No other region... 

You might be wondering about the relevance of the title 'No Other Region...": it is taken from one of Herodotus' statements, in his book 'The Histories', on the ancient Ionian region, the quote is below. Reading Herodotus' 'The Histories' was great fun for me. He illustrates his tales in such a way that it seems I'm reading a superhero comic. There are oracles, double crossing, gods with their super powers and always victory or fatality not the middle. The book is split up into to books or easier to say chapters, but we call them books most probably because of its chunky length unlike a chapter. In total there are nine books and they were meant to describe the Persian wars and Greek 'barbarian' relationships. However, only half way through book five his focus is directed to the Persian wars. So I started to gain interest in the scene of his back stories: Ionia. In this website I visit main Ionian cities and also the small historic areas lurking the background of Herodotus inquiries*.

* Herodotus' Histories is called the inquiries in Greek but it was translated to English as The Histories 

'Now, so far as I am aware, there is no other region, not in the whole span of the inhabited world, where the skies are a more beautiful shade of blue, nor the climate finer, than the one in which the Ionians...have founded their cities.

-Herodotus, The Histories, Book 1.142

What is Ionia

Ionia was an ancient region which was on the west coast of Anatolia, Turkey. It consisted of 12 cities which stretch from Phocaea (Foca, Turkey) in the North to Miletus (Milet, Turkey) in the South. It was not a unified state, was founded by the Ioanian tribe (Greeks) settling in the shores of the Aegean Sea in Asia Minor (Anatolia). There were total of 12 Ioanian cities: Miletus (Milet), Myus (Avsar), Priene (Prien), Ephesus (Efes), Colophon (Degirmendere), Lebedos (Urkmez), Teos (Sigacik), Erythrae (Ildiri), Clazomenae (Urla), Phocaea (Foca), Samos, Chios and later on took over Symra (Izmir) as well. Heredotus notes in The Histories that the Ioanians have four dialects and they congregated to celebrate 'Panionia' in Panionium which was a spot in Mycale (Dilek Yarimadasi, Turkey).

To learn and visualize about the cities of Ionia click below!

Main Cities

Small sites

For more historic fun and enjoyment check the links it the contacts page!

Contacts Page