CHAPTER XCVIII. OUTLYING HELLENIC CITIES. 1. IN GAUL AND SPAIN. 2. ON THE COAST OF THE EUXINE. To complete the picture of the Hellenic world while yet in its period of full life, in freedom and selfaction, or even during its decline into the half-life of a dependent condition-we must say a few words respecting some of its members lying apart from the general history, yet of not inconsiderable importance. The Greeks of Massalia formed its western wing; the Pontic Greeks (those on the shores of the Euxine), its eastern; both of them the outermost radiations of Hellenism, where it was always militant against foreign elements, and often adulterated by them. It is indeed little that we have the means of saying; but that little must not be left unsaid. its situation In my third volume (ch. xxii. p. 531), I briefly Massalianoticed the foundation and first proceedings of and cirMassalia (the modern Marseilles), on the Mediter- cumstances. ranean coast of Gaul or Liguria. This Ionic city, founded by the enterprising Phokaans of Asia Minor, a little before their own seaboard was subjugated by the Persians, had a life and career of its own, apart from those political events which determined the condition of its Hellenic sisters in Asia, Peloponnesus, Italy, or Sicily. The Mas saliots maintained their own relations of commerce, friendship or hostility with their barbaric neighbours, the Ligurians, Gauls, and Iberians, without becoming involved in the larger political confederacies of the Hellenic world. They carried out from their mother-city established habits of adventurous coast-navigation and commercial activity. Their situation, distant from other Greeks and sustained by a force hardly sufficient even for defence, imposed upon them the necessity both of political harmony at home, and of prudence and persuasive agency in their mode of dealing with neighbours. That they were found equal to this necessity, appears sufficiently attested by the few general statements transmitted in respect to them; though their history in its details is unknown. Their city was strong by position, situated upon a promontory washed on three sides by the sea, well-fortified, and possessing a convenient harbour securely closed against enemies'. The domain around it however appears not to have been large, nor did their population extend itself much into the interior. The land around was less adapted for corn than for the vine and the olive; wine was supplied by the Massaliots throughout Gaul. It was on shipboard that their courage and skill was chiefly displayed; it was by maritime enterprise that their power, their wealth, and their colonial expansion was obtained. In an age when piracy was common, the Massaliot ships and seamen were effective in attack and defence not less than in 1 Cæsar, Bell. Gall. ii. 1; Strabo, iv. p. 179. CHAP. XCVIII.] COMMERCE AND POWER OF MASSALIA. 615 transport and commercial interchange; while their numerous maritime successes were attested by many trophies adorning the temples1. The city contained docks and arsenals admirably provided with provisions, stores, arms, and all the various muniments of naval war2. Except the Phenicians and Carthaginians, these Massaliots were the only enterprising mariners in the Western Mediterranean; from the year 500 в.c. downward, after the energy of the Ionic Greeks had been crushed by inland potentates. The Iberian and Gallic tribes were essentially landsmen, not occupying permanent stations on the coast, nor having any vocation for the sea; but the Ligurians, though chiefly mountaineers, were annoying neighbours to Massalia as well by their piracies at sea as from their depredations by land3. To all these landsmen, however, depredators as they were, the visit of the trader soon made itself felt as a want, both for import and export; and to this want the Massaliots, with their colonies, were the only ministers, along the Gulfs of Genoa and Lyons, from Luna (the frontier of Tuscany) to the Dianium (Cape della Nao) in Spain. It was not until the first century before the Christian era that they were outstripped in this 1 Strabo, iv. p. 180. 2 Strabo (xii. p. 575) places Massalia in the same rank as Kyzikus, Rhodes, and Carthage; types of maritime cities highly and effectively organized. 3 Livy, xl. 18; Polybius, xxx. 4. 4 The oration composed by Demosthenes πpòs Zŋvóleμv, relates to an affair wherein a ship, captain, and mate, all from Massalia, are found engaged in the carrying trade between Athens and Syracuse (Demosth. p. 882 seq.). Colonies planted by Antipolis, circum Emporiæ. career by Narbon, and a few other neighbours, exalted into Roman colonies. Along the coast on both sides of their own city, Massalia the Massaliots planted colonies, each commended to the protection, and consecrated by the statue and peculiar rites, of their own patron Goddess, the peculiar Ephesian Artemis'. Towards the east were Taustances of roentium, Olbia, Antipolis, Nikæa, and the Portus Monoki; towards the west, on the coast of Spain, were Rhoda, Emporiæ, Alônê, Hemeroskopium, and Artemisium or Dianium. These colonies were established chiefly on outlying capes or sometimes islets, at once near and safe; they were intended more as shelter and accommodation for maritime traffic, and as depots for trade with the interior, than for the purpose of spreading inland, and including a numerous outlying population round the walls. The circumstances of Emporia were the most remarkable. That town was built originally on a little uninhabited islet off the coast of Iberia; after a certain interval, it became extended to the adjoining mainland, and a body of native Iberians were admitted to joint residence within the new-walled circuit there established. This new circuit however was divided in half by an intervening wall, on one side of which dwelt the Iberians, on the other side the Greeks. One gate alone was permitted, for intercommunication, guarded night and day by appointed magistrates, one of whom was perpetually on the spot. Every night, one third of the Greek citizens kept 1 Brückner, Histor. Massiliensium, c. 7 (Göttingen). CHAP. XCVIH.] PONTIC HERAKLEIA. 623 yet with a proviso that they should never be sold out of the territory. Adjoining, on the westward, between Herakleia and Byzantium, were the Bithynian Thracians-villagers not merely independent, but warlike and fierce wreckers, who cruelly maltreated any Greeks stranded on their coast'. We are told in general terms that the government of Herakleia was oligarchical; perhaps in the hands of the descendants of the principal original colonists, who partitioned among themselves the territory with its Mariandynian serfs, and who formed a small but rich minority among the total population. We hear of them as powerful at sea, and as being able to man, through their numerous serfs, a considerable fleet, with which they invaded the territory of Leukon prince of the Kimmerian Bosporus3. They were also engaged in land-war with Mithridates, a prince of the ancient Persian family established as district rulers in Northern Kappadokia*. Towards 380-370 B.C. the Herakleots became disturbed by violent party-contentions within the Xenoph. Anab. vi. 6, 2. 1 2 Aristot. Polit. v. 5, 2; v. 5, 5. Another passage in the same work, however (v. 4, 2), says, that in Herakleia, the democracy was subverted immediately after the foundation of the colony, through the popular leaders; who committed injustice against the rich. These rich men were banished, but collected strength enough to return and subvert the democracy by force. If this passage alludes to the same Herakleia (there were many towns of that name), the government must have been originally democratical. But the serfdom of the natives seems to imply an oligarchy. 3 Aristot. Polit. vii. 5, 7; Polyæn. vi. 9, 3, 4: compare PseudoAristotle, Economic. ii. 9. The reign of Leukon lasted from about 392-352 B.C. The event alluded to by Polyænus must have occurred at some time during this interval. 4 Justin, xvi. 4. |