Miletus and Philosophy: July, 2007

“The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.”

---Thales of Miletus

Travel, and particularly travel to ancient lands where great civilizations rose and fell, brings perspective on life, human nature and the world

Each of us will internalize what we experience in our own unique ways, and of course we will choose where we go and what we see according to what we hope to find.

Jay and Julie elected to go on a shorter excursion in Kusadasi, focused primarily on Ephesus but also visiting the house where the Virgin Mary spent her last days.

For only $1 more than the minimum Ephesus tour, this extra half hour to visit the final earthly home of this woman revered throughout the Christian and Muslim worlds is undoubtedly a great bargain.

Amy and I, however, wanted more time exploring Turkey, so we went with a full day tour that added Miletus, Didyma and an authentic Turkish lunch to our tour of Ephesus.

My nieces Kendra and Kelsey and my sister-in-law Jacque also went on this extended tour.

Walking through Ephesus had us perspiring, so we welcomed the long air-conditioned bus ride through the countryside to the former great Ionian port of Miletus.

Throughout our drive, I couldn’t help but notice that almost every house had ugly but utilitarian solar-heated hot water tanks on their roofs.

In addition, every town had at least one prominently placed mosque.

Amy and I salivated upon passing a truck filled with peaches, not unlike what you might see in Georgia.

Like Ephesus, Miletus is no longer on the sea, but upon exiting the bus, our guide pointed to a hill and said that was once an island off the coast.

He said the Persian navy had long ago played possum behind that island after feigning defeat in a major sea battle.

While the people of Miletus celebrated their apparent victory, the Persian navy prepared to attack again.

When the city awoke, trying to recover from the haze induced by their celebratory reverie, they were overrun by the re-grouped forces.  The Greeks of Miletus lived under Persian rule for 200 years until liberated by Alexander the Great.

The Meander River’s alluvial deposits may be blamed for clogging the four natural harbors and eventually making this former port landlocked, but I can’t help but think about how people say global warming will make our oceans rise and change our coastlines.

We should recognize this kind of change has been going on for eons. Waters ebb and flow and mankind continues to adapt.

Volcanoes or floods wipe out civilizations and new ones arise elsewhere, and I would surmise this happens regardless of what humans do to attempt to change destiny.

We could not freeze time or entirely stop negative effects of nature even if the human race acted in unison, and similarly we could not destroy the world if that were our unified objective.

In 1500 B.C., the history of Miletus began, with the arrival of settlers from Crete about 3400 years later. 

They were followed by other Greeks.

Miletus became a city known for its great thinkers like Thales, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher often known as the father of science and an early master of geometry. He is known as well as the first philosopher in the Greek traditions.

Miletus was the first city with modern urban-planning, including the concept of city blocks with roads at right angles.

The stadium isn’t as large as the Grand Theater in Ephesus but is nonetheless impressive in its own right.

I found the Baths of Faustina, constructed for the wife of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, to be of the greatest interest architecturally.

While the marble facades were long ago stripped from the walls, you can see the architecture still used in health clubs and, in fact, on the Splendour of the Seas, for swimming pools, hot tubs and gymnasiums.

Back on the ship, in the solarium pool patterned after those wonderful Roman baths from long ago, I was talking with another passenger about the rise and fall of great civilizations, and he speculated that the United States was now in its inevitable decline, as our deficits continue to rise so that our standard of living may temporarily be supported.

Perhaps he is right.

To paraphrase another Thales quote, time brings everything to light.

The United States, however, is not an inflexible concept.

Freedom, democracy and capitalism work together to make the United States a land with unlimited possibilities, which is why people from all over the world are still willing to risk everything to live here.

We don’t need to build barriers to keep people in our country.

We have to limit the number that can enter.

Far from living in a world of limited resources, we live in a world of expanding resources, where new reserves are discovered each year.

And we live in a world where information and having the initiative to apply that knowledge is the key to prosperity.

It is a world that favors the American way of life, which makes me believe we are still on the rise, as long as we aren’t tricked into being trapped into a limited world view,

“Nothing is more ancient than God, for He was never created; nothing more beautiful than the world, it is the work of that same God; nothing more active than thought, for it flies over the whole universe; nothing stronger than necessity, for all must submit to it.”---Thales of Miletus