1. Ionic Colonization: the written testimony

During historical times Greek Ionia consisted of the twelve cities of the Panionic league: Miletus, Myus, Priene, Ephesos, Colophon, Lebedos, Teos, Clazomenae, Erythrae, Phocaea, and the island-states of Samos and Chios. According to the ancient sources, these cities were founded in the course of a migration movement which had set off from Athens, and which was led by the sons of the Athenian king Codrus. The reason of the exodus was ascribed by the ancient authors to a fight between the sons of Codrus for the succession to the throne, in which Medon prevailed.¹

1.1 Herodotus

Three ancient authors have dealt with the Ionic Migration in detail. According to Herodotus² the Ionians had originally inhabited twelve cities in the Peloponnesian region of Achaea.³ As soon as they were expelled by the Achaeans, they sought refuge in Athens. Their descendants emigrated to Asia Minor, where they founded twelve cities in remembrance of their earlier settlement in Achaea. These were the “true” Ionians who celebrated the Apaturia. However, as Herodotus continues, not only the Ionians emigrated from the Greek mainland, but also the Abantes, people from Orchomenos, Cadmeans, Dryopes, Phocidians, Molossi, Pelasgians from Arcadia, Dorians from Epidauros, and “άλλα τε έθνεα πολλά». Only the Ephesians and the Colophonians did not celebrate the Apaturia.

1.2 Strabo

Strabo confirms that the Ionians had originally lived in the region of Achaea.⁴ In his version the Ionians, due to an overpopulation of Athens under the reign of Ion, had colonized the Aigialeia. The name of the original inhabitants of the twelve cities of the Aigialeia had then been changed from “Aigialeis” to “Ionians”. Later they were expelled by the Achaeans who had fled from Lacedaimon because of the return of the Heraclids. The Ionians returned to Athens. Under the leadership of the Codrids they later went to Asia Minor where they founded again twelve cities. Strabo’s description of the foundation of the Ionic cities⁵ mainly follows Pherekydes.⁶ He states that Ionians, as well as non-Ionians participated in the Ionic migration. Their leader Androclus, son of Codrus, founded Ephesos. Miletus was founded by Neleus who, according to some «νεώτεροι ποιηταί» was of Pylian origin, because his grandfather Melanthus, father of Codrus, had led the Pylians and other people from Messenia to Athens. Colophon, on the other hand, was founded by the Pylian Andraimon. Here Strabo follows Mimnermos.⁷ This poet, Colophonian by origin, moreover claimed that the founders of Colophon had come directly from Pylos, the home of Neleus.⁸ Except for Samos, Chios and Clazomenai, most Ionic cities were founded by the Codrids. Strabo further mentions that the southern part of Ionia had been earlier inhabited by the Carians, while the coastal strip until Phocaea, as well as Chios and Samos had been inhabited by the Leleges.

1.3 Pausanias

The third principal source for the Ionic migrations is Pausanias. Book VII which is dedicated to Achaea begins with an account of the Ionic migration. Pausanias’ story is similar to the narratives of Herodotus and Strabo. He also states that the Ionians had occupied originally Achaea where they had called themselves Aigialeis. Later on they changed their name to “Ionians”, in honour of their king Ion who had supported the Athenians against Eleusis and died on the battlefield. Ion had a tomb in Athens. For this reason the Ionians went to Athens when they were expelled by the Achaeans who, under the leadership of Orestes’ son Tisamenos fled from the return of the Heraclids to Argos.⁹ In VII 2.1 - 4 Pausanias describes the Ionic migration which was led by Neleus and other sons of Codrus. His version, too, holds that various ethnic groups from Boetia and Phocis joined the enterprise. The majority, however, were Ionians from Athens. Pausanias moreover underlines the Messenian origin of the Codrids since Melanthos, the father of Codrus, had led the Pylians to Athens. The Messenian origin of the Codrids is also handed down by Hellanikos who gives their genealogy.¹⁰ Codrus was Messenian on his father’s side. On his mother’s side he was an Athenian.

