Late Bronze Age Hittite period There is no evidence for a people explicitly called “Ionians” in Late Bronze Age Anatolia. From the 14th century BC the Great Kingdom of
Arzawa was conquered by
Suppiluliuma I and it became a vassal of the
Hittite Empire. The city of
Ephesus (Hittite Apasa) appears to have been the capital of
Arzawa around 1320 BCE, when it rebelled against
Mursili II of Hatti. Following the rebellion the great kingdom of Arzawa was carved up into smaller kingdoms, with Arzawa restricted to the region of Ephesus. An important city was
Miletus (Hittite Millawanda/Milawata), ruled by a provincial governor. Miletus, along with several other settlements that were originally founded by non-Greek populations, later received significant Mycenaean Greek settlers during the Late Bronze Age. Miletus was at times allied with the King of
Ahhiyawa,identified as the Homeric
Achaeans. In the early 12th century BCE, deterioration climate contributed to the Fall of the Hittite Empire saw cities in Asia Minor destroyed by invaders.
Iron Age Ionia was settled by the Greeks probably during the 11th century BC. Greek settlement of Ionia seems to have accelerated following the
Bronze Age collapse, but the lack of contemporary sources makes the sequence of events unclear. The ancient Greeks believed that the Ionians were the descendants of
Ion (either a son or grandson of
Hellen, the mythical ancestor of the Greeks) and had
migrated from Greece to Asia Minor in mythic times. The story is attested from the Classical period.
Herodotus states that in Asia the Ionians kept the division into twelve cities that had prevailed in Ionian lands of the north Peloponnese, their former homeland, which became
Achaea after they left. However, the story of the migration is recounted most fully by the Roman-period authors
Strabo and
Pausanias. They report that the Ionians were expelled from the
Peloponnese by
Achaians, and were granted refuge in Athens by King
Melanthus. Pausanias and most other sources present Neileus as the overall leader of the Ionians. •
Androclus conquered
Ephesus from the
Leleges and
Lydians, conquered
Samos, and died defending
Priene from
Carians. Strabo says that Androclus was the leader of the Ionians and the only legitimate son of Codrus. •
Cyaretus took
Myus from the
Carians. •
Damasichthon and
Promethus found the descendants of
Thersander of
Thebes at
Colophon and settled alongside them, but later Promethus killed his brother and fled to
Naxos. •
Andraemon conquered
Lebedus from the Carians. • Damasus and Naoclus settled at Teos, along with Boeotians led by Geres. The city had already been settled by Ionians under Apoecus (whose name literally means "founder") and
Minyans who settled under
Athamas. •
Cleopus gathered a group made up of equal portions from all the Ionian cities and settled them at
Erythrae, where there were already Cretans, Lycians, Carians and
Pamphylians. Pausanias reports that other cities were founded or became Ionian later: • Priene was founded by Neileus' son Aegyptus, along with Philotas, as a joint Ionian and Theban settlement. •
Phocaea was founded by a group of
Phocians from near
Delphi, led by Philogenes and Damon of Athens and then received Deoetes, Periclus and Abartus, descendants of Codrus, as their kings in order to gain recognition as Ionians. • Procles son of Pityreus of
Epidaurus, a descendant of Ion, who had been expelled by
Argos conquered Samos. Under his son Leogorus, the Ephesians under Androclus conquered the island and the Samians fled to
Samothrace and to
Anaea, but then reconquered Samos. •
Chios was settled by Cretans under Oenopion, then by Carians and
Abantes from
Euboea. Oenopion's grandson Hector drove them out and received a tripod and the right to sacrifice at the
Panionion from the Ionians (Pausanias expresses uncertainty about how this made them Ionian). •
Smyrna had been conquered by the Aeolians, but was later conquered by the Colophonians.
Archaic period coins struck in
Ephesus, 620–600 BC. Obverse: Forepart of stag. Reverse: Square incuse punch. In the Archaic period, "the Ionian poleis were among the cultural, intellectual, and political leaders of the Greek world." The region prospered economically due to the contributions of
immigrants, traders, and other social classes from at least
750 BCE to well after
510 BCE.
Ionian League The twelve Ionian cities formed a religious and cultural (as opposed to a political or military) confederacy, the
Ionian League, of which participation in the Pan-Ionic festival was a distinguishing characteristic. This festival took place on the north slope of
Mt. Mycale in a shrine called the
Panionium. For a full generation earlier, Assyrian inscriptions had recorded troubles with the Ionians, who escaped on their boats. These became subject to the Persian monarchy with the other Greek cities of Asia, forming part of the satrapy of Lydia. In this position they enjoyed a considerable amount of autonomy, but were subject to local despots (called "
tyrants"), who were loyal to the Persian king. Art and archaeology show that Ionia was characterised by "openness and adaptability" towards the Lydians, Persians, and their eastern neighbours in this period. Lydian products and luxury objects were widespread. The Persians used "Yaunā" (Ionian) as a catch-all term for all Greeks, dividing them into "Yaunā of the mainland" in Asia Minor, "Yaunā dwelling by the sea" in the Aegean islands, "Yaunā dwelling across the sea" in the Greek mainland, and "Yaunā with shields on their heads" in Macedonia.
