Milesians

bmj.com O'Connor et al. 327 (7408): 233
Michael Willson online at last - father of the wonderful Lucy Milesian

Miles of the Web - Investigations Concerning the First Name "Miles"

MILESIANS on BLOGSPOT

A Google search today came up with the following:


Searched the web for blogspot milesian. Results 1 - 7 of about 13. Search took 0.18 seconds.

The Church Of Me
... 23” to markedly less effect than Vic Reeves did on “Born Free,” while with
“Me, Myself And I,” despite its belief-suspending Milesian Tutu descending ...
www.cookham.blogspot.com/ - 101k - Cached - Similar pages

The Church Of Me Note the manchester link here!
... com); and Oh Manchester, So Much To Answer For(http://submeat.blogspot.com ... His dad
Olu Dara adds some regretful and compassionate Milesian trumpet smears at the ...
cookham.blogspot.com/2002_12_15_cookham_archive.html - 66k - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from cookham.blogspot.com ]

Welcome to Sqwire.com
... http://1169andcounting.blogspot.com. ... The Irish race of today is popularly known
as the Milesian Race, because the genuine Irish (Celtic) people http://www ...
www.sqwire.com/query.php?aid=592&kw=irish+history - 25k - Cached - Similar pages

The Angry Clam
... - What's to be done? -- Come, answer me this: please, what's the thing they
say Milesian women hold and play with, you know, the leather object? ...
angryclam.blogspot.com/ 2002_09_01_angryclam_archive.html - 101k - Cached - Similar pages

the watch
... example, the Milesians set up a trading colony called Naucratis in the Nile Delta;
it was rather like Hong Kong, except that everyone was Milesian rather than ...
mars-or-bust.blogspot.com/ 2003_05_18_mars-or-bust_archive.html - 101k - Cached - Similar pages

Old Oligarch's Painted Stoa
... Scene: Late evening. A little tavern outside Miletus, sooty oil lamps burning in
the eaves. Me and another Milesian around a table, somewhat drunk: OO: No! No! ...
old-oligarch.blogspot.com/ 2002_09_01_old-oligarch_archive.html - 101k - Cached - Similar pages

nikita demosthenes
... thousand years the kings and queens of England and Scotland have been crowned over
this stone and, as the history of IRELAND reveals, the Milesian kings before ...
nikita_demosthenes.blogspot.com/ 2002_10_27_nikita_demosthenes_archive.html - 73k - Cached - Similar pages

MILESIAN ANIMALS

For starters:
The horse: Milesian
Whose geneology is incoriprated on the japanese (Shodo Farm) website: http://www.hkr.ne.jp/~shodo/Name/Index/Frame_index.htm

The Irish setters Milesian Love and Kisses and Milesian Rose Ridge Holiday, from:
http://www.infodog.com/RESULTS/1998286801/1998286801144.HTM

There are bound to be fantastical beasts too.

MILESIAN MUSIC (contemporary)
as in Miles Davis influenced music styles. Note that the best known biography of MILES Davis is by IAN Carr (whose Belladonna is incredibly influenced by Bitches Brew)

e.g. “The horns don't get funkier than on "Size of an Elephant," a Milesian Harmon muted trumpet number by the Powdered Rhino Horns. “ in The Best of Acid Jazz: In the Mix" Various Artists (Instinct Records) review By Robert Spencer on http://www.allaboutjazz.com/REVIEWS/R0799_77.HTM
Robert Spenmcer often uses the term Milesian. But for post-Milesian we should go to Nicky Baxter:
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/04.25.96/stern-9617.html
"...
It's not been easy for fusion guitarist Mike Stern to shake the protean shadow of his former mentor and employer, Miles Davis….his partnership with the late bassist Jaco Pastorius was, however, his most noteworthy post-Milesian association...."

Miles Davis' other connections with this blog will be explored when time allows.
.

ANCIENT GREEK MILESIANS

The most-widely known referents for the term “Milesian” lie in the developments associated with the Greek island of Miletus.
This blog is to contain material on:
 Miletus (the island and its history)
 The Milesian "fables"
 Milesian music
 Milesian philosophers (philosophy, history, folklore - most material here - Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, etc.)

Here are some first tasters -

MILESIAN "FABLES"

Aristides of Miletus, in the second century BC prepared a collection of tales which kiocked off this genre. Aristides' collection was translated into Latin in the first century BC under the name Milesiae Fabulae. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica: The Latin MILESIA FABULA was "a brief erotic or picaresque tale of romantic adventure". ,
Clearly a tradition due for revival. Probably the closest contemporary parallels are in historical fiction and heroic fantasy (sword and sorcery, etc.) But these decreasingly seem to display the virtue of brevity.

Britannica reports that this served as a model for episodes in Petronius' Satyricon and for Lucius Apuleius' The Golden Ass (which contains an interesting and unflattering take on the early Christians). These are both available in several modern English translations, and are well worth reading. Each contains a fair share of the fantastic, of interest to Forteans and others. Fellini's film of Satyricon is flawed but also of great interest, with memorable images.