It is clear that, apart from some minor discrepancies, the accounts given by Herodotus, Strabo and Pausanias are fairly consistent. According to J.N. Cook¹¹ they seem to represent the history of Ionic settlement current in the 5th c. BC. The enterprise is described as «Ιωνική αποικία» that is to say a colonization movement. Delphi had been consulted, and the leaders had been chosen according to the oracle.¹² The term "Ionic Migration" is of modern date. It was prompted by the large numbers, as well as by the complex prehistory of the individual groups who participated.

2. Other written sources

Apart from the major accounts by Herodotus, Strabo and Pausanias, Ionic migration is referred to by several other ancient sources which have been enumerated and analysed by Sakellariou and Vanschoonwinkel.¹³ Vanschoonwinkel divides them into two groups.¹⁴ The first group presents the Ionic migration as an enterprise of a city, in most cases Athens. As for the leaders, some sources refer to Androclus, others to Neleus. Some authors claim that the Ionians who settled in Asia Minor were of Athenian origin, but no leader is named. This is true e. g. of Thucydides¹⁵ who reports that the colonization of Ionia was caused by an overpopulation of Attica where many refugees from wars and internal conflicts had assembled. Under these premises the Ionic migration is accepted as having been inaugurated by Athens, while the colonists were of a mixed origin. Mimnermos, cited by Strabo¹⁶ does not mention Athens at all. He claims that the Pylians directly went to Asia Minor and founded Colophon.

According to Vanschoonwinkel’s second group of ancient sources the founders of the Ionian cities were of various origins, so that for the same city several metropoleis are named. Ephesos for example is said to have been founded by people from Athens, Samos, Aetolia; Samos by people from Athens, Arcadia, Euboea, and from the Argolid. Some of these accounts have been adopted by Strabo and Pausanias. However, Sakellariou states that stories of this kind were learnt reconstructions and of a recent date.¹⁷ Sakellariou offers an extensive analysis of Ionian local written sources, as well as of Ionian institutions, of cult traditions and festivals of the individual Ionian cities, of personal names, and of toponyms. Common to all Ionians were the pre-Cleisthenian phylai of Aigicoreis, Argadeis, Geleontes and Hopletes, and the celebration of the Apaturia. Moreover, the Ionian league worshipped Poseidon Heliconios at the Panionion on the promontory of Mycale.¹⁸ Since a sanctuary of Poseidon at Aigai and Helice is mentioned in theIliad¹⁹ and Poseidon receives the epithet "Heliconios" also in the Iliad,²⁰ the cult of Poseidon Heliconios at the Panionion was connected with the Achaean origin of the Ionians.

As far as chronology is concerned, the ancient authors ascribe the Ionic migration to the fourth generation after the Trojan War, and to the second generation after the return of the Heraclids.²¹ In terms of an absolute chronology Sakellariou (loc. cit.)has worked out a date in the 11th c. B.C.

3. Current research

In view of the fragmentary and inconsistent character of the ancient sources, modern scholars hold very diverging opinions on the historical credibility of the records on the Ionic migration. Discussions concentrate on the following issues:

3.1 The issue of colonization

The basic fact of a colonization of the coastal regions of Asia Minor by immigrants from the Greek Mainland. This point is now accepted by most modern scholars in the field of Greek dialectology as a historical fact because the distribution and development of the Ionic dialectal group do not allow for any other explanation.²²

3.2 Chronology

According to the present state of archaeological investigation of the Cyclades, western Anatolia and the islands off the coast of Asia Minor,²³ it still appears most probable that the Greek colonization of those regions which later were known under the name of Ionia, took place during the Submycenaean and Protogeometric periods of the 11th and 10th centuries B.C. This date comes surprisingly close to the chronological calculations of the ancient sources as mentioned above.²⁴ It is perhaps no mere chance that during the first half of the 11th century B.C. – in archaeological terms the periods of LH III C Late and Submycenaean – the Peloponnese witnessed a dramaticreduction of settlements.

