Miletus (Ancient Greek: Μί̄λητος Mīlētos; Hittite transcription Millawanda or Milawata (exonyms); Latin: Miletus; Turkish: Milet)
was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia, near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria.
Its ruins are located near the modern village of Balat in Aydın Province, Turkey. Before the Persian invasion in the middle of the 6th century BC,
Miletus was considered the greatest and wealthiest of Greek cities. In other sources however it is mentioned that the city was much more modest
up until the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), when, for example, the city state of Samos on the island of Samos opposite Miletus was considered
a larger and more important city and harbor at the time. Miletus' greatest wealth and splendor was reached during the Hellenistic era (323–30 BC)
and later Roman times.
Evidence of first settlement at the site has been made inaccessible by the rise of sea level and deposition of sediments from the Maeander.
Didyma (Ancient Greek: Δίδυμα) was an ancient Greek sanctuary on the coast of Ionia. It contained a temple and oracle of Apollo, the Didymaion.
In Greek didyma means "twin", but the Greeks who sought a "twin" at Didyma ignored the Carian origin of the name.
Next to Delphi, Didyma was the most renowned oracle of the Hellenic world, first mentioned among the Greeks in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo.
Its establishment preceded literacy and even the Hellenic colonization of Ionia. Mythic genealogies of the origins of the Branchidae line of priests,
designed to capture the origins of Didyma as a Hellenic tradition, date to the Hellenistic period.
Until its destruction by the Persians in 494 BC, Didyma's sanctuary was administered by the family of the Branchidae.
