The public habits of the administrators are said to have been extremely vigilant and circumspect; the private habits of the citizens, frugal and temperate

-a maximum being fixed by law for dowries and marriage-ceremonies'. They were careful in their dealings with the native tribes, with whom they appear to have maintained relations generally friendly. The historian Ephorus (whose history closed about 340 B.C.) represented the Gauls as especially phil-hellenic2; an impression which he could hardly have derived from any but Massaliot informants. The Massaliots (who in the first century before Christ were trilingues, speaking Greek, Latin, and Gallic3) contributed to engraft upon these unlettered men a certain refinement and variety of wants, and to lay the foundation of that taste for letters which afterwards became largely diffused throughout the Roman Province of Gaul. At sea, and in traffic, the Phenicians and Carthaginians were their formidable rivals. This was

From another passage in the same work, it seems that the narrow basis of the oligarchy must have given rise to dissensions (v. 6). Aristotle had included the Μασσαλιωτῶν πολιτεία in his lost work Περὶ Πολιτειῶν. 1 Strabo, l. c. However, one author from whom Athenæus borrowed (xii. p. 523), described the Massaliots as luxurious in their habits.

2 Strabo, iv. p. 199. Εφορος δὲ ὑπερβάλλουσαν τῷ μεγέθει λέγει τὴν Κελτικὴν, ὥστε ἧσπερ νῦν Ἰβηρίας καλοῦμεν ἐκείνοις τὰ πλεῖστα προσνέμειν μέχρι Γαδείρων, φιλέλληνάς τε ἀποφαίνει τοὺς ἀνθρώ πους, καὶ πολλὰ ἰδίως λέγει περὶ αὐτῶν οὐκ ἑοικότα τοῖς νῦν. Compare p. 181.

It is to be remembered that Ephorus was a native of the Asiatic Kymê, the immediate neighbour of Phokaa, which was the metropolis of Massalia. The Massaliots never forgot or broke off their connexion with Phokaa: see the statement of their intercession with the Romans on behalf of Phokæa (Justin, xxxvii. 1). Ephorus therefore had good means of learning whatever Massaliot citizens were disposed to communicate.

Varro, Antiq. Fragm. p. 350, ed. Bipont.

CHAP. XCVIII.]

PYTHEAS OF MASSALIA.

619

among the causes which threw them betimes into alliance and active cooperation with Rome, under whose rule they obtained favourable treatment, when the blessing of freedom was no longer within their reach.

Hellenising

influence of

Massalia in

the West

the navi

gator and

Enough is known about Massalia to show that the city was a genuine specimen of Hellenism and Hellenic influences-acting not by force or con- Pytheas, straint, but simply by superior intelligence and activity-by power of ministering to wants which geographer. must otherwise have remained unsupplied-and by the assimilating effect of a lettered civilization upon ruder neighbours. This is the more to be noticed as it contrasts strikingly with the Macedonian influences which have occupied so much of the present volume; force admirably organized and wielded by Alexander, yet still nothing but force. The loss of all details respecting the history of Massalia is greatly to be lamented; and hardly less, that of the writings of Pytheas, an intelligent Massaliotic navigator, who, at this early age (330-320 B.C.)',

1 See the Fragmenta Pytheæ collected by Arfwedson, Upsal, 1824. He wrote two works—1. Γῆς Περιόδος. 2. Περὶ Ωκεανοῦ. His statements were greatly esteemed, and often followed, by Eratosthenes; partially followed by Hipparchus; harshly judged by Polybius, whom Strabo in the main follows. Even by those who judge him most severely, Pytheas is admitted to have been a good mathematician and astronomer (Strabo, iv. p. 201)—and to have travelled extensively in person. Like Herodotus, he must have been forced to report a great deal on hearsay; and all that he could do was to report the best hearsay information which reached him. It is evident that his writings made an epoch in geographical inquiries; though they doubtless contained numerous inaccuracies. See a fair estimate of Pytheas in Mannert, Geog. der Gr. und Römer, Introd. i. p. 73–86.

The Massaliotic Codex of Homer, possessed and consulted among others by the Alexandrine critics, affords presumption that the celebrity of Massalia as a place of Grecian literature and study (in which eharac

Pontic

Greeks

with an adventurous boldness even more than Phokæan, sailed through the Pillars of Herakles and from thence northward along the coast of Spain, Gaul, Britain, Germany-perhaps yet farther. Probably no Greek except a Massaliot could have accomplished such a voyage; which in his case deserves the greater sympathy, as there was no other reward for the difficulties and dangers braved, except the gratification of an intelligent curiosity. It seems plain that the publication of his "Survey of the Earth"-much consulted by Eratosthenes, though the criticisms which have reached us through Polybius and Strabo dwell chiefly upon its mistakes, real or supposed-made an epoch in ancient geographical knowledge.

