a country of Asia minor, bounded on the north by Abolia, on the west by the Aegean and Icarian seas, on the south by Caria, and on the east by Lydia and part of Caria. It was founded by colonies from Greece and particularly Attica, by the Ionians or subjects of Ion. Ionia was divided into 12 small states which formed a celebrated confederacy often mentioned by the ancients. These 12 states were Priene, Miletus, Colophon, Clazomenae, Ephesus, Lebedos, Teos, Phocaea, Erythrae, Smyrna, and the capitals of Samos and Chios. The inhabitants of Ionia built a temple which they called Pan Ionium from the concourse of people that flocked there from every part of Ionia. After they had enjoyed for some time their freedom and independence, they were made tributary to the power of Lydia by Croesus. The Athenians assisted them to shake off the slavery of the Asiatic monarchs; but they soon forgot their duty and relation. tion to their mother-country, and joined Xerxes when he invaded Greece. They were delivered from the Persian yoke by Alexander, and restored to their original independence. They were reduced by the Romans under the dictator Sylla. Ionia has always been celebrated for the salubrity of the climate, the fruitfulness of the soil, and the genius of its inhabitants.

**IONIC ORDER.** See Architecture, no. 45.

**IONIC Dialect,** in grammar, a manner of speaking peculiar to the people of Ionia.

**IONIC SET** was the first of the ancient sects of philosophers; the others were the Italic and Eleatic. The founder of this sect was Thales, who, being a native of Miletus in Ionia, occasioned his followers to assume the appellation of Ionic. Thales was succeeded by Anaximander, and he by Anaximenes, both of Miletus; Anaxagoras Clazomenaeus succeeded them, and removed his school from Asia to Athens, where Socrates was his scholar. It was the distinguishing tenet of this sect, that water was the principle of all natural things.

**IONIUM MARIS,** a part of the Mediterranean Sea, at the bottom of the Adriatic. It lies between Sicily and Greece. That part of the Aegean sea which lies on the coasts of Ionia in Asia, is called the Sea of Ionia, and not the Ionian Sea. According to some authors, the Ionian sea receives its name from Io, who swam across there after she had been metamorphosed into a heifer.

**JONK,** or **JONQUE,** in naval affairs, is a kind of small ship, very common in the East Indies. These vessels are about the bigness of our fly-boats; and differ in the form of their building, according to the different methods of naval architecture used by the nations to which they belong. Their sails are frequently made of mats, and their anchors are made of wood.