ephesus, and Chios.
Ionia is also recognized for its cultural and intellectual contributions, particularly in pre-Socratic philosophy, which emerged from Miletus. The region faced various political challenges, including domination by Lydian and later Persian empires, leading to significant uprisings, such as the revolt at Lade. After a period of Persian control, Ionia became part of the Athenian Empire, later oscillating between the influences of various Hellenistic kingdoms and eventually becoming a province of the Roman Empire. Under Roman rule, especially during the reign of Augustus, Ionia experienced a resurgence of prosperity and is noted for its remarkable climate and unparalleled sanctuaries, cementing its status as a key historical and cultural hub in ancient times.
Ionia
The central section of the west coast of Asia Minor, bounded by Aeolis to the north and Caria to the south, and including important adjoining islands
Its coastline and territory extended from beyond the river Hermus (Gediz) to the north, past the Cayster (Küçük Menderes) to the Maeander (Büyük Menderes). Our main sources for the origins of the Ionians are Strabo and Pausanias. It was early, and rightly, maintained, that Ionia had been colonized by migrants from the Greek mainland, taking refuge from the Dorians and other invading tribes; the first of these migrations had taken place at least by 1000 BC. But probably the movements extended over a number of generations; the claim that the legendary Ion, son of Xuthus (or Apollo) and Creusa, led a single colonizing movement—settling for a time, on the way, in Athens where the four tribes were named after his four sons—was probably a later Athenian invention. The Ionians were a major branch of the Greek people who lived in many Hellenic lands. Yet their dialect is a form of speech first known to us from the Homeric poems of Ionia in western Asia Minor, and that is the territory to which the future history of the Ionians mainly belonged.
Before 700 its occupants had formed a religious league, the Panionion, with its sanctuary of Poseidon Heliconius on a spur of Mount Mycale (Samsun Daǧı), replacing his shrine at Melia (south of Ephesus), which the Ionians destroyed owing to its inhabitants' unwillingness to accept absorption. In about the third quarter of the seventh century (like the Lydians) they were issuing coinage (staters) of pale gold (electrium), displaying various designs and conforming with a number of different monetary standards.
In due course twelve city-states emerged: on the mainland, from north to south, Phocaea, Clazomenae, Erythrae, Teos, Lebedus, Colophon, Ephesus, Priene, Myus, and Miletus, and the islands of Chios and Samos. Rapid and fruitful development followed. In the seventh century Miletus and Phocaea (Foca) led an unparalleled burst of overseas colonization. Milesians also founded pre-Socratic philosophy, and other Ionian philosophers of extraordinary distinction followed in the footsteps of these pioneers at home and abroad. The Lydian kings, however, and especially Croesus (c 560–546), brought the Ionians under their own control, from which they passed into the hands of the Persians, only to launch a major, five-year-long revolt, that was crushed at Lade, an island off Miletus (495).
After the battle of Mycale (479) had liberated them from Persian domination, the Ionian city-states became members of Athens' Delian League and Athenian empire—in which Lesbos, Chios and Samos (until its revolt in 441) retained privileged status, as contributors of ships—but following Athens' defeat in the Peloponnesian War they were brought under Persian control once again by the King's Peace or Peace of Antalcidas, prompted by Sparta (387). In 334, with the exception of Miletus, they adhered to the cause of Alexander the Great; thereafter they veered uneasily between Ptolemaic pressure by sea and Seleucid supremacy by land, until the kingdom of Pergamum became their suzerain.
By the will of the last Pergamene monarch Attalus III his state was bequeathed to the Romans (133), who incorporated its territories, including Ionia, in their new province of Asia. A century of grievous Roman extortions and depredations followed, until a new era of prosperity began under Augustus. During the Principate Ephesus, Smyrna, Miletus and Samos were among the empire's most resplendent cities; and in the second century AD Pausanias wrote: `Ionia enjoys the finest of climates and its sanctuaries are unmatched in the world. The wonders of Ionia are numerous, and not much short of the wonders of Greece itself.’ Under the reorganization of Diocletian (AD 284–305), the former province of Asia was subdivided into six provinces, of which one, retaining the name of Asia, comprised Ionia, Aeolis and part of the Troad.