was situated between Odessa and Oczakow; it was also termed _Borysthenis_
or _Borysthenopolis_, but the city is generally called Olbia, while its
inhabitants are spoken of under the names of Βορυσθενοπολῖται, Ὄλβιοι,
and Ὀλβιοπολῖται. It was a great emporium for the Greek corn trade
with the countries about the Dniepr. That trade was carried on from
two points, first from the Ukraine and the Dniepr, and secondly from
Phanagoria, the Cimmerian Bosporus, the Don, and the Taurian Chersonesus.
As apparently unimportant circumstances often supply the place of
historical information, so the decay of Olbia justifies the inference
that the commerce of the Dniepr, to which Olbia owed its greatness, must
have been destroyed, and that too in consequence of the invasion of those
countries by the Gauls on the one hand, and by the Sarmatians on the
other. Agriculture must have been ruined, and nomadic tribes appear to
have settled there. The Bosporanian towns retained their importance, but
Olbia was insignificant compared with what it had been, and never rose
again. When a place, after its destruction, continues to be inhabited,
the stones and especially marble, are ill preserved: Olbia had received
its death-blow, and though it continued for a time to be inhabited by
the Greeks, it was afterwards completely destroyed by the barbarians, and
never restored. Innumerable inscriptions are thus buried in the ground,
from which we can gather information about the condition of Olbia; one of
them[84] refers to the period preceding the appearance of the Sarmatae.
From Dion Chrysostomus, we know that in Caesar’s time the Sarmatae
came across the Dniepr, and took and destroyed Olbia. In his own time
Olbia was a thinly inhabited and decayed place of large circumference.
Afterwards it is no longer mentioned. From Herodotus, who himself visited
the place, we can best see how great it was in his time.
From Olbia, we proceed to the Crimea, the _Chersonesus Taurica_, in
modern times sometimes called _Tauris_,—a name of which it has been
justly remarked, that it was unknown to the ancients, but it does not
follow that we too should not use it; only in writing Latin we should
not employ it, but follow the practice of the ancients. The correct name
is Ταυρική; and Ταυρίς, though correctly formed, does not occur, but
the country was called from its inhabitants Ταῦροι, whence Ἰφιγένεια
ἐν Ταύροις, and not _in Tauride_. This Taurian Chersonesus consists of
two halves which are separated nearly equally by a diagonal running
from north-west to south-east. The southern half has an excellent range
of hills, whereas the other is a steppe. The former was inhabited by
Taurians, the latter by Scythians; the Taurians were, as Herodotus says,
foreign to the Scythians. The Greeks formed settlements on the coast of
the Taurian country, and also on the Cimmerian Bosporus.
The great town called CHERSONESUS was situated on the promontory of a
small island, as the isthmus could easily be defended by fortifications;
it had an excellent harbour, for which reason it had been chosen as the
site of a colony. The town was a colony of Heraclea in Bithynia, whose
greatness belongs to the period previous to the Mithridatic wars; its
vicissitudes are manifold; it must have been founded after the time of
Herodotus, as he does not mention it. The passage in which he speaks of
those countries, shows that he would have noticed it, if it had existed.
But whenever it may have been founded, it became important at an early
period, and was known under the name of Ἡρακλεία ἐν Χερσονήσῳ, or simply
Χερσόνησος. In consequence of attacks from barbarous tribes, it was
obliged to place itself under the protection of Mithridates Eupator.
This was the beginning of happy times for the Greeks in those parts; the
whole of the Crimea was united under one government, and the barbarians
were excluded by fortifications on the isthmus. The kings of Bosporus,
descendants of Mithridates, governed the peninsula as a splendid little
kingdom under the protection of the Romans, who never introduced their
provincial institutions there, but were satisfied with the recognition
of their supremacy and presents. Under this government the Chersonesus
retained its importance, and when the kingdom of Bosporus was broken up,
Chersonesus, which now assumed the name of _Cherson_, became a republic.
