The Neglected Site at Miletus– Part One

While nearby Ephesus is swarmed with tourists all the time, not least because of the cruise boats making it the one site they dropped tourists near if they are hopping from country to country and island to island, nevertheless, Miletus is also a large site, as one can see from the maps below, which still has considerable remains of its theater. Like Ephesus, the city’s main means of commerce was by sea, but also like Ephesus, the harbors (and there were two at Miletus) were silting up, endangering the prosperity of the city.  It was of course here, where Paul chose to give his farewell address to his supporters, including the Asiarchs.  And it was here, despite Conzelman and Kee’s assertions there were no Asiarchs in the first century (making Acts a second century book) that I found a correct period inscription stones dedicated to the Asiarchs.   This is what happens when you are an armchair scholar who neglects archaeology including visiting the sites in some detail.

Notice that the theater was directly across from one of the now silted up harbors.

Clearly the theater indicates that Miletus was once a large city, for as the archaeologists says, count the seats in the theater and multiply by 10, and roughly you get the city population, in this case about 50,000 or a bit less.  You can see in the picture above one of the entrance or exit ramps under the seats of the stadium.  More about it in the next post.