These Milesian tales in turn helped inspire medieval and later fictions - Brittanica cites Boccaccio's Decameron (which has also inspired an interesting film, I think by Pasolini)..

MILESIAN PHILOSOPHY
Much more to come here, but for a starter, quoting from:
http://pratt.edu/~arch543p/help/pre-socratics.html
"Western philosophy began in Greece, in the Greek settlement of Miletus in Anatolia. The first known philosophers were Thales of Miletus and his students, Anaximander and Anaximenes. Present-day knowledge of this Milesian School is based on fragments attributed to them by later writers. These first philosophers were metaphysicians, seeking for an element or force behind appearance that explained everything. Thales said that all was ultimately water, Anaximander that it was boundless or the infinite, and Anaximenes that it was air. Subsequent Greek philosophers, such as Heraclitus and Parmenides, argued about whether change or permanence was the basic feature of the world and about whether one or more than one element was the fundamental constituent of reality. Greek philosophy before Socrates was principally concerned with these metaphysical questions."
errr yes , but the issue is a little more profound than this suggests!


MILESIAN MATHS
fOR THE Milesian system of numeric notation
http://classics.holycross.edu/Courses/Resources/milesian.html

MILESIANS CATASTOPHES??:
"The ultimate Milesian agenda may therefore have been to liberate people from paralysing fear of the immediate recurrence of celestial disturbances in the recent past. ..."
SEE http://www.knowledge.co.uk/sis/abstract/mullen.htm
Though I see that some other cmmentatrsstress the emphasis n instabiity and precariusness in the work of the Miesians - not iinconsistent necessarily.

MILESIANM DICTATORS??
According to: /bcom/eb/article/idxref/0/0,5716,298115,00.html On the Ionian revolt,
" In 499 the Milesian tyrant Aristagoras arrived in Athens and Sparta (and perhaps at other places too, such as Argos) asking for help. The Athenians agreed, while the Spartans under their king Cleomenes (who ruled from 519 to shortly before 490) did not.."

THE IRISH MILESIAN CONNECTION

In Irish history, folklore and literature, the term “Milesian” derives from Milesius, the ancestor of a highly important clan. The Milesians are supposed to have emigrated to Eire in remote history, pre-Celts. One story has them coming from the Mediterranean. Milesius is supposed to mean "soldier of Spain".

According to http://www.ireland.org/irl_hist/hist2.htm:
The sixteenth century scholar, O’Flaherty, fixes the Milesian invasion of Ireland at about 1000 B.C. - the time of Solomon.
A photo of The place of the Milesian´s depart to Eire ( O faro de Brigantia, A´Corunha ) can be found at http://www.umoncton.ca/soeler/galiza_fotos.htm
The Ancestral Map of Ireland displays the heritage and history of over 750 ancient Irish families descended (allegedly) from the Royal Milesian line.
http://www.irishheritage.com/index.html
Of course, they're also a lost tribe of Israel. See: http://www.angelfire.com/biz/celtica/losttribes.html

Charles Robert Maturin wrote a novel entitled The Milesian Chief (1812)

This blog is devoted to all things Milesian. It will feature:

- The Greek Milesian philosophers

- The Irish Milesian tradition

C20th and C21st Milesian approaches to information society, the knowledge-based economy, etc.

- Milesian music and musicians – especially of course Miles Davis

- A Milesian bestiary

- World Wide Milesians

- anything else vaguely relevant that comes my way.

Origins: Alistair Duff refered to my work on Information Society in his book
Information Soociety studies as Milesian, differentiating it from the Greek Milesians. (Yep, he can tell a Greek from a geek). But a little web searching reveals a lot more to it.
There are interesting linkages across the different strands that this blog should bring out. Here are some tasters:

- Forteana It is only appropriate that suspicious coincidences are apparet, since these are one of the domains of great interest to Forteans. By a nice twist, though, some of these coincidences concern Fortean matters, and the occurrence of such themes across the strands of Milesianism. Coincidence, or conspiracy: you can be the judge.
To illustrate: One interpretation of the Greek Milesians is that they were writing in the aftermath of a period of environmental change occasioned by volcanic, asteroidal or cometary catastrophe (see the Greek pages). The Irish Milesians may have been migrating in response to catastrophes; furthermore, they have been tied to faery and other creatures of Western folklore, to the lost tribes of Isreal, and to the usual welter of mythologies attached to ancient peoples. An anomalous publication from the Milesian information society author is an essay on Forteana. Miles Davis recorded numerous tracks with relevant titles (including Btches Brew). The apparent absence of Fortean connections in the animal world may well be explained by conspiracy, since the horseracing community is well-known for scams of various kinds.

- Cultural change. Many Milesians have effected such change: they are creators of new cultural modes (especially important in the development of natural philosophy and science), or bearers of cullture to new lands. Miles Davis almost single-handedly forged the “fusion” genre of jazz-rock, and his own great achievements are in no way diminished by the banality of much of the genre. While the animal connection is mainly an effort to trade on the cultural resonance of Milesianism, the Milesian information society theory attempts to illuminate one set of important cultural shits.

- There is almost certainly a psychotropic link. Milesian tales arer interesting here. Miles D was famously a great consumer.