As such it existed not only in the reign of Justinian, when the Romans
protected the inhabitants as their allies and in that of the descendants
of Heraclius, but even afterwards under Constantine Porphyrogenitus (see
his detailed article Χερσῶν in the work _De Administrando Imperio_).
The constitution of this republic cannot be satisfactorily ascertained,
but its magistrates were called πρωτεύοντες. The place was then still
Greek, and Greek was spoken there, and national chronicles were kept in
the Greek language, which the author of the work just mentioned made
use of. Afterwards the peninsula was taken by the Russians under their
prince Wladimir, the first great conqueror who aimed at the possession
of Greece. The town was not indeed destroyed on that occasion, but many
things of value were carried away, as for example, the bronze gates of
the churches. Soon after, the Chazars and other barbarians came and
took possession of the town, which then disappears from history. In
1784, when the Russians took the Crimea, the town no longer existed, but
only extensive ruins. Regular and systematic excavations might have led
to important discoveries, but the Russians built a harbour for their
navy; everything was rudely demolished for the purpose of using it as
building material; all the iron was torn away, and the bricks employed
elsewhere, so that at present not a trace appears of what forty years ago
promised certain reward for suitable exertion. Inscriptions, as far as I
know, have not been found; but a large number of coins of the Byzantine
period have been brought to light, from which we see that the town, like
Venice, even then had its own right of coinage under the protection of
Constantinople.
Larger or smaller Greek settlements existed near most of the harbours.
THEODOSIA or THEUDOSIA in the neighbourhood of Kaffa, formed the western
frontier of the kingdom of Bosporus. At present the name Theodosia (in
Russian, Feodosia), has been transferred to Kaffa, but I believe that
those are right who consider this transference to be without foundation.
PHANAGORIA, in the eastern part of the Crimea, was situated on an
eminence, and was the chief Greek city in those parts. Although the
antiquities there have been destroyed in a barbarous manner, the place
still is an inexhaustible mine, and the remains show a degree of beauty
which excites our astonishment; the Bosporan coins are beautiful, and
the vases, statues, and the like are exquisite. Phanagoria was a very
ancient Greek colony of Miletus; it rose to greatness at an early period,
and was governed by a γένος bearing the name of Archaeanactidae, so that
its form of government was at first aristocratic. The Archaeanactidae
were probably succeeded by a democracy, and this by a tyrannis. Among
the tyrants, Leucon is of some interest to us, because Demosthenes, in
his speech against Leptines, speaks of an honorary right conferred upon
him for having done service to Athens. He was succeeded by Satyrus and
others, who completely undermined the republican constitution, which was
perhaps not suited to those countries. The Greek inhabitants were really
much indebted to those princes for preserving their wealth and happiness
in the midst of impetuous barbarians. Their names show distinct traces
of a connection with Persia; thus we often meet with the name Parysades,
which is nothing else than Perisades, the son of a fairy (Peri);
according to the Greek pronunciation the resemblance is stronger than
according to ours.
The kingdom of Bosporus embraced the whole of the eastern Crimea as
far as Theodosia, and the opposite island of _Taman_, _Tamacan_, or,
as Strabo calls it _Tamyrace_. It formed settlements also on the Palus
Maeotis and on the Euxine. In the time of Mithridates Eupator, it was
governed by king Parysades, who, being unable to check the invading
Sarmatae, surrendered his kingdom to Mithridates; the latter then
undertook an expedition into the Crimea, partly for the purpose of
extending his empire, and partly for that of training his army for the
war against the Romans. As long as he lived, Bosporus was his province;
it then passed into the hands of his family, which, like himself, had
become completely hellenized, though they were of Persian origin. We can
trace the names of the princes down to the fourth century from their
coins, the later ones of which show on one side the head of the reigning
emperor of Rome, and on the other that of the Bosporan king.
I cannot at this moment give you an accurate account of the towns in the
island of Taman, but they were without importance. The town of TANAIS,
which may have been very ancient, was situated at the mouth of the river
Tanais.
