XCVII. SICILIAN AND ITALIAN GREEKS. — AGATHOKLES

It has been convenient, throughout all this work, to keep the history of the Italian and Sicilian Greeks distinct from that of the Central and Asiatic. We parted last from the Sicilian Greeks,[917] at the death of their champion the Corinthian Timoleon (337 B. C.), by whose energetic exploits, and generous political policy, they had been almost regenerated—rescued from foreign enemies, protected against intestine discord, and invigorated by a large reinforcement of new colonists. For the twenty years next succeeding the death of Timoleon, the history of Syracuse and Sicily is an absolute blank; which is deeply to be regretted, since the position of these cities included so much novelty—so many subjects for debate, for peremptory settlement, or for amicable compromise—that the annals of their proceedings must have been peculiarly interesting. Twenty years after the death of Timoleon, we find the government of Syracuse described as an oligarchy; implying that the constitution established by Timoleon must have been changed either by violence or by consent. The oligarchy is stated as consisting of 600 chief men, among whom Sosistratus and Herakleides appear as leaders.[918] We hear generally that the Syracusans had been engaged in wars, and that Sosistratus either first originated, or first firmly established, his oligarchy, after an expedition undertaken to the coast of Italy, to assist the citizens of Kroton against their interior neighbors and assailants the Bruttians.

[917] See my last preceding Vol. XI. Ch. lxxxv. p. 196.

[918] Diodor. xix. 3. It appears that Diodorus had recounted in his eighteenth Book the previous circumstances of these two leaders; but this part of his narrative is lost: see Wesseling’s note.

Not merely Kroton, but other Grecian cities also on the coast of Italy, appear to have been exposed to causes of danger and decline, similar to those which were operating upon so many other portions of the Hellenic world. Their non-Hellenic neighbors in the interior were growing too powerful and too aggressive to leave them in peace or security. The Messapians, the Lucanians, the Bruttians, and other native Italian tribes, were acquiring that increased strength which became ultimately all concentrated under the mighty republic of Rome. I have in my preceding volume recounted the acts of the two Syracusan despots, the elder and younger Dionysius, on this Italian coast.[919] Though the elder gained some advantage over the Lucanians, yet the interference of both contributed only to enfeeble and humiliate the Italiot Greeks. Not long before the battle of Chæroneia (340-338 B. C.), the Tarentines found themselves so hard pressed by the Messapians, that they sent to Sparta, their mother-city, to entreat assistance. The Spartan king Archidamus son of Agesilaus, perhaps ashamed of the nullity of his country since the close of the Sacred War, complied with their prayer, and sailed at the head of a mercenary force to Italy. How long his operations there lasted, we do not know; but they ended by his being defeated and killed, near the time of the battle of Chæroneia[920] (338 B. C.).

[919] See Vol. XI. Ch. lxxxiii. p. 22; Ch. lxxxv. p. 133.

[920] Diodor. xvi. 88; Plutarch, Camill. 19; Pausan. iii. 10, 5. Plutarch even says that the two battles occurred on the same day.

About six years after this event, the Tarentines, being still pressed by the same formidable neighbors, invoked the aid of the Epirotic Alexander, king of the Molossians, and brother of Olympias. These Epirots now, during the general decline of Grecian force, rise into an importance which they had never before enjoyed[921]. Philip of Macedon, having married Olympias, not only secured his brother-in-law on the Molossian throne, but strengthened his authority over subjects not habitually obedient. It was through Macedonian interference that the Molossian Alexander first obtained (though subject to Macedonian ascendency) the important city of Ambrakia; which thus passed out of a free Hellenic community into the capital and seaport of the Epirotic kings. Alexander farther cemented his union with Macedonia by marrying his own niece Kleopatra, daughter of Philip and Olympias. In fact, during the lives of Philip and Alexander the Great, the Epirotic kingdom appears a sort of adjunct to the Macedonian; governed by Olympias either jointly with her brother the Molossian Alexander—or as regent after his death.[922]

[921] The Molossian King Neoptolemus was father both of Alexander (the Epirotic) and of Olympias. But as to the genealogy of the preceding kings, nothing certain can be made out: see Merleker, Darstellung des Landes und der Bewohner von Epeiros, Königsberg, 1844, p. 2-6.

[922] A curious proof how fully Olympias was queen of Epirus is preserved in the fragments (recently published by Mr. Babington) of the oration of Hyperides in defence of Euxenippus, p. 12. The Athenians, in obedience to an oracular mandate from the Dodonæan Zeus, had sent to Dodona a solemn embassy for sacrifice, and had dressed and adorned the statue of Diônê there situated. Olympias addressed a despatch to the Athenians, reproving them for this as a trespass upon her dominions—ὑπὲρ τούτων ὑμῖν τὰ ἐγκλήματα ἦλθε παρ᾽ Ὀλυμπιάδος ἐν ταῖς ἐπιστολαῖς, ὡς ~ἡ χώρα εἴη ἡ Μολοσσία αὐτῆς~, ἐν ᾗ τὸ ἱερόν ἐστιν· οὔκουν προσῆκεν ἡμᾶς τῶν ἐκεῖ οὐδὲ ἓν κινεῖν. Olympias took a high and insolent tone in this letter (τὰς ~τραγῳδίας~ αὐτῆς καὶ τὰς κατηγορίας, etc.)

