Prudent administration of Herakleia, as a free the power ful princes of Asia Minorgeneral condition and influ ence of the on the coast. ships, numerously manned, and furnished with many brave combatants on the deck-which fought with eminent distinction in the naval battle between Ptolemy Keraunus (murderer and successor of Seleukus) and Antigonus Gonatas'. It is not my purpose to follow lower down the destinies of Herakleia. It maintained its internal autonomy, with considerable maritime power, a city, among dignified and prudent administration, and a partial, though sadly circumscribed, liberty of foreign action -until the successful war of the Romans against Mithridates (B.c. 69). In Asia Minor, the Hellenic cities on the coast were partly enabled to postpone Greek cities the epoch of their subjugation, by the great division of power which prevailed in the interior; for the potentates of Bithynia, Pergamus, Kappadokia, Pontus, Syria, were in almost perpetual discordwhile all of them were menaced by the intrusion of the warlike and predatory Gauls, who extorted for themselves settlements in Galatia (B.c. 276). The kings, the enemies of civic freedom, were kept partially in check by these new and formidable neighbours, who were themselves however hardly less formidable to the Grecian cities on the coast3. Sinôpê, Herakleia, Byzantium,—and even Rhodes, in spite of the advantage of an insular position,isolated relicts of what had once been an Hellenic aggregate, become from henceforward cribbed and confined by inland neighbours almost at their gates* 1 Memnon, c. 13: compare Polyb. xviii. 34. 2 This is a remarkable observation made by Memnon, c. 19. 4 Contrast the independent and commanding position occupied by Byzantium in 399 B.C., acknowledging no superior except Sparta (Xenoph. Anab. vii. 1)—with its condition in the third century B.C. CHAP. XCVIII.] PENTAPOLIS ON THE EUXINE. 639 -dependent on the barbaric potentates, between whom they were compelled to trim, making themselves useful in turn to all. It was however frequent wtih these barbaric princes to derive their wives, mistresses, ministers, negotiators, officers, engineers, literati, artists, actors, and intermediate agents both for ornament and recreation-from some Greek city. Among them all, more or less of Hellenic influence became thus insinuated; along with the Greek language which spread its roots everywhere-even among the Gauls or Galatians, the rudest and latest of the foreign immigrants. on the south-west Of the Grecian maritime towns in the Euxine Grecian south of the Danube-Apollonia, Mesembria, OdêsPentapolis sus, Kallatis, Tomi, and Istrus-five (seemingly of the without Tomi) formed a confederate Pentapolis'. EuxineAbout the year 312 B.C., we hear of them as under Tomi. the power of Lysimachus king of Thrace, who kept harassed and pillaged almost to the gates of the town by the neighbouring Thracians and Gauls, and only purchasing immunity by continued money payments: see Polybius, iv. 45. 1 Strabo, vii. p. 319. Philip of Macedon defeated the Scythian prince Atheas or Ateas (about 340 B.C.) somewhere between Mount Hæmus and the Danube (Justin, ix. 2). But the relations of Ateas with the towns of Istrus and Apollonia, which are said to have brought Philip into the country, are very difficult to understand. It is most probable that these cities invited Philip as their defender. In Inscription, No. 2056 c. (in Boeckh's Corp. Inscript. Græc. part xi. p. 79), the five cities constituting the Pentapolis are not clearly named. Boeckh supposes them to be Apollonia, Mesembria, Odêssus, Kallatis, and Tomi; but Istrus seems more probable than Tomi. Odessus was on the site of the modern Varna, where the Inscription was found; greatly south of the modern town of Odessa, which is on the site of another town Ordésus. An Inscription (2056) immediately preceding the above, also found at Odêssus, contains a vote of thanks and honours to a certain citizen of Antioch, who resided with .... (name imperfect), king of the Scythians, and rendered great service to the Greeks by his influence. Ovid at a garrison in Kallatis-probably in the rest also. They made a struggle to shake off his yoke, obtaining assistance from some of the neighbouring Thracians and Scythians, as well as from Antigonus. But Lysimachus, after a contest which seems to have lasted three or four years, overpowered both their allies and them, reducing them again into subjection'. Kallatis sustained a long siege, dismissing some of its ineffective residents; who were received and sheltered by Eumelus