excerpt from Ari Turunen’s new book Maailmanhistorian kukoistavimmat kaupungit. Translated by Jill G. Timbers with the support of FILI, the Finnish Literature Exchange. Translation copyright Jill G. Timbers. Strictly for marketing purposes. Use in publication requires written permission from Jill Timbers. Where tolerance surpassed differences Somewhere in the world at a certain point of time there was a city where great things were created. The city had an exceptionally open atmosphere. In the city people tolerated merchants speaking strange tongues and the foreign ways they brought with them. In the city new things were created, through which the residents acquired wealth. In the city there were means to fund art and beauty, which lured more talented people there. In this book I will present nine cities which, for a moment in time, ranked among the richest and most developed in the world, because in them people dared to inspire and be inspired by others’ ideas and influences. In many large cities of today, statues have been erected not only to rulers but also to the city’s own artists, writers, inventers and scholars. But how many of those people fared well in those cities during their lifetimes? In front of the Academy of Athens there is a statue of Socrates, with the philosopher seated in his chair, thinking. Although Socrates admitted to being an annoyance to the Athenians – a gadfly, as he put it – he clung to his conviction that the way to have 1 an opportunity to accomplish good was an open, curious approach and a willingness to try new things. Socrates irritated people so much that he was sentenced to death. After Socrates’s death, young Plato fled Athens and possible persecution together with others of Socrates’s pupils. Plato’s pupil Aristotle also had to leave Athens to live in exile shortly before his death. Outside London’s Royal Academy there is a statue of John Locke, bedecked in a cape. Philosopher John Locke’s revolutionary ideas about the right to question a ruler’s misconduct had a significant influence on the United States Declaration of Independence. In 1683 Locke had to flee London. He wrote his book while in exile. On St. Germain Boulevard in Paris there is a statue of an earnest-looking Denis Diderot. Diderot fought constantly with censors while writing the world’s first encyclopedia, his Encyclopédie. In 1749 Diderot was locked up in a cell for three months for having written that knowledge was acquired through the senses rather than by divine revelation. The schools of Plato and Aristotle, the Academy and the Lyceum (the Academy’s grove and the area of the temple of Lyceios) have remained in our language and our mind as places of culture and freedom. British liberalism and French enlightenment echo the same ideals of the light of reason and freedom of thought. Fine words. 2 Socrates, Locke and Diderot are today classics and heroes in Athens, London and Paris. Exile, censorship and bonfires of books are, however, just as appropriate as freedom, culture and enlightenment for describing these cities. No place in the world has always been free and progressive, no matter the statues erected to honor cultural achievements. There have always been people who believe they have an almost divine right to dictate what is good taste, what can be discussed and what can be done. One meets such people in institutions of learning, jobs, government, political parties and social media. They avoid contact with different and new people. To them, learning to know new people is an extra effort and burden, because there is the risk they may have to defend their own world view or confront something too exotic. There have, however, been places where encountering the new was seen as an opportunity for everyone. In the cities of this book, different people and those seeking something new have been able to live in peace, without persecution or limitations. The cities flourished because in them freedom of thought and deed was encouraged and foreign languages and cultures were understood. And if new influences were not always welcomed in these places, differentness was tolerated. Of course one need not be excited about everything; it’s enough just to allow others their enthusiasm. When an environment permits freedom and foreign influences, the result is success in the economy, science and arts. At least for a short time. 3 MILETUS MILETUS’S LOCATION AT THE INTERSECTION OF TRADE ROUTES MADE THE CITY RIPE FOR FOREIGN INFLUENCES. THUS IT BECAME ONE OF THE BUSIEST PORT CITIES OF THE MEDITTERANEAN, AND A PLACE WHERE CREATIVITY FLOURISHED. On the Turkish coast, ten kilometers north of the town of Didim, extensive ruins spread out in the middle of a green plain. The stone steps of the great theater offer a good view of the surrounding mountains. In the adjacent stadium, a few columns still stand. The sun scorches and only the cicadas break the silence. It is hard to imagine that over 2500 years ago a splendid, vibrant, colorful city stood on this site, its narrow port streets peopled by travelers from all over the world. Most of Miletus’s ruins remain from Hellenic and Roman times. They give no hint of how exceptional the place is. Although the name of the city may not be familiar to many, the intellectual legacy of Miletus lives on as strongly as that of ancient Athens. The textbooks of history do not tell of rulers of Miletus, who with their armies would 4 have brought fame and respect to their residents. Founded by the Ionians, Miletus was not a military power, nor were its people interested in expeditions of conquest. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In Miletus, instead of erecting statues, people traded, invented and grew rich. THE ALPHABET AND THE ODYSSEY When Miletus was at its peak in 7th and 6th century BCE, there was no pompous nobility or elite in the city. The people of Miletus were free to travel and chat in taverns without control by the rulers. Miletus was one of the first truly free cities. Miletus belonged to a league along with other Ionian colonies. In the 11th century BCE the Ionians established colonies along the coast of current Anatolia. The Ionian coastal strip was 40 kilometers wide and 160 kilometers long, from Miletus north to the town of Cyme, near today’s Nemrut. The islands of Kos and Samos also belonged to the twelve-member league. Miletus was located on a peninsula with four ports. The heart of the city was the port near its baths. As in all successful port towns throughout history, in Miletus foreigners were not seen as a threat but rather as a commercial opportunity. Foreign merchants could move about and negotiate at will on the city’s lanes. For good reason Miletus was famous and became the Mediterranean’s most important trading center. Miletus was the terminal point on the caravan route from Asia through Lydia. In Miletus the caravan drivers of Asia met 5 the seafarers of Greece. According to historian Hans Furuhagen, Miletus was a good place for well-traveled people to meet one another and compare experiences. There people would discuss how best to weigh and sail and forecast the weather. People in Miletus sought rational explanations for natural phenomena. The Milesians absorbed new knowledge and influences from merchants who had traveled from Assyria, the Hittite empire, Babylon, Syria, Aramea and Egypt. Thanks to the trading, the people of Miletus also became familiar with Phoenician culture. The Phoenicians, who lived in the area of current-day Lebanon, ruled southern Mediterranean trade with their advanced merchant ships. They established trading centers such as Carthage along the Mediterranean coast. The Jews called the Phoenicians “Canaanites” – the word means merchant. The great importance of the Greek and Phoenician trade can be seen in the fact that the Greeks may have derived the term “Phoenician” from the prized purple dye that they sold, phoinos. The best known and most significant invention of the Phoenicians can be seen in the sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Byblos from the 11th century BCE. The sarcophagus was discovered in the modern-day city of Jbeil in 1923 and is preserved in the National Museum of Beirut. The oldest known Phoenician texts are written in Phoenician letters on the sarcophagus. The Milesian people learned the Phoenician alphabet, from which the 6 Ionian alphabet developed after 750 BCE. Before this the Greeks had used linear-B writing, which has almost a hundred syllabograms. Its first four letters mean, in the Semitic Phoenician language, ox (‘alef ’), house (‘beth’), camel (‘gimel’) and door (‘dalet’). In Miletus they assumed the forms alpha, beta, gamma and delta. In Miletus an important change was made to the alphabet: vowels were added. Writing became less difficult, which gave a boost to the economy. It meant that trade agreements offered less room for interpretation. Eventually the 24-letter Greek alphabet developed from the form Miletus used, and later became the basis for both the Latin and Cyrillic scripts. Seventy percent of the world’s population uses the Latin alphabet. The Cyrillic alphabet is used by over 250 million people in Eurasia. The Milesian alphabet is still used in its original form in Greece. Milesian letters are used to indicate magnitudes and variables in scientific formulas in mathematics, physics and other branches of science. The alphabet initially grew from the need to record trade-related agreements. Interest quickly arose, however, in recording other things, as well. Narrative poems, epics that had passed orally from mouth to mouth were at last transformed into written masterpieces recorded for posterity, like, for example, The Iliad and The Odyssey.