This small kingdom, ever since the time of Mithridates, comprised the
whole of the Crimea; across the isthmus, a line of fortifications had
been constructed to defend the Crimea against the northern barbarians.
An ancient Περίπλους περὶ Πόντον Εὔξεινον, the beginning of which is
lost, is a compilation from the earlier Greek Περίπλοι and from the work
of Scymnus of Chios, and contains the distances. But it is very doubtful
when it was composed; I believe that it is a late production, perhaps of
the time of Justinian, or even later, for all the distances are given in
stadia and Roman miles, and the town of Chersonesus is called Cherson.
Greek towns existed not only there, on the coast south of mount Kuban,
about the promontory of mount Caucasus, but even in the easternmost
corner of the Black Sea. On the eastern coast we find COLCHIS, which
exported the products of those parts, which are extremely wealthy, and
form one of the most fertile countries in the world. In the upper part
it contains wide and beautiful valleys, but the land is too high and not
as rich as in Mingrelia. DIOSCURIA, a port town on a gulf, PHASIS, and
several other places on the south coast of the Euxine, were likewise
founded by Greek colonists.
If we proceed further west in this direction, we come first to TRAPEZUS,
a place well known from Xenophon’s Anabasis, to which it owes its
celebrity; afterwards it is not prominent again, until the time when a
dynasty of the Comneni established itself there, which even survived
the fall of the empire of Constantinople. In the earlier times it is
not very important. It did not belong to Cappadocia, but was situated
in the country now occupied by the Lazes, a people speaking a peculiar
Caucasian language. At Trapezus, the Greek language has maintained itself
among the Christians, while otherwise it is almost extinct in Asia Minor.
The statement made in the oral traditions of the Greeks, that the Doric
dialect was spoken there, is very doubtful.
AMISOS, a Milesian colony[85] on the Euxine, the birth-place of Strabo,
was an important Greek town in Cappadocia proper. It is strange that such
a distant corner of the Greek world should have given birth to a Strabo;
the number of faults that can be pointed out in his Greek diction is
very small, and even these may be only dialectical; otherwise he writes
excellently, for he thinks correctly; the loss of his history is ever to
be lamented, for it was assuredly a first-rate work.
The whole country of Trapezus rests on rough Armenian mountains; it is a
beautiful country, and to us northern people it would appear excellent,
but it is, nevertheless, very different from the blessed fields of Asia
Minor. The district containing Amisos and Sinope, on the other hand,
is a paradise; its fertility even in antiquity reached a height which
we can scarcely imagine in an ideal land, and such is the whole of the
north coast of Asia Minor as far as Constantinople. The winters, however,
are comparatively severe; the south winds from the Armenian mountains
are indeed bracing, but do not much impede the growth of the most
exquisite fruit of the south. All Greek towns in that part were free and
independent, until the kings of Pontus became powerful and subdued them
all, even Amisos.
SINOPE, north-west of the mouth of the Halys, and geographically within
the boundaries of Paphlagonia, was in ancient times the greatest Greek
town in those parts. Its site is one of those which must be noticed on
account of its great excellence; it was situated on a peninsula connected
with the main land by a narrow isthmus; the coast in the neighbourhood
is rocky, so that foreign ships cannot easily land. The peninsula was
of considerable extent, so that the town embraced large districts,
which were used by the inhabitants as gardens, vineyards, and fields,
and which in time of war furnished means of subsistence. The tunny
fish from the sea of Azow arrive there first, and the Sinopians have
the first advantage; these fish always pass along the coast, and in the
end, as I have already remarked, go into the harbour of Byzantium. The
advantages of its situation made the town great and prosperous, and its
inhabitants maintained their independence till towards the end of the
Hannibalian war, when Pharnaces, king of Pontus, took possession of it.
