1.142. The Ionians of Asia, who meet at the Panionum, have built their cities in a region where the air and climate are the most beautiful in the entire world. No other region is as blessed as Ionia, neither north nor south, east or west. In other countries either the climate is too cold and damp, or the heat and drought are too oppressive. The Ionians do not all speak the same language, but use in different places four different dialects. Towards the south their first city is Miletus, next to Miletus are Myus and Priene. All of these three cities are in Caria and have the same dialect. The Ionian cities in Lydia are: Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedus, Teos, Clazomenae, and Phocaea. The inhabitants of these towns have none of the peculiarities of speech which belong to the three former citis, but they use a dialect of their own. There remain three other Ionian towns, two on islands, namely Samos and Chios, and one on the mainland, which is called Erythrae. Of these, Erythrae and Chios have the same dialect, while Samos possesses a language peculiar to itself. Such are the four varieties of which I spoke.