The date of this oration is at some period during the life of Alexander the Great—but cannot be more precisely ascertained. After the death of Alexander, Olympias passed much time in Epirus, where she thought herself more secure from the enmity of Antipater (Diodor. xviii. 49).

Dodona had been one of the most ancient places of pilgrimage for the Hellenic race—especially for the Athenians. The order here addressed to them,—that they should abstain from religious manifestations at this sanctuary—is a remarkable proof of the growing encroachments on free Hellenism; the more so, as Olympias sent offerings to temples at Athens when she chose and without asking permission—we learn this from the same fragment of Hyperides.

It was about the year after the battle of Issus that the Molossian Alexander undertook his expedition into Italy;[923] doubtless instigated in part by emulation of the Asiatic glories of his nephew and namesake. Though he found enemies more formidable than the Persians at Issus, yet his success was at first considerable. He gained victories over the Messapians, the Lucanians, and the Samnites; he conquered the Lucanian town of Consentia, and the Bruttian town of Tereina; he established an alliance with the Pœdiculi, and exchanged friendly messages with the Romans. As far as we can make out from scanty data, he seems to have calculated on establishing a comprehensive dominion in the south of Italy, over all its population—over Greek cities, Lucanians, and Bruttians. He demanded and obtained three hundred of the chief Lucanian and Messapian families, whom he sent over as hostages to Epirus. Several exiles of these nations joined him as partisans. He farther endeavored to transfer the congress of the Greco-Italian cities, which had been usually held at the Tarentine colony of Herakleia, to Thurii; intending probably to procure for himself a compliant synod like that serving the purpose of his Macedonian nephew at Corinth. But the tide of his fortune at length turned. The Tarentines became disgusted and alarmed; his Lucanian partisans proved faithless; the stormy weather in the Calabrian Apennines broke up the communication between his different detachments, and exposed them to be cut off in detail. He himself perished, by the hands of a Lucanian exile, in crossing the river Acheron, and near the town of Pandosia. This was held to be a memorable attestation of the prophetic veracity of the oracle; since he had received advice from Dodona to beware of Pandosia and Acheron; two names which he well knew, and therefore avoided, in Epirus—but which he had not before known to exist in Italy.[924]

[923] Livy (viii. 3-24) places the date of this expedition of the Molossian Alexander eight years earlier; but it is universally recognized that this is a mistake.

[924] Livy, viii. 17-24; Justin, xii. 2; Strabo, vi. p. 280.

The Greco-Italian cities had thus dwindled down into a prize to be contended for between the Epirotic kings and the native Italian powers—as they again became, still more conspicuously, fifty years afterwards, during the war between Pyrrhus and the Romans. They were now left to seek foreign aid, where they could obtain it, and to become the prey of adventurers. It is in this capacity that we hear of them as receiving assistance from Syracuse, and that the formidable name of Agathokles first comes before us—seemingly about 320 B. C.[925] The Syracusan force, sent to Italy to assist the Krotoniates against their enemies the Bruttians, was commanded by a general named Antander, whose brother Agathokles served with him in a subordinate command.

[925] Diodor. xix. 3.

To pass over the birth and childhood of Agathokles—respecting which, romantic anecdotes are told, as about most eminent men,—it appears that his father, a Rhegine exile named Karkinus, came from Therma (in the Carthaginian portion of Sicily) to settle at Syracuse, at the time when Timoleon invited and received new Grecian settlers to the citizenship of the latter city. Karkinus was in comparative poverty, following the trade of a potter; which his son Agathokles learnt also, being about eighteen years of age when domiciliated with his father at Syracuse.[926] Though starting from this humble beginning, and even notorious for the profligacy and rapacity of his youthful habits, Agathokles soon attained a conspicuous position, partly from his own superior personal qualities, partly from the favor of a wealthy Syracusan named Damas. The young potter was handsome, tall, and of gigantic strength; he performed with distinction the military service required from him as a citizen, wearing a panoply so heavy, that no other soldier could fight with it; he was moreover ready, audacious, and emphatic in public harangue. Damas became much attached to him, and not only supplied him profusely with money, but also, when placed in command of a Syracusan army against the Agrigentines, nominated him one of the subordinate officers. In this capacity Agathokles acquired great reputation, for courage in battle, ability in command, and fluency of speech. Presently Damas died of sickness, leaving a widow without children. Agathokles married the widow, and thus raised himself to a high fortune and position in Syracuse.[927]

[926] Timæus apud Polybium, xii. 15; Diodor. xix. 2.