prince of Bosporus. It was in pushing his conquests yet farther northward, in the steppe between the rivers Danube and Dniester, that Lysimachus came into conflict with the powerful prince of the Geta-Dromichates; by whom he was defeated and captured, but generously released. I have already mentioned that the empire of Lysimachus ended with his last defeat and death by Seleukus―(281 B.C.). By his death, the cities of the Pontic Pentapolis regained a temporary independence. But their barbaric neighbours became more and more formidable, being reinforced seemingly by immigration of fresh hordes from Asia; thus the Sarmatians, who in Herodotus's time were on the east of the Tanais, appear, three centuries afterwards, even south of the Danube. By these tribes-Thracians, Getæ, Scythians, and Sarmatians-the Greek cities of this Pentapolis were successively pillaged. Though renewed indeed afterwards, from the necessity of some place of traffic, even for the pillagers themselves-they were but poorly renewed, with a 1 Diodor. xix. 73; xx. 25. 2 Strabo, vii. p. 302-305; Pausanias, i. 9, 5. CHAP. XCVIII.] OVID AT TOMI. 641 large infusion of barbaric residents'. Such was the condition in which the exile Ovid found Tomi, near the beginning of the Christian era. The Tomitans were more than half barbaric, and their Greek not easily intelligible. The Sarmatian or Getic horsebowmen, with their poisoned arrows, ever hovered near, galloped even up to the gates, and carried off the unwary cultivators into slavery. Even within a furlong of the town, there was no security either for person or property. The residents were clothed in skins, or leather; while the women, ignorant both of spinning and weaving, were employed either in grinding corn or in carrying on their heads the pitchers of water2. By these same barbarians, Olbia also (on the right bank of the Hypanis or Bug near its mouth) became robbed of that comfort and prosperity which it had enjoyed when visited by Herodotus. In his day, the Olbians lived on good terms with the Scythian tribes in their neighbourhood. They paid a stipulated tribute, giving presents besides to the prince and his immediate favourites; and on these conditions, their persons and properties were respected. The Scythian prince Skylês (son of an Dion. Chrysost. Orat. xxxvi. (Borysthenitica) p. 75, Reisk. eiλov δὲ καὶ ταύτην (Olbia) Γέται, καὶ τὰς ἄλλας τὰς ἐν τοῖς ἀριστέροις τοῦ Πόντου πόλεις, μέχρι ̓Απολλωνίας· ὅθεν δὴ καὶ σφόδρα ταπεινὰ τὰ πράγματα κατέστη τῶν ταύτῃ Ἑλλήνων· τῶν μὲν οὐκέτι συνοικισθεισῶν πόλεων, τῶν δὲ φαυλῶς, καὶ τῶν πλείστων βαρβάρων εἰς αὐτὰς συρῥεόντων. The picture drawn by Ovid, of his situation as an exile at Tomi, can never fail to interest, from the mere beauty and felicity of his expression; but it is not less interesting, as a real description of Hellenism in its last phase, degraded and overborne by adverse fates. The truth of Ovid's picture is fully borne out by the analogy of Olbia, preVOL. XII. 2 T Hellenic mother from Istrus, who had familiarised him with Greek speech and letters) had built a fine house in the town, and spent in it a month, from attachment to Greek manners and religion, while his Scythian army lay near the gates without molesting any one'. It is true, that this proceeding cost Skyles sently to be mentioned. His complaints run through the five books of the Tristia, and the four books of Epistolæ ex Ponto (Trist. v. 10, 15). "Innumeræ circa gentes fera bella minantur, This is a Quæ sibi non rapto vivere turpe putant. Nil extra tutum est: tumulus defenditur ægre Monibus exiguis ingenioque soli. Cum minime credas, ut avis, densissimus hostis ope castelli defendimur: et tamen intus specimen out of many others: compare Trist. iii. 10, 53; iv. 1, 67; Epist. Pont. iii. 1. Ovid dwells especially upon the fact that there was more of barbaric than of Hellenic speech at Tomi-" Graiaque quod Getico victa loquela sono est" (Trist. v. 2, 68). Woollen clothing, and the practice of spinning and weaving by the free women of the family, were among the most familiar circumstances of Grecian life; the absence of these feminine arts, and the use of skins or leather for clothing, were notable departures from Grecian habits (Ex Ponto, iii. 8) :- "Vellera dura ferunt pecudes; et Palladis uti Femina pro lanâ Cerealia munera frangit, Suppositoque gravem vertice portat aquam." 1 Herodot. iv. 16-18. The town was called Olbia by its inhabitants, but Borysthenes usually by foreigners; though it was not on the Borysthenes river (Dnieper), but on the right bank of the Hypanis (Bug). |