in Ancient Geography, a district of Asia Minor, extending along the Aegean Sea, from the Carian Gulf to the Mons Grius or Grum, a little way S. of Miletus. Its length in a straight line was thus not much more than 100 miles, but its coast was so sinuous and indented that it had a sea-board of fully more than three times that extent. Inland, however, it nowhere extended more than 40 miles, and in many places it was even considerably narrower. The extreme limits of its eastern frontier were Mounts Sipylus and Tmolus. On the N. it was bounded by the territory of Pergamum and other Eolian cities in Mysia; on the S. it extended a short distance into Caria. Its principal rivers were the Hermus, Cayster, and Maander.

The inhabitants of this small but valuable and important region were Attic Ionians, who, on the death of Codrus the last king of Athens, set out under his sons Neleus and An- droclus to seek their fortune beyond the sea. The causes of this migration are very imperfectly understood. Ac- cording to one account these two youths, disgusted at the abolition of the regal form of government, and seeing no hopes of preferment under the archbishopric of their elder brother Medon, rallied round their standard the restless spirits of Attica, and along with volunteers from other parts of Greece emigrated to the western shores of Asia Minor. Another and more probable account is that the Attic Ionians, burdened with a surplus population, and exposed to the incessant attacks of their Dorian neighbours, had gone away in quest of more peaceful abodes to the Asiatic coasts. Landing at Miletus, about B.C. 1044, or, as some say, in 1060, they stormed that city and put all the male in- habitants to the sword, reserving the women to themselves. A number of other cities fell into their power, which they treated in a similar manner; and with these as centres, they soon diffused their civilization over the whole country that owned their sway. Some of the inhabitants they ex- pelled, the rest they subdued, and finally incorporated, yet always in such a way as to leave the Greek the predominant element. Partly by conquest, and partly by colonization, the Ionians soon found themselves masters of twelve princi- pal cities. These were all independent of each other, yet soon found it expedient, for purposes of trade and the settlement of disputes, to form themselves into a kind of confederation, which, from the number of cities composing it, was called the Ionian Dodecapolis. The cities in ques- tion were Miletus, Myus, Priene, Ephesus, Lebedus, Colophon, Teos, Erythre, Clazomenae, Phocaea, and the two islands of Chios and Samos. At a later period, the city of Smyrna was seized by the Colophonians, and admitted into the league. These cities being all colonized chiefly for the excellence of their sites soon rose to great wealth and power. Many of them became in turn the parent states of numerous and flourishing colonies in every corner of the Mediterranean and many parts of the Euxine. Miletus alone is said to have sent forth seventy-five. Another index to their prosperity will be found in the fact that the arts and sciences attained a high degree of perfection in them before the mother country had a single great poet, philosopher, or historian, to boast of. The extant remains of their splendid temples and public buildings give evi- dence of the taste and magnificence of their architecture.

What the political relations of the twelve cities were to each other we have no means of exactly determining, but there is nothing to warrant the idea that they were ever held together in the bonds of a federal union. Each city was in itself an independent republic, and its constitution, like that of most Ionian colonies, was democratic. They had brought with them from Greece a common race, a common religion, and a common language. And these things, more than any other, seem to have kept them to- gether. When they found it necessary to discuss any business of common interest, deputies from the several states met at the Panionium. This was a piece of neutral ground at the foot of Mount Mycale, on its northern slope, in which a temple had been built and consecrated to Neptune. A town soon rose in the neighbourhood, in the Prytaneum of which the deputies seem at one time to have met. It was only in pressing emergencies that business was dis- cussed in these meetings. The general purport of the assembly seems to have been to celebrate in common the rites of their national worship, and to promote good feeling by periodical games and festivals. Danger first threatened the Ionian cities on the side of Lydia. Hostilities broke out as early as the reign of Gyges, and it was left for Croesus to subdue the last of the cities that held out. Croesus was in his turn defeated by Cyrus, and the Ionians exchanged the Lydian for the Persian yoke. The conquerors, how- ever, were at first wise enough not to interfere in the in- ternal affairs of the Ionian states. They merely exacted a tribute in money and a contingent of soldiers, and claimed the right of appointing the governors of the towns. In the cities themselves, democratic as they were in constitution, aristocratic factions began to spring up, and as they were generally backed by the Persian satraps, tyrannies were soon established everywhere. Most of these tyrants were themselves Greeks by birth, but governed in the Persian interest. About the year B.C. 500 a strong reaction in favour of their ancient liberty seized the Ionians, and they determined to rebel. The example was set by the Mile- sians, who were backed by the promise of support from Athens and Eretria. The allied troops marched against Sardes, which they took and burned, but they were soon overwhelmed by the superior strength of Persia, and the Ionians were left to bear alone the brunt of the great king's anger. They were still powerful by sea, but their towns again fell one by one into the hands of the foe. Miletus was taken and destroyed, and its inhabitants were either killed or carried off into the interior of Persia, where they had lands assigned them. Clazomenae shared a similar fate, and at the end of six years, during which the revolt lasted, their chains were riveted more firmly than ever. When Persia declared war against Greece, the Ionians were pressed into the service and compelled to fight against their European kinsmen. Their revenge, however, was complete. At the battle of Mycale, B.C. 479, they turned the fortune of the day by deserting in a body to the Greeks, and the subsequent victories of Cimon enabled them to throw off the Persian yoke altogether. Till the close of the Peloponnesian War Athens was acknowledged by the whole Dodecapolis as the head of the Ionian race, and was often made the umpire in their feuds and difficulties. When Sparta, at the close of the fifth century B.C., became the leading power of Greece, the Ionian cities applied to her for protection, which was freely granted till the peace of Antalcidas, B.C. 387, threw them, along with all the other Greek cities in Asia, once more into the hands of the Persians. The conquests of Alexander recovered them for Greece, and enabled them to regain to some extent the power and influence they had once enjoyed. The Roman sway completely put an end to their political importance; but their commercial and literary influence was still felt and acknowledged. The subsequent history of each of these cities will be found fully detailed under the separate head of each. (Grote's Hist. of Greece; Thirlwall's Hist. of Greece; Chandler's Travels in Asia Minor; Leake's Map of Asia Minor, &c., &c.)