The significance of Mycenaean finds in Western Asia Minor for the Ionic migration has been overestimated by Cassola, Sakellariou and Vanschoonwinkel.²⁵ It is true that Mycenaean vessels and sherds, as well as several other objects found in Asia Minor may suggest contacts with the Mycenaean world. However, they cannot be considered as evidence of a Mycenaean settlement. Even the early 14th c. B.C. Mycenaean vases found in a very disturbed tomb at the Gate of Persecution on the Byzantine citadel of Ayasoluk at Ephesos²⁶ do not necessarily indicate that the place was inhabited by a Mycenaean Greek community in the Late Bronze Age. It is more likely that some individuals or population groups of Mycenaean origin lived in Asia Minor within an epichoric cultural environment of purely Anatolian character. The (now no longer existent) “tholos tomb” found at Colophon²⁷ may be interpreted in the same way. True testimonies to a Mycenaean influence upon the civilization of Asia Minor, such as domestic architecture, household pottery and household equipment, cult objects, tools etc. have not been found so far in the geographical region which in the first millennium B.C. was known as Ionia. The head of a large terracotta figurine and a bronze double axe found at the Artemision at Ephesos have been taken as an evidence of Mycenaean cult practice at the site.²⁸ However, this date is open to dispute. On stratigraphical grounds some scholars prefer to assign these finds to the 7th ce. B.C.²⁹ Clearly more substantial evidence is required until a Mycenaean cult at Ephesos or at any other site of Ionia may be postulated. By contrast, the site of the Artemision may well have served as a cult place during the Early Iron Age, as the Protogeometric pottery found during recent excavations seems to indicate.³⁰ Recent research work on the Hittite texts complements the archaeological evidence. It now appears unlikely that the kingdom of Ahhijawa or any other Greek polity was located in Asia Minor during the Late Bronze Age. S. Heinhold-Krahmer³¹ has been confirmed in her view that the geographical region of Ionia was then occupied by the kingdom of Arzawa and its successors.³² Very differently from Ionia, in SW Anatolia the sites of Miletus, Iasos and Müsgebi were purely Mycenaean settlements during the 14th and 13th c. B.C. Miletus and Iasos had earlier been Minoan colonies.³³ In all probability Miletus was identical with the town of Millawanda which, according to the Hittite text, came under the influence of the kingdom of Ahhijawa.³⁴ The archaeological evidence of Miletus confirms this view.³⁵ It is very likely that in the Linear B-texts of Pylos in Messenia the ethnic names of “mi-ra-ti-ja, ki-ni-di-ja, a-*64-ja”(= in all probability “a-swi-ja”) refer to women from Miletus, Knidos and “*AsFia/Asia/”.The low social status of these women seems to imply that they came to the Greek mainland by ways of slave trade.

Summing up, the Western Anatolia, as well as the Mycenaean settlements in SW Asia Minor do not imply that Western Asia Minor was hellenized as soon as the Mycenaean period. Mycenaean finds from Samos are no later than the 13th century B.C. In Chios an important 12th c. B.C. Mycenaean settlement was destroyed in LH III C Late. The latest Mycenaean finds from the Ionian part of Asia Minor date to the LH III C Middle and Late periods.³⁶ LH III C Late (first half of the 11th c. B.C.) therefore may serve as a terminus post quem for the Greek colonization of Ionia. The Mycenaean finds from the territories of Ionia testify for the fact that these regions had already been well known to the Greeks before they set off to found their colonies there.

3.3 The Athenian and Attic origin of the Ionians.

Several scholars such as Schachermeyr³⁷would accept that this version refers to a historical fact,³⁸ on the basis of the names of "phylai" and the celebration of the Apaturia which were common both to the Athenians and the Ionians. The almost unanimous accounts particularly of Herodotus and Thucydides are accepted as a further argument in favour of the Athenian origin of the Ionians.

