Situated at a point of conjunction between the emergent Greek civilization and the ancient empires of Mesopotamia and Egypt, nourished by their knowledge but immersed in the liberty and the political fluidity which is typically Greek; in a social space without imperial palaces, or powerful priestly castes, where individual citizens discuss their destinies in open agoras, Miletus is the place where, for the first time, men decide collectively their own laws; where the first parliament in the history of the world gathers – the Panionium, meeting-place of the delegates of the Ionian League – and
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