miles distant from Miletus. There is a further and more minute topographical coincidence, which may be seen in the phrase, 'They accompanied him to the ship,' implying as it does that the vessel lay at some distance from the town. The site of Jliletus has now receded ten miles from the coast, and even in the apostle's time it must have lost its strictly maritime position (Hack- ett, Comm. on the Acts, 2d ed. p. 344; comp. Acts xxi, 5). In each case we have a low, fiat shore, as a marked and definite feature of the scene." Miletus was a place of considerable note, and the ancient capital of Ionia and Caria (Herod, i, 142; Pliny, v, 31). It was the birthplace of several men of renown — Thales, Timo- theus, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Democritus (Pomp. Mela, i, 17 ; Diog. Laertius, Vit. Philosoph. p. 15, 88, 89, 650). Ptolemy {^Geogr.x, 2, 9) places IMilelus in Caria b}' the sea, and it is stated to have had four havens, one of which was capable of holding a fleet. (See J. \\. \Xava~ huch, l)e Mileto ejusque coloniis [Hal. 1790J; Soldan,
Saiinihngsjn fuMwmi
Vicinity of Miletus.
Rer. Miles. Comment. [Darmst 1829] ; Schroeder, Com- ment, de rebus Miles. [Strals. 1827].) " In early limes it was the most flourishing city of the Ionian Greeks. The ships which sailed from it were celebrated for their dis- tant voyages. Miletus suffered in the progress of the Lydian kingdom and became tributary to Croesus. In the natural order of events, it was absorbed in the Per- sian empire; and, revolting, it was stormed and sacked. After a brief period of spirited independence, it received a blow from which it never recovered, in the siege con- ducted by Alexander when on his Eastern campaign. Rut still it held, even through the Roman period, the rank of a secimd-rate trading town, and Strabo mentions its four harbors. At this time it was politically in the province of Asia, though Caria was the old etlmological name of the district in which it was situated. Its pre- eminence on this coast had now long been yielded up to Ephesus. These changes can be vividly traced by com- paring the whole series of coins of the two places. In the case of Miletus, those of the autonomous period are
Coin of Miletns. numerous and beautiful, those of the imperial period very scanty. Still Miletus was for some time an epis- copal city of Western Asia. Its final decay was doubt- less promoted by the silting up of the Miuander." It was noted for a famous temple of Apollo, the oracle of
MILETUS
255
MILEUM
wliich is known to have been consulted so late as the 4tli century (Apollodorus,Z'eCrii7,Z'eo/-.iii, 130). There was, however, a Christian church in the place ; and in the 5th, 7th, and 8th centuries we read of bishops of Miletus, who were present at several councils (Magde- burg, Hist. Eccles. ii, 192 ; iv, 86 ; v, 3; vii, 254; viii, 4). The city fell to decay after its conquest by the Saracens, and is now in ruins, not far from the spot where the Mieandcr falls into the sea. (See Blisching, Erdbeschr. XI, i, 100; Tzschucke, ad Mel. Ill, i,481.) The exact site, however, is somewhat a matter of uncertainty (Ro- scnrauller, Bibl. Geogi: I, ii, 187), owing to the altered character of the coast in modern times; but it appears to be in part covered by the remains now called Palatia, i. c. the palace (Leake, Asia Minor, p. 240). It lies in a triangular plot of ground, bounded by two branches of the river Mendere — the ancient Mteander. These unite a little to the north of the ruins, and the stream thus formed disembogues through marshy ground into the sea about two miles distant. The harbor is filled up by the alluvial soil brought down by the river, which has already created a delta of no insignificant dimen- sions. The ruins of the ancient Miletus are even at
Ruins of Miletus.
the present time striking and picturesque, especially those of the theatre, one of the largest in Asia Minor. Seen from the south-west, it makes still a splendid ob- ject ; to the south is a mosque, and farther still, in the same direction, a line of ruined arches, once forming an aqueduct. The fragments of a church remain, in which the current tradition of the place asserts that St. John preached the Gospel ; but it is unquestionably of a date far later than that of the evangehst. In the plain, be- tween the theatre and the aqueduct, are a few pillars, indicating the site of a temple, probably dedicated to Diana. See Texier, Asie Mineure, p. 316 sq.
Some take the Miletus where Paul left Trophimus sick (2 Tim. iv, 20 ; Auth. Vers. " Miletum") to have been in Crete, and therefore different from the above ; but there seems to be no need for this conclusion. " This passage presents a very serious difficulty to the theory that there was only one Roman imprisonment. When Paul visited the place on the occasion just described, Trophimus was indeed with him (Acts xx, 4) ; but he certainly did not ' leave him sick at Jliletus,' for at the conclusion of the voyage we find him with the apostle at Jerusalem (Acts xxi, 29). Nor is it possible that he could have been so left on the voyage from Caesarea to Rome, for in the first place there is no reason to believe that Trophimus was with the apostle then at all ; and in the second place the ship was never to the north of Cnidus (Acts xxvii, 7). But on the hypothesis that Paul was liberated from Rome and revisited the neigh- borhood of Ephesus, all becomes easy, and consistent with the other notices of his movements in the pastoral epistles. (See Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epis- tles of St. Paul, ch. xxvii; Birks, Horas Apostolicm.)" See further in Schmidt, Res Miles. (Gbtt. 1855) ; Smith,