IO'NIA, the ancient name of the most flourishing country of Asia Minor. It received its name from the Ionians (one of the four most ancient tribes in Greece), who, again, according to the mythological account, derived theirs from Ion, the son of Apollo by Creusa, a daughter of a king of Athens. According to the usually received tradition, they were driven out of the Peloponuesus by the Acbaians, and removed to Attica. whence, about 1050 B.C., bands of them went forth to settle on the coast of Asia. Ionia was a beautiful and fertile country, extending, according to Ptolemy, from the river Hermits to the river Meander, along the coast of the LEgean sea, but Herodotus and Strabo make it somewhat larger. It soon reached a high point of prosperity; agriculture and commerce flourished, and great cities arose, of which Ephesus, Smyrna, Colophon, and Miletns were the, most celebrated. These free cities, which formed the nucleus of the I0NIAN LEAGUE, were, however, gradually subdued by the kings of Lydia, and passed (557 n.c.) under the sway of the Persians, but were allowed a considerable measure of internal liberty. During the great Persian war, the contingent which they
were compelled to furnish to their oriental masters deserted to the Greeks, at the battle. of Mycale (479 n.c.), whereupon the Ionians entered into an alliance with Athens, upon which they now became dependent. After the Peloponnesian war, they were subject to the Spartans, and again (387 n.c.) to the Persians till the time of Alexander the great. From this period, Ionia shared the fate of the neighboring countries, and in 64 n.c, was added to the Roman empire by Pompey, after the third Mithridatic war. In later times, it was so ravaged by the Turks that few traces of its former greatness are now left.—The Ionians were regarded as somewhat effeminate. They were wealthy and luxurious, and the fine arts (see IONIC ARCHITECTURE) were cultivated amongst them at a much earlier date than amongst their kinsmen in the mother-country. The Ionic Dialect excels the other Greek dialects in softness and smoothness, chiefly from the greater number of vowels introduced.