From the western wing of the Hellenic world, we Pentapolis pass to the eastern-the Euxine Sea. Of the Pensouth-west tapolis on its western coast south of the Danube

on the

coast.

(Apollonia, Mesembria, Kallatis, Odessus, and probably Istrus)—and of Tyras near the mouth of the river so called (now Dniester)-we have little to record; though Istrus and Apollonia were among the towns whose political constitutions Aristotle thought worthy of his examination'. But Herakleia on the south coast, and Pantikapæum or Bosporus between the Euxine and the Palus Mæotis (now Sea of Azof), are not thus unknown to history; nor can Sinôpê (on the south coast) and Olbia (on the north-west) be altogether passed over. Though lying apart from the political headship of Athens ter it competed with Athens towards the commencement of the Roman empire) had its foundations laid at least in the third century before the Christian era.

1 Aristotle, Politic. v. 2, 11 ; v. 5, 2.

CHAP. XCVIII.]

PONTIC GREEKS-SINOPE.

621

or Sparta, all these cities were legitimate members of the Hellenic brotherhood. All supplied spectators and competitors for the Pan-hellenic festivalspupils to the rhetors and philosophers-purchasers, and sometimes even rivals, to the artists. All too were (like Massalia and Kyrênê) adulterated partially-Olbia and Bosporus considerably-by admixture of a non-hellenic element.

its envoys

with Darius

days

its independence

for some

time against

the Pontic

princes

comes

mately.

Of Sinôpê, and its three dependent colonies SinôpêKotyôra, Kerasus, and Trapezus, I have already present said something', in describing the retreat of the Ten in his last Thousand Greeks. Like Massalia with its depend- maintains encies Antipolis, Nikæa, and others-Sinôpê enjoyed not merely practical independence, but considerable prosperity and local dignity, at the time when Xenophon and his companions marched but bethrough those regions. The citizens were on terms subject to of equal alliance, mutually advantageous, with them ultiKorylas prince of Paphlagonia, on the borders of whose territory they dwelt. It is probable that they figured on the tribute list of the Persian king as a portion of Paphlagonia, and paid an annual sum; but here ended their subjection. Their behaviour towards the Ten Thousand Greeks, pronounced enemies of the Persian king, was that of an independent city. Neither they, nor even the inland Paphlagonians, warlike and turbulent, were molested with Persian governors or military occupation. Alexander however numbered them among

1 See Vol. IX. Ch. lxxi. p. 165 seqq.

See the remarkable life of the Karian Datames, by Cornelius Nepos, which gives some idea of the situation of Paphlagonia about 360-350 B.C. (cap. 7, 8). Compare Xenoph. Hellenic. iv. 1, 4.

The Pontic Herakleia -oligarchical go

vernment -the native

the subjects of Persia; and it is a remarkable fact, that envoys from Sinôpê were found remaining with Darius almost to his last hour, after he had become a conquered fugitive, and had lost his armies, his capitals, and his treasures. These Sinopian envoys fell into the hands of Alexander; who set them at liberty with the remark, that since they were not members of the Hellenic confederacy, but subjects of Persia-their presence as envoys near Darius was very excusable'. The position of Sinôpê placed her out of the direct range of the hostilities carried on by Alexander's successors against each other; and the ancient Kappadokian princes of the Mithridatic family (professedly descendants of the Persian Achæmenida), who ultimately ripened into the king of Pontus, had not become sufficiently powerful to swallow up her independence until the reign of Pharnakes, in the second century before Christ. Sinôpe then passed under his dominion; exchanging (like others) the condition of a free Grecian city for that of a subject of the barbaric kings of Pontus, with a citadel and mercenary garrison to keep her citizens in obedience. We know nothing however of the intermediate events.

Respecting the Pontic Herakleia, our ignorance is not so complete. That city-much nearer than Sinôpê to the mouth of the Thracian Bosporus, and distant by sea from Byzantium only one long Mariandyni day's voyage of a rowboat-was established by Megarians and Boeotians on the coast of the Mariandyni. These natives were subdued, and reduced to a kind of serfdom; whereby they became slaves, 1 Arrian, iii. 24, 8; Curtius, vi. 5, 6. 2 Polybius, v. 43.

reduced to

serfs.