MILETUS. - A city situated on the coast of Asia Minor at the mouth of the Meander River. Already inhabited in prehistoric times, it was occupied by Greek colonists at least from 1000 B.C., becoming an important agricultural center from the 7th to the 6th century. Subjugated by Croesus and later by Cyrus, it rebelled during the Greek war and was destroyed by the victorious Persians in 494.
In 479 it was rebuilt, but further east, in the plain, at a site now called Kalabak-Tepe, according to a very precise plan. In 478-477 it joined the Delian-Attic League, and from 412 to 334 it fell again under Persian rule. Under the Seleucids it flourished once more, and under the Romans it enjoyed a prosperous life. Notable public buildings were erected, such as the Temple of Apollo, the baths, the fountain, the theater, etc., of which many ruins remain. It was at this time that St. Paul stopped there, the first time during his third journey (Acts 20:15-18), when he gathered the leaders of the Church of Ephesus, and another time, it seems, after his first imprisonment (2 Tim. 4:22), when he left his companion Trophimus there. During the Christian period it had a bishopric, and traces remain of the ancient cathedral with a mosaic floor featuring geometric and animal designs. Two inscriptions recall the martyr Onesiphorus and the cult of the seven guardian angels of the city. Around Miletus there was a center of monastic life, dominated by the monastery of Latmus.
CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY. - Although the city had lost the great importance it had held in the Hellenistic period and had partly retained during the Roman era, it was by no means insignificant during the early Christian centuries, thanks to its fortunate geographical position, which made it a commercial center and thus attracted foreign colonies. Important among these was the Jewish colony (remains of a synagogue have come down to us), from which the Christian community arose. A bishop Eusebius is known in 325, and at the time of Justinian there is mention of the existence of an archbishop.
The most important Christian monument is a large three-aisled basilica with many adjoining rooms, probably built on the ruins of the Asklepieion. The church is preceded by a square atrium with a portico supported by columns and still having in the center traces of a cantharus; from the atrium one enters directly into the church, which lacks a narthex. The three aisles are divided by two rows of double columns; there must have been an ambo, probably in the center of the central aisle. There was only one semicircular apse, externally reinforced by buttresses. Two doors opening at the ends of the aisles gave access to a semi-annular room that encircled the apse, the liturgical function of which is unknown. To the north of the apse is a square room surrounded on three sides by a passage, probably a baptistery. From a door in the southern aisle one enters a rectangular room as long as the aisle itself and communicating to the east with a rotunda with six niches, probably a martyrium. There are other secondary rooms. The floor is largely of marble slabs and mosaics, partly with geometric and decorative motifs, but partly also with figures of animals; notable among these is that of the baptistery with the scene of two stags drinking from a cantharus. Much later is a church to the northwest of the North Market, built in the 6th century under Patriarch Kyriakos (595-606), the Roman priest of the great church (Hagia Sophia) of Constantinople, and by a George, as an inscription states. The church, also three-aisled, was dedicated to the Archangel Michael. A third church, but with a central plan, also stood in the city: it was a large rotunda with four large niches and a small apse, all enclosed in a masonry having externally a square outline. Inside there was a ring of eight columns that must have supported a dome. The diameter of the rotunda is almost eleven meters: it was probably a martyrium. Outside the city, on the road to Didyma, the remains of a fourth church were found, also a three-aisled basilica but with three apses, decorated with interesting mosaic floors and which, according to an inscription, was erected by the priest and oeconomus Noymechios: it seems that monastic buildings were around II. It was dedicated to an unnamed archangel. Among the many Christian inscriptions of the city, the only notable one is of the Byzantine period, found near the theater, invoking the seven archangels as protectors of the city: this diffusion in Miletus of the cult of the archangels is noteworthy.