From that time it was the capital of Pontus; the kings resided in it, and
Mithridates Eupator adorned it with splendid buildings of every kind. It
was then conquered by Lucullus, and though it was not destroyed, its fate
was terrible. Under the Romans it was again a wealthy provincial town of
considerable importance.
The Greek towns CYTOROS, CROMNA, TION, and SESAMOS anciently existed on
the west of Sinope. Amastris, a daughter of a brother of the last Darius,
and the wife of Dionysius of Heraclea (she was afterwards married to
Lysimachus), united all these towns into one, which she called AMASTRIS,
and which became Greek, although she herself was a barbarian. Tion
afterwards revived as a separate town.
HERACLEA, a colony of Megara, and consequently a Dorian place, was
founded at an early period in the country of the Mariandynians, who
afterwards became the serfs of the Heracleotae, and stood to them in the
same relation as the Helots did to the Spartans. The city ruled over an
extensive and fertile country, took an active part in the navigation of
the Black Sea, and founded the town of Chersonesus. During the Persian
dominion it maintained its independence, and the satraps were unable
to exercise much influence upon it. The later history of Heraclea is
the same as that of all other towns, of which the constitution was not
modified according to the exigencies of the time: the ancient forms
could not be maintained, and the town fell into the hands of tyrants,
who governed it uninterruptedly until the Macedonian period. Several
of these tyrants were extremely mild, as, for example, Clearchus in the
time of Plato, whose mind was cultivated by the study of philosophy, and
several members of his family afterwards reigned in the same spirit.
Amastris, too, ruled there for a long time, and through her the town
became subject to Lysimachus. Afterwards a republican constitution was
again established there, and remained until the time of the Romans.
Heraclea was allied with Rome at an early period, and was favoured by
her; but in the war against Mithridates, Heraclea unfortunately declared
itself in his favour, in consequence of which it was taken and cruelly
treated by Cotta, and the Romans even sent a colony to it, a measure
which otherwise they never adopted in those countries. Thenceforth it
always remained a considerable town, as is still attested by its ruins.
We know the history of Heraclea from the extracts made by Photius from
the local history of Memnon, whose work was based on that of Nymphis.
EPIRUS.
Epirus is one of the few names which, being originally adjectives, have
by accident become proper names. Ἤπειρος, as is well known, occurs in
the Odyssey as opposed to the Cephallenian islands. In this sense the
meaning of the name is almost of indefinite extent, but afterwards,
and ever since the Macedonian period, a definite usage, of which
traces are found even before, became established; such a trace occurs
particularly in Xenophon’s Hellenica, where the name Epirus is applied
to the country north of the Ambracian gulf. But in the earlier times,
and even in Thucydides, it comprises a tract of country of far greater
extent, at least as far as the entrance to the Corinthian gulf; nay, it
even reaches beyond, embracing Aetolia and the country of the Ozolian
Locrians. This indefiniteness arises from the fact, that the towns in
those districts were so far removed from the other Greeks, and were
accordingly very little known to them. In all great nations consisting
of many tribes, some of which form the real centre, there are others
which are scarcely noticed at all; and such also was the case with the
Greeks in those parts, as well as in Apulia in Italy. This is proved
by the colonization of those coasts, which I have already mentioned,
just as if they had been inhabited by barbarians; I need only recall
to your recollection the colonies of Anactorium, Leucas, Alyzia on the
Acarnanian coast, and Chalcis on the Aetolian. Those nations were even
more foreign to the Greeks than the Thessalians, so that the Aetolians
and Acarnanians did not belong to the Amphictyonic league, though it
included even Malians, Dolopians, Aenianians, Magnetes, and others. These
are antiquarian points, to which we must direct our attention, in order
to obtain a clear and distinct view.