However, other scholars hold the opinion that the stories about Athens as the metropolis of the Ionian dodecapolis were manipulations of older traditions, if not inventions which were produced in order to serve the political interests of Athens. Against the varying arguments put forward in support of this view by Cassola, Sakellariou, Prinz, Vanschoonwinkel,³⁹ it was pointed out by Schachermeyr⁴⁰ that the awareness that the Ionian colonization was issued from Athens had existed well before the rise of the Attic historiography. Moreover Herodotus⁴¹ and Hellanikos⁴² for whom the Athenian descent of the Ionians was a matter of fact, were born in Asia Minor. Schachermeyr argues that there was no reason for them to serve the political ideology of Athens.

Recently the literary traditions about the Athenian origin of the Ionian Migration received some support by the archaeometrical analyses of protogeometric pottery groups from Artemision of Ephesos.⁴³ Several of these vases have been classified as actual imports from Athens, while other vessels clearly were local copies of Attic prototypes.

The ethnic name «Ιάονες»⁴⁴ and the geographic name of «Ιαονία»⁴⁵ present the older form of the Ionic name which goes back to «ΙάFονες». This form is attested by the ethnic «i-ja-wo-ne/Iawones/» in the Linear B-Texts from Knossos (KN B 164.4, 14th c. B.C.). Hebr. «jawan, egypt. jwn(n)’»,pers. «yauna»were equally derived from «ΙάFονες». They were adopted at a time before the Digamma was eliminated, or they were borrowed from a non-Ionic dialect. On the other hand, a derivation of «Ίωνες» from «ΙάFονες» cannot be proved linguistically. It may have been associated with the eponymic hero «Ίων».⁴⁶

3.4 The origin of the Ionians from other regions and the Ionic colonization via Athens.

As has already been mentioned, the end of the Mycenaean period in the Peloponnese was marked by a settlement decline which was particularly dramatic in Achaea and in Messenia.⁴⁷ By contrast, the settlement evidence of Athens points to a continuous increase from the end of the Mycenaean period (LH III C Late and Submycenaean) onwards.⁴⁸ Under these premises the ancient records about a Messenian and Achaean origin of the Ionians may perhaps claim to a certain degree of authenticity. On the other hand, the archaeological record of Boeotia and Thessaly at present does not suffice for supporting the view that the Ionian migration may have been issued from these regions.⁴⁹

As far as Messenia is concerned, the discovery of a Mycenaean palace at Ano Englianos and its identification as “pu-ro/Pylos/” by the Linear B tablets found at the site, has lent some credibility to the ancient traditions about a direct or indirect Pylian origin of the Ionians, particularly since Messenia was largely depopulated after the destruction of the palace at the end of the 13th c. B.C. Under these premises, both the tradition about a direct emigration of Pylians to Asia Minor,⁵⁰ and the tradition about the reception of Pylian refugees at Athens and the rise of the Pylian dynasty of the Neleids to kingship at Athens⁵¹ may perhaps hold claim to some authenticity.

4. Conclusion

Finally it has to be pointed out that at present the investigation of the Mycenaean and Early Iron Ages of Ionia is making great progress. It is expected that new archaeological evidence will shed more light on the chronology, as well as on the character of the Greek occupation of Ionia. Most literary sources describe the Ionic migration as a single organized act which originated from Athens. However, as Cook has pointed out,⁵² there are some traditions about Greek foundations in Asia Minor before the arrival of the Ionians.⁵³ Moreover recent archaeological research in Asia Minor is increasingly drawing our attention to the testimonies of epichoric settlements of Western Asia Minor during the transitional period from the Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. Undoubtedly, future work on the Ionic migration should thoroughly consider the progress of the archaeological investigation of Western Anatolia, as well as the progress of research into the chronological developments of LH III C and Submycenaean in the Aegean.