Ionian League

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Ionian League

The Ionian League (ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
: , Íones; , koinón Ionon; or , koine sýnodos Ionon; Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
: commune consilium), also called the Panionic League, was a confederation

Confederation

Usually created by treaty but often later adopting a common constitution, confederations tend to be established for dealing with critical issues such as defense , foreign affairs, or a common currency, with the central government being required to provide support for all members....
formed at the end of the Meliac War

Mycale

Mycale is a mountain on the west coast of central Anatolia in Turkey, north of the mouth of the Maeander and divided from the Greek island of Samos Island by the 1300 meter wide Samos Strait....
in the mid-7th century BC comprising twelve Ionia

Ionia

Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest Izmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Hellenes settlements....
n cities (a dodecapolis

Polis

A polis -- plural: poleis --is a city, a city-state and also citizenship and body of citizens. When used to describe Classical Athens and its contemporaries, polis is often translated as "city-state."...
, of which there were many others). These were listed by Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture....
as After 650 BC Smyrna

Smyrna

Smyrna is an ancient city in Izmir in Turkey. Located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean Sea coast of Anatolia and aided by its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence before the Classical Era....
, an originally Aeolic

Aeolic Greek

Aeolic or Aeolian Greek is a Linguistics term used to describe a set of rather Archaic period in Greece Greek language sub-dialects, spoken mainly in Boeotia , in Lesbos Island and in other Greek colonies....
city, was invited to diminish Aeolis

Aeolis

Aeolis or Eolis or Aeolia or Eolia was an area that comprised the west and northwestern region of Asia Minor, mostly along the coast, and also several offshore islands , where the Aeolians Ancient Greece city-states were located....
and increase Ionia

Ionia

Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture....
, and early inscriptions refer to the legally constituted body customarily translated by "league" as "the Ionians" in the special sense of the cities incorporated by it.

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The Ionian League (ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Latin

Confederation

Mycale

Ionia

Polis

Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture....
as

Miletus
Miletus

Miletus was an ancient city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria. Evidence of first settlement at the site has been made inaccessible by the rise of sea level and deposition of sediments from the Maeander....
, Myus
Myus

Myus, Caria was an ancient city-state and was one of twelve major settlements formed in the Ionian Confederation, called the Ionian League. The city was said to have been founded by Cyaretus , a son of Codrus....
, and Priene
Priene

Priene was an ancient Ancient Greece city of Ionia at the base of an escarpment of Mycale, about north of the then course of the Maeander River, from today's Aydin, from today's S?ke and from ancient Miletus....
, all in Caria
Caria

Caria was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Ionians and Dorians Greeks colonized the west of it and joined the Carian population in forming Greek-dominated states there....
(a region in Asia Minor) and speaking the same dialect;
Ephesus
Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city on the west coast of Anatolia, in the region known as Ionia during the period known as Classical Greece. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League....
, Colophon
Colophon

Colophon was a city in the region of Lydia in antiquity dating from about the turn of the first millennium-BC. It was likely one the oldest of the twelve Ionian League cities, between Lebedos and Ephesus and its ruins are in the eponymously named modern region of Ionia....
, Lebedus
Lebedus

Lebedus-- the Latinized form of the original Greek name Lebedos-- was one of the Ionian colony cities , located between itself and Ephesus to the south....
, Teos
Teos

Teos or Teo was a maritime city of Ionia, on a peninsula between Chytrium and Myonnesus, colonized by Orchomenus Minyans, Ionians, and Boeotians....
, Clazomenae
Clazomenae

Klazomenai was an ancient Greek city of Ionia and a member of the Ionian League , it was one of the first cities to issue silver coinage....
and Phocaea
Phocaea

Phocaea, or Phokaia, was an ancient Ionian Ancient Greece city on the western coast of Anatolia. Colonies in antiquity from Phocaea founded the colony of Massalia in 600 BC, Emporion in 575 BC and Velia in 540 BC....
, in Lydia
Lydia

Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkey provinces of Manisa Province and inland Izmir Province....
and-or the region known today as Ionia
Ionia

Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest Izmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Hellenes settlements....
(both also in Asia Minor, Lydia extending inland much farther relative to Ionia), speaking another dialect;
Chios
Chios

Chios is the fifth largest of the Greece list of islands of Greece, situated in the Aegean Sea seven kilometres off the Turkey coast. The island is noted for its strong merchant shipping community, its unique mastic gum and its medieval villages....
(island) and Erythrae
Erythrae

Erythrae or Erythrai later Litri, was one of the Ionian League Ionian cities of Asia Minor, situated 22 km north-east of the port of Cyssus , on a small peninsula stretching into the Bay of Erythrae, at an equal distance from the mountains Mimas and Corycus , and directly opposite the island of Chios....
(Asia Minor), with a common dialect; and
Samos
Samos Island

Samos is a Greece island in the North Aegean sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese, and off the Ionian coast of Turkey....
(island), with its own dialect.

After 650 BC Smyrna

Smyrna

Aeolic Greek

Aeolis

Ionia

Herodotus

Hellenistic period

The Hellenistic period describes the era which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia....
explicitly use the term koinon ("common thing") or synodos ("synod

Synod

A synod is a council of a Ecclesia , usually a Christianity church, convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. An ecumenical council is so named because it is a synod of the whole church ...
") of the Ionians, and by anachronism

Anachronism

An anachronism is an error in chronology, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other....
apply it to the early league when they mention it.

The league was dissolved a few times and reconstituted a few times and in between its actual power varied. Under the Roman empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
it was allowed to issue its own coinage under the name koinon Ionon on one side with the face of the emperor on the other.

Foundation

The Meliac War

Mycale

Caria

Caria was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Ionians and Dorians Greeks colonized the west of it and joined the Carian population in forming Greek-dominated states there....
and the Ionians

Ionians

The Ionians were one of the three populations into which the ancient Greeks considered the population of Hellenes to have been divided."Ionian" with reference to populations had two senses in Classical Greece....
who had been settlers on its land at the mouth of the Maeander for some centuries. Their last stronghold was the fortified settlement of Melia at the smaller peak of Dilek Daglari on the north slopes of Mycale

Mycale

Poseidon

In Greek mythology, Poseidon was the god of the sea and, as "Earth-Shaker," of earthquakes. The name of the god Nethuns in Etruscan mythology was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon....
Heliconius was located. The fort was constructed in the early 7th century BC.

Carians and Ionians had been intermarrying for generations but a Carian state persisted until a coalition of Ionian cities defeated it and divided its lands among them. In view of the rising Iranian threat they decided to continue the coalition as the Ionian League, building a new religious and political center at Melia.

Delegates (theoroi) of the League gathered to celebrate the Panionia, a religious festival and games (panegyris
Panegyris

A panegyris , is an Ancient Greece religious assembly. Each was dedicated to the worship of a particular Greek god.It is also associated with saint days and holy festivals....
) dedicated to Poseidon

Poseidon

Panionium

The Panionium was an Ionian sanctuary dedicated to Poseidon Helikonios and the meeting place of the Ionian League. It was on the peninsula of Mycale, about south of Smyrna?now Izmir, in Turkey....
. The Ionians (who had amalgamated with the Carians) had decided to continue the worship of Poseidon. Eventually a new temple to the god was erected about 540 BC. Its ruins and the location of Melia were part of the Lohmann et al. discoveries of 2004. Prior to then other theories of the location had been prevalent.

Role in Ionian history

The Ionian League was the first alliance of city-states in the region.

Sources

Herodotus
Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture....
; Histories, A. D. Godley
A. D. Godley

Alfred Denis Godley was a classics scholar and author of humorous poems. From 1910 to 1920 he was Public Orator at the University of Oxford, a post that involved composing citations in Latin for the recipients of honorary degrees....
(translator), Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920; ISBN 0-674-99133-8. .