Miletus Bouleuterion
About
The council house where Miletus's civic assembly met, a gift from a foreign king rather than the city itself. Dedication inscriptions on its architrave name the donor as the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, reigning 175-164 BCE. A colonnaded courtyard and monumental gateway led into a roofed auditorium seating around 1,500 councilors. Still in active civic use under Roman rule in 117 CE.
What happened here
The doors stand open during a session, so the crowd outside can hear. Inside, the order of speaking is the order of rank, and a man's whole career is measured by how early his name is called. Members sit on tiered benches facing each other rather than a chair, which makes the room argumentative by design. Business is read out by a clerk: letters from governors, embassies waiting in the corridor, requests for temple money, permission for a town to build. Voting is done with the feet, one side of the room against the other. Nothing said inside leaves formally, and everything said inside is repeated by evening. In a provincial town the local council does the same work in a smaller room, and cares about it just as much.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →