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Among the twelve cities forming Ionia in 7th century BC, Miletus was the most powerful and wealthy. Situated on the Aegean Sea at the mouth of the Maeander River, Miletus was a significant sea power and trading port. Prolific explorers, the Miletians founded dozens of new cities throughout the ancient world. Catalyzed by the confluence of stability, prosperity, and leisure, the city became the world’s premiere center for science and learning.
From 624 to 546 BC lived Thales of Miletus, considered the world’s first scientist and mathematician. Thales developed an understanding and prediction of natural phenomena without having to invoke any mythological explanations. He conducted experiments surmising the earth was round, and predicted an eclipse. Jesting about the recent adoption of coinage, he vowed to demonstrate the practicality of his work. Using his skills, he forecasted a banner olive season, cornered the market, and made a bundle of drachms.
Around the time of Thales’ death, Cyrus the Great was busy expanding his Achaemenid Empire across Anatolia via diplomacy and war. So esteemed was Miletus that no attempt was made to reduce its independence, allowing Thales’ followers to continue contemplation of the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe. Thales’ apprentice, Anaximander, would develop the notion of sufficient reason, namely, there is no effect without a cause (even proposing, two millennia ahead of his time, that humans evolved from lower forms of sea life). By late 6th to early 5th century BC, Anaximander’s student, Anaximenes, would take things even further and advance a strictly mechanistic cosmology. For illustration, he used the analogy of a coin: “…it is impossible that one first principle should constitute the substance of things, but an active cause is also necessary; just as silver alone is not enough to become coin, but there is need of an active cause, a coin-maker.”
One can imagine toga-clad Anaximenes lecturing, coin in hand as a teaching aid, perhaps a diobol like this one, by far the most common denomination in western Anatolia at the time. On the obverse is the head of a roaring lion, the civic badge of Milletos, its pointillist mane filling the flan. The lion’s body curves behind the head, its tail appearing to sprout from the bellowing mouth. The reverse design is a stellate pattern within an incuse square. The precise meaning of this motif is a mystery: it may represent the sun specifically (Apollo was Miletos’ patron god) or perhaps the heavens generically, in reference to Miletian cosmologies.
In early 5th century BC, Miletus’ leadership incited rebellion against Persian King Darius I. The Ionian Revolt failed, and the city was obliterated in retaliation. Some Miletians fled; the others were slaughtered or enslaved by the Persians. Miletus’ golden age came abruptly to an end. The city was re-established later, but continued in decline, never achieving its former glory. Demonstrating the inexorable march of causality, silt deposited at the mouth of the Maeander over the centuries, choking off once-busy harbors. The Miletian economy collapsed, and the city was abandoned to ruins, which today lie many miles from the sea.
Coin details: IONIA, Miletos, late 6th-early 5th century BC, AR Diobol (10 mm, 1.23 g), NGC Grade: Ch AU, Strike: 5/5, Surface: 5/5, Obverse: Forepart of lion right, head left, Reverse: Stellate design within incuse square, References: SNG Kayhan 476-82, SNG Keckman 273, ex-Demetrios Armounta Collection.