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Ionia was a region on the
central part of the western coast of Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region
nearest Izmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost
territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state,
it was named after the Ionian tribe who, in the Archaic Period (600–480),
settled mainly the shores and islands of the Aegean Sea. Ionian states were
identified by tradition and by their use of Eastern Greek. Ionia proper
comprised a narrow coastal strip from Phocaea in the north near the mouth of
the river Hermus (now the Gediz), to Miletus in the south near the mouth of the
river Maeander, and included the islands of Chios and Samos. It was bounded by
Aeolia to the north, Lydia to the east and Caria to the south. The cities
within the region figured large in the strife between the Persian Empire and
the Greeks. According to Greek tradition, the cities of Ionia were founded by
colonists from the other side of the Aegean. Their settlement was connected
with the legendary history of the Ionic people in Attica, which asserts that
the colonists were led by Neleus and Androclus, sons of Codrus, the last king
of Athens. In accordance with this view the "Ionic migration", as it
was called by later chronologers, was dated by them one hundred and forty years
after the Trojan War, or sixty years after the return of the Heracleidae into
the Peloponnese.
During the late 13th century the peoples of the Aegean Sea took to marauding
and resettling as a way of life and were called by the Egyptians the Sea
Peoples. Mycenaean Greeks must have been among them. They settled lightly on
the shores of Luwian Anatolia often by invitation. In the background was the
stabilizing influence of the Hittites, who monitored maritime movement and
suppressed piracy. When that power was gone the Luwian people remained in the
vacuum as a number of coastal splinter states that were scarcely able now to
defend themselves.
Ionian Greeks took advantage of opportunities for coastal raiding: an
inscription of Sargon II (ca 709–07, recording a naval expedition of 715)
boasts "in the midst of the sea" he had "caught the Ionians like
fish and brought peace to the land of Que Cilicia and the city of Tyre".
For a full generation earlier Assyrian inscriptions had recorded troubles with
the Ionians, who escaped on their boats. Caria and Lycia came to the attention
of Athens, most powerful state remaining in Greece, which also had lost its
central government ruling from Mycenae, now burned and nearly vacant. Ionians
had been expelled from the Peloponnesus by the Dorians and had sought refuge in
Athens. The Athenian kings decided to relieve the crowding by resettling the
coast of Lydia with Ionians from the Peloponnesus under native Athenian
leadership. The site of Miletus, once coastal, now inland. The plain was a bay
in Classical Greece. They were not the only Greeks to have such a perception
and reach such a decision. The Aeolians of Boeotia contemporaneously settled
the coast to the north of the Ionians and the newly arrived Dorians of Crete
and the islands the coast of Caria. The Greeks descended on the Luwians of the
Anatolian coast in the 10th century BC. The descent was not peaceful and the
Luwians were not willing. Miletus was the first city attacked, where there had
been some Mycenaean Greeks apparently under the rule of Cretans. After
overthrowing the Cretan government and settling there the Ionians widened their
attack to Ephesus, Samos and Priene. Combining with Aeolians from Thebes they
founded Myus. Colophon was already in the hands of Aeolians who had arrived via
Crete in Mycenaean times. The Ionians "swore a treaty of union" with
them. They took Lebedos driving out the Carians and augmented the Aeolian
population of Teos. They settled on Chios, took Erythrae from the Carians,
Pamphylians (both Luwian) and Cretans. Clazomenae and Phocaea were settled from
Colophon. Somewhat later they took Smyrna from the Aeolians.
The defeat of Croesus by Cyrus the Great was followed by the conquest of all
the Ionian cities in 547 These became subject to the Persian monarchy with the
other Greek cities of Asia. In this position they enjoyed a considerable amount
of autonomy, but were for the most part subject to local despots, most of whom
were creatures of the Persian king. It was at the instigation of one of these
despots, Histiaeus of
Miletus, that in about 500 the principal cities began the
Ionian Revolt against
Persia. They were at first assisted by the Athenians and Eretria, with whose
aid they penetrated into the interior and burnt Sardis, an event which
ultimately led to the Persian invasion of Greece. But the fleet of the Ionians
was defeated off the island of
Lade, and the
destruction of Miletus after a protracted siege was followed by the reconquest
of all the Asiatic Greeks, insular as well as continental.
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