City
Miletum
Balat
Listen to the story
Miletum, the famous Ionian port city, survives as extensive ruins at Balat in Turkey. The Roman writer Pliny called it the head of Ionia and the mother of countless colonies across the seas, and it was home to the early philosophers Thales and Anaximander. The Tabula marks it with a pair of towers just as large as those of Ephesus, although in imperial times the city was rich but no longer Ephesus's equal, so the picture probably recalls its heyday. Nor does the map reveal that its harbours had silted up. Here the road's zigzag bends upwards instead of downwards, to keep clear of the coastline.