We shall speak of Epirus in its narrower sense. Its new and narrower
frontiers were formed especially at the time when the great Pyrrhus
became king of Epirus, and when the kingdom founded by him gained
consistency. In later times it was of a still more limited extent. As
those tribes, when they did speak Greek, spoke in the Doric dialect,
they called themselves Ἀπειρῶται, as we see from their coins, both
regal and republican. This form also remained the most familiar to
the Romans, and has been preserved down to our own time in the word
_apricots_ (_mala Apirotica_); in like manner, we find in Plautus _Alis_
and _Alii_ for _Elis_ and _Elii_. Later writers indeed used _Epirus_
and _Epiroticus_, but these are changes of the literary language, while
the genuine and more ancient form continued to be used in the popular
and spoken language. The Epirots must also have had a real national
name of their own; and this name has been preserved by Mnaseas, a pupil
of Aristarchus, in a scholion on the Odyssey. It was Siceli, like that
of the Oenotrians in Italy, and of the inhabitants of Sicily. I have
published a short essay on this subject in the _Rheinisches Museum_,[86]
and have shown that the Siceli mentioned in the Odyssey must be those of
Epirus, that the ancient grammarian is perfectly right in this respect,
and that for this reason the last rhapsody of the Odyssey is of quite a
different origin from the rest. Satisfactory results in the higher kind
of criticism, regarding the age of authors, may be arrived at in many
cases either by mere grammatical, or by mere historical philology, but
it is infinitely better if both can be combined, and such is the case
here, the one supporting the other. Bentley’s investigations on the
Epistles of Phalaris and the Fables of Aesop are models of inquiries, in
which historical and grammatical philology go hand in hand. Much that is
excellent has already been done for the Homeric poems; but there is still
much to be removed, and all the details must be treated of in connection
with one another. I am not speaking here of that which has already been
done by Wolf.
The name Siceli, as I said before, is ancient; but how long it was in
actual use is a different question. The correctness of the statement,
however, cannot be doubted. Another statement, from Theopompus, a writer
who notwithstanding many faults contains much that is instructive,
declares the Epirots to be Pelasgians. As regards the Pelasgian nations,
I think I may refer you to what I have said elsewhere;[87] I will defer
the discussion of this subject until I have made more progress in these
Lectures; I should like here to explain my views, but the time would
thereby become too short for the task I have proposed to myself. I will
therefore compress what I have to say in few words. The Pelasgians were
a race distinct from the Hellenes, but sprung from the same root as
they, and essentially and nearly allied to them. The difference was not
distinctly understood in the earliest times, whence many nations are
called by one author Hellenes, and by another Pelasgians. The statement
that the Hellenes in the Iliad are not yet mentioned by a common name,
that Hellenes and non-Hellenes were first properly distinguished by
Thucydides, refers to the difference existing between the Hellenes
and Pelasgians. Thus, e.g., Dodona in the Homeric Catalogue is called
Hellenic, and Herodotus calls the Molottians and Thesprotians Hellenes,
and so also the Epirots, as he was guided by their religion. But
Thucydides, who judged from the language of a nation, considers the
Epirots as different from the Hellenes, nay, he expressly calls them
barbarians. We understand by Epirots the nations extending from the
frontier of Illyricum as far as upper Macedonia (without as yet deciding
upon the name Macedonia), and then along mount Pindus as far as the
Achelous. To these nations we shall apply the name Epirots. I will first
mention what points they have in common, and then determine which of them
are to be regarded as Epirots and which not. These nations, at least
their educated classes, had so far adopted the Greek language, as to
employ it everywhere in public and written transactions. This accounts
for Polybius always distinctly including them among the Greeks; and
he does so even in regard to those who lived beyond the boundaries of
Epirus fixed by Pyrrhus: though on one occasion he makes Philip, the son
of Demetrius, say of the Aetolians, that they ought not to boast too
much of their Hellenic character, nor to distinguish the Macedonians
from the Hellenes, since the greater part of them were descended from
non-Hellenes and barbarians. And the nations there spoken of were Epirot
tribes. In this manner, Polybius somewhat contradicts himself. But it
is only critics fond of hair-splitting that can attach any weight to
such a contradiction; an author like Polybius, even without scrupulously
weighing his words, can not mislead a sensible reader.