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Miletus
By Svrien Salaville
[article copied from Catholic Encyclopedia (1913 ed.)]
A titular see of Asia Minor, suffragan of Aphrodisias, in Caria.
Situated on the
western coast of Caria near the Latmic Gulf at the mouth of the
Meander and the
terminus of several of the great roads of Asia Minor, Miletus
was for a long period
one of the most prosperous cities of the ancient world. At first
inhabited by the
Leleges and called Lelegeis or Pityussa, it was rebuilt under
the name of Miletus by
the Cretans (Strabo, XIV, i, 3). It is mentioned by Homer
(Iliad, II, 868). About the
tenth century B. C. the Ionians occupied it, and made it a
maritime and commercial
power of the first rank. From it numerous colonies were founded
along the
Hellespont, the Propontis, and the Black Sea, among others
Cyzicus and Sinope.Miletus also had its period of literary glory
with the philosophers Thales,
Anaximander, and Anaximenes, the historians Hecateus and Cadmus,
the rhetorician
schines, and the writer of tales, Aristides. After the sixth
century B.C., it passed
successively under the domination of the Persians, Alexander,
the Seleucides, and the
Romans, and finally lost its splendour to such an extent as to
become for the Greeks
and Romans the symbol of vanished prosperity. It is,
nevertheless, often mentioned by
Strabo (XII, viii, 16; XIV, i, 3, 6) and by Pliny (Hist. nat.,
IV, xi; V, xxxii etc.). St.
Paul landed there from Samos, and there bade farewell to the
ancients of the Church
of Ephesus. On another occasion, doubtless after his first
captivity, he left here his
companion Trophimus, who was ill (II Tim., iv, 20). In the Acts
of St. Thyrsus and his
companions, martyred at Miletus under Decius, mention is made of
a Bishop Cesarius
who gave them burial (Acta SS., III, Jan., 423). Eusebius,
Bishop of Miletus, assisted
at the Council of Nicea (325). For the list of the other known
bishops see Le Quien (I,
917-20) and Gams (448). Mention may be here made of St.
Nicephorus in the tenth
century (Anal. Bolland., XIV, 129-66). At first a suffragan of
Aphrodisias, Miletus
afterwards became an autocephalous archdiocese and even a
metropolis. Among those
who brought fame to the city during Byzantine times must be
mentioned the architect
Isidore, who, with Anthemius of Tralles, built St. Sophia at
Constantinople. The
ancient city is now buried under the alluvium of the Meander,
which has also filled up
the Latmic Gulf. Near its site, about four and a half miles from
the sea, is the village
which since the medieval times has been called Palatia or
Palatscha. Recentexcavations have brought to light other ruins, the
remains of a temple of Apollo
Didymeus. Greek Christian inscriptions have also been found
there, among others one
mentioning the martyr Onesippus, and another, probably of the
fourth century,
containing an invocation to the seven archangels, guardians of
the city (Corp. inscr.
gr., 2892, 8847).
LE QUIEN, Oriens christ., I, 917-20; RAYET AND THOMAS, Milet et
le golfe Latinique (Paris,
1877); TEXIER,Asie Mineure (Paris, 1862), 331-6; RAMSAY, Hist.
Geog. of Asia Minor(London,
1890), 37, 40, 58-60, 62, 422; PERROT AND CHIPIEZ, Hist. de
l'art dans l'antiquit, VIII (Paris,1904), 268-70.
S. SALAVILLE.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:S%C3%A9v%C3%A9rien_Salavillehttp://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:S%C3%A9v%C3%A9rien_Salaville
