Here is laid the scene of the fable of Branchus, and Apollo’s love for him. The temple is adorned with the most costly offerings, the productions of ancient art.
Thence to the city the journey is not long either by land or sea.[29]
6. Ephorus relates that Miletus was first founded and fortified by the Cretans on the spot above the sea-coast where at present the ancient Miletus is situated, and that Sarpedon conducted thither settlers from the Miletus in Crete,[30] and gave it the same name; that Leleges were the former occupiers of the country, and that afterwards Neleus built the present city.
The present city has four harbours, one of which will admit a fleet of ships.[31] The citizens have achieved many great deeds, but the most important is the number of colonies which they established. The whole Euxine, for instance, and the Propontis, and many other places, are peopled with their settlers.
Anaximenes of Lampsacus says, that the Milesians colonized both the island Icarus and Lerus, and Limnæ on the Hellespont, in the Chersonesus; in Asia, Abydus, Arisba, and Pæsus; on the island of the Cyziceni, Artace and Cyzicus; in the interior of the Troad, Scepsis. We have mentioned, in our particular description of places, other cities which this writer has omitted.
Both the Milesians and Delians invoke Apollo Ulius, as dispensing health and curing diseases; for οὔλειν[32] is to be in health, whence οὐλή,[33] a wound healed, and the phrase in Homer,[34] Οὖλέ τε καὶ μέγα χαῖρε, “health and good welcome;” for Apollo is a healer, and Artemis has her name from making persons ἀρτεμέας, or sound. The sun, also, and moon are associated with these deities, since they are the causes of the good qualities of the air; pestilential diseases, also, and sudden death are attributed to these deities.
7. Illustrious persons, natives of Miletus, were Thales, one of the seven wise men, the first person who introduced among the Greeks physiology and mathematics; his disciple Anaximander, and Anaximenes the disciple of Anaximander. Besides these, Hecatæus the historian;[35] and of our time, Æschines the orator, who was banished for having spoken with too great freedom before Pompey the Great, and died in exile.
Miletus shut her gates against Alexander, and experienced the misfortune of being taken by storm, which was also the fate of Halicarnassus; long before this time it was captured by the Persians. Callisthenes relates, that Phrynichus the tragic writer was fined a thousand drachmæ by the Athenians for composing a play entitled “The taking of Miletus by Darius.” The island Lade lies close in front of Miletus, and small islands about Tragææ,[36] which afford a shelter for pirates.
8. Next follows the Gulf of Latmus, on which is situated “Heracleia under Latmus,”[37] as it is called, a small town with a shelter for vessels. It formerly had the same name as the mountain above, which Hecatæus thinks was the same as that called by the poet[38] the mountain of the Phtheiri, for he says that the mountain of the Phtheiri was situated below Latmus; but some say that it was Grium, as being parallel to Latmus, and extending from the Milesian territory towards the east, through Caria, as far as Euromus and Chalcetores. However, the mountain rises up in sight of[39] the city.
At a little distance further, after crossing a small river near Latmus, there is seen in a cave the sepulchre of Endymion. Then from Heracleia to Pyrrha, a small city, is about 100 stadia by sea, but a little more from Miletus to Heracleia, if we include the winding of the bays.