Miletus, anciently the most flourishing city of Ionia, in Asia Minor, situated near the mouth of the Mæander, was famous for its woollen cloth and carpets, and its furniture, and for its extensive trade. Before being forcibly colonised by the Ionians (q.v.) under Neleus, it appears to have been inhabited by Carians or by Leleges. Its people early founded nearly fourscore colonies on the Black Sea and in the Crimea—Abydos, Lamp-sacus, Cyziens, Sinope, Amisus, Olbia, Panticæum, &c.—sent merchant fleets to every part of the Mediterranean, and even into the Atlantic, and maintained an obstinate war with the early Lydian kings, until Cræsus was at length acknowledged as their master. They were believed to be the purest representatives of the Ionians in Asia.
After the conquest of Lydia by the elder Cyrus, Miletus submitted to Persia; but in 500 B.C. it was stirred up to rebellion against the Persians. Six years later Darius besieged the city, stormed it, plundered it, massacred most of its inhabitants, and banished the survivors to the mouth of the Tigris. Afterwards the city was rebuilt, but never reacquired its former importance, although its people frustrated the attempt of the Athenians to compel their allegiance, and dared to resist Alexander till he stormed the city. It kept the rank of a second-rate commercial town down to the time of Pliny, and was finally ruined by the Turks. Miletus was the birthplace of the philosophers Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, and of the historians Cadmus and Hecataeus. Short tales, mostly in dialogue, and of a witty and obscene character, were greatly in vogue amongst the Greeks under the name of 'Milesian tales.'