Ionians
The Ionians (/aɪˈoʊniənz/; Greek: Ἴωνες, Íōnes, singular Ἴων, Íōn) were one of the traditional four major tribes of Ancient Greece, alongside the Dorians, Aeolians, and Achaeans.
In a broader sense, it could be used to describe all speakers of the Ionic dialect, which in addition to those in Ionia proper also included the Greek populations of Euboea, the Cyclades, and many cities founded by Ionian colonists.
Finally, in the broadest sense it could be used to describe all those who spoke languages of the East Greek group, which included Attic.
The foundation myth which was current in the Classical period suggested that the Ionians were named after Ion, son of Xuthus, who lived in the north Peloponnesian region of Aigialeia.
[6] There are, however, some theories: Unlike "Aeolians" and "Dorians", "Ionians" appears in the languages of different civilizations around the eastern Mediterranean and as far east as Han China.
[12] In the Book of Genesis[13] of the English Bible, Javan, known in Hebrew as Yāwān and in plural Yəwānīm, is a son of Japheth.
[16] The locations of the biblical tribal countries have been the subjects of centuries of scholarship and yet remain open questions to various degrees.
The final chapter of the Book of Isaiah, who lived in the 8th century BC, contains what may be a hint by listing "the nations ... that have not heard my fame" including Javan immediately after "the isles afar off".
"[21] If the identification of Assyrian names is correct, at least some of the Ionian marauders came from Cyprus:[22]Sargon's Annals for 709, claiming that tribute was sent to him by 'seven kings of Ya (ya-a'), a district of Yadnana whose distant abodes are situated a seven-days' journey in the sea of the setting sun', is confirmed by a stele set up at Citium in Cyprus 'at the base of a mountain ravine ... of Yadnana.
In documents, these names refer to the Indo-Greek Kingdoms: the states formed by the Macedonian Alexander the Great and his successors on the Indian subcontinent.
It is mentioned in the accounts of the Chinese explorer Zhang Qian in 130 BCE and the numerous embassies that followed him into Central Asia.
The country of Dayuan is generally accepted as relating to the Ferghana Valley, controlled by the Hellenistic polis Alexandria Eschate (modern Khujand, Tajikistan), which can probably be understood as "Greco-Fergana city-state" in English language.
The Ionians spread from Athens to other places in the Aegean Sea: Sifnos and Serifos,[38] Naxos,[39] Kea[40] and Samos.
Achaea was divided into 12 communities originally Ionian:[43] Pellene, Aegira, Aegae, Bura, Helice, Aegion, Rhype, Patrae, Phareae, Olenus, Dyme and Tritaeae.
[45] During the 6th century BC, Ionian coastal towns, such as Miletus and Ephesus, became the focus of a revolution in traditional thinking about Nature.
According to physicist Carlo Rovelli, the work of the Ionian school produced the "first great scientific revolution" and the earliest example of critical thinking, which would come to define Greek, and subsequently modern, thought.