Ionian revolt It was at the instigation of one of the tyrants,
Histiaeus of Miletus, that in about 500 BC the principal cities ignited the
Ionian Revolt against Persia. They were at first assisted by the Athenians and
Eretria, with whose aid they penetrated into the interior and burnt Sardis, an event which ultimately led to the
Persian invasion of Greece. But the fleet of the Ionians was defeated off the island of
Lade, and the destruction of Miletus after a protracted siege was followed by the reconquest of all the Asiatic Greeks, insular as well as continental. He lists other ethnic populations among the settlers: Abantes from
Euboea,
Minyans from
Orchomenus, Cadmeians,
Dryopians,
Phocians,
Molossians, Arcadian
Pelasgians,
Dorians of
Epidaurus, and others. Even "the best born of the Ionians" had married girls from
Caria. He defines Ionians as all peoples who were descended from Athenians and celebrated the
Apaturia festival, which aligns with the expansive Athenian definition of Ionian identity.
Satrapy (387–335 BC) The Spartans dissolved the Athenian Empire at the end of the
Peloponnesian War in 404 BC. The Spartans installed
harmosts (governors) in the cities, but had to withdraw them because they had promised Ionia and the other Greek communities in Asia to the Persians. In 401, the Ionian cities and Sparta supported
Cyrus the Younger, the Persian overlord of Asia Minor, in his attempt to seize the throne from his brother, King
Artaxerxes II but he failed. Artaxerxes tasked
Tissaphernes, the
satrap of
Lydia and
Caria, with retaking the Ionian cities, and the Spartans opposed him. In 396 BC,
Agesilaus led a large expedition to Asia Minor to defend the cities and attack the Persians, which landed in Ephesus. From there he invaded Phrygia and Lydia, sacking
Sardis in 395 BC. But the outbreak of the
Corinthian War forced him to withdraw in 395 BC. The region was under Persian control by about 390 BC, when the Persian
satrap arbitrated a boundary dispute between Miletus and Myus. Sparta, Athens, and the other mainland Greek states formally acknowledged Persian possession of Ionia and the other Greek cities in Asia Minor in the
Peace of Antalcidas in 387 BC. In this period, Ionia was a separate satrapy, rather than part of Lydia - the only time in the region's history that formed an administrative unit. Ionian cities appear to have retained a considerable amount of autonomy until the conquest of Asia Minor by
Alexander the Great in 335 BC. Ionia became part of the
Roman province of
Asia in 133 BC, which had its capital at the Ionian city of Ephesus. Ionia had no formal place in the Roman administration of the province, which was divided into
conventus districts that were totally distinct from the traditional ethnic divisions of the region. However, the Ionian League continued to function in this period. The geographer
Strabo treats Ionia as the narrow coastal strip from the Hermus river in the north to the Maeander river in the south (though noting that other authorities included the plain south of the river). He treats Ephesus as its most important city and presents an unbroken tradition of intellectual culture in the region stretching from the Archaic philosophers down to his own day - in contrast to the intellectual life of mainland Greece, which he presents as a thing of the past. Other authors sometimes use "Ionia" as a
metonym for the whole province of Asia. Decreased political agency for the Greek cities under Rome, led to increased focus on cultural identity as a source of civic prestige. In the fierce rivalries that raged between the cities of the Province of Asia in the Roman Imperial period, Ionian cities emphasised their Ionian identity as "one of the purest, 'primordial' forms of Greekness," while their rivals denounced Ionians as overly influenced by
oriental luxury and recalled their support for the Persians in the late fifth and early fourth centuries BC. Most sources discussing Ionian founding myths belong to this period. Ionian cities retained local month names and continued to count years by
eponymous magistrates rather than adopting
era dating like most other cities in Asia Minor. Distinctive Ionian personal names remained common.
Medieval and modern history Greeks continued to live in Ionia through the
Roman,
Byzantine and
Ottoman Empires but were forced to vacate the region in 1922 after the events of the
Greek genocide which culminated with the
population exchange between Turkey and Greece. The suburbs of
Nea Ionia and
Nea Smyrni were primarily settled by refugees from Ionia and still maintain an Ionian identity. ==Legacy==