[927] Diodor. xix. 3; Justin, xxii. 1. Justin states the earliest military exploits of Agathokles to have been against the Ætuæans, not against the Agrigentines.

Of the oligarchy which now prevailed at Syracuse, we have no particulars, nor do we know how it had come to be substituted for the more popular forms established by Timoleon. We hear only generally that the oligarchical leaders, Sosistratus and Herakleides, were unprincipled and sanguinary men.[928] By this government an expedition was despatched from Syracuse to the Italian coast, to assist the inhabitants of Kroton against their aggressive neighbors the Bruttians. Antander, brother of Agathokles, was one of the generals commanding this armament, and Agathokles himself served in it as a subordinate officer. We neither know the date, the duration, nor the issue, of this expedition.

[928] Diodor. xix. 3, 4. Diodorus had written more about this oligarchy in a part of his eighteenth book; which part is not preserved: see Wesseling’s note.

But it afforded a fresh opportunity to Agathokles to display his adventurous bravery and military genius, which procured for him high encomium. He was supposed by some, on his return to Syracuse, to be entitled to the first prize for valor; but Sosistratus and the other oligarchical leaders withheld it from him and preferred another. So deeply was Agathokles incensed by this refusal, that he publicly inveighed against them among the people, as men aspiring to despotism. His opposition being unsuccessful, and drawing upon him the enmity of the government, he retired to the coast of Italy.

Here he levied a military band of Grecian exiles and Campanian mercenaries, which he maintained by various enterprises for or against the Grecian cities. He attacked Kroton, but was repulsed with loss; he took service with the Tarentines, fought for some time against their enemies, but at length became suspected and dismissed; he then joined himself with the inhabitants of Rhegium, assisting in the defence of the town against a Syracusan aggression. He even made two attempts to obtain admission by force into Syracuse, and to seize the government.[929] Though repulsed in both of them, he nevertheless contrived to maintain a footing in Sicily, was appointed general at the town of Morgantium, and captured Leontini, within a short distance north of Syracuse. Some time afterwards, a revolution took place at Syracuse, whereby Sosistratus and the oligarchy were dispossessed and exiled with many of their partisans.

[929] Diodor. xix. 4; Justin, xxii. 1. “Bis occupare imperium Syracusarum voluit; bis in exilium actus est.”

In the same manner, the Syracusan exile Hermokrates had attempted to extort by force his return, at the head of 3000 men, and by means of partisans within; he failed and was slain—B. C. 408 (Diodor. xiii. 75).

Under the new government, Agathokles obtained his recall, and soon gained increased ascendency. The dispossessed exiles contrived to raise forces, and to carry on a formidable war against Syracuse from without; they even obtained assistance from the Carthaginians, so as to establish themselves at Gela, on the southern confines of the Syracusan territory. In the military operations thus rendered necessary, Agathokles took a forward part, distinguishing himself among the ablest and most enterprising officers. He tried, with 1000 soldiers, to surprise Gela by night; but finding the enemy on their guard, he was repulsed with loss and severely wounded; yet by an able manœuvre he brought off all his remaining detachment. Though thus energetic against the public enemy, however, he at the same time inspired both hatred and alarm for his dangerous designs, to the Syracusans within. The Corinthian Akestorides, who had been named general of the city—probably from recollection of the distinguished services formerly rendered by the Corinthian Timoleon—becoming persuaded that the presence of Agathokles was full of peril to the city, ordered him to depart, and provided men to assassinate him on the road during the night. But Agathokles, suspecting their design, disguised himself in the garb of a beggar, appointing another man to travel in the manner which would be naturally expected from himself. This substitute was slain in the dark by the assassins, while Agathokles escaped by favor of his disguise. He and his partisans appear to have found shelter with the Carthaginians in Sicily.[930]

[930] Diodor. xix. 5, 6. A similar stratagem is recounted of the Karian Datames (Cornelius Nepos, Datames, 9).

That Agathokles, on leaving Syracuse, went to the Carthaginians, appears to be implied in the words of Diodorus, c. 6—τοὺς αὐτῷ πρότερον συμπορευθέντας ~πρὸς~ Καρχηδονίους (see Wesseling’s note on the translation of ~πρὸς~). This fact is noticed merely incidentally, in the confused narrative of Diodorus; but it brings him to a certain extent into harmony with Justin (xxii. 2), who insists much on the combination between Agathokles and the Carthaginians, as one of the main helps whereby he was enabled to seize the supreme power.

Not long afterwards, another change took place in the government of Syracuse, whereby the oligarchical exiles were recalled, and peace made with the Carthaginians. It appears that a senate of 600 was again installed as the chief political body; probably not the same men as before, and with some democratical modifications. At the same time, negotiations were opened, through the mediation of the Carthaginian commander Hamilkar, between the Syracusans and Agathokles. The mischiefs of intestine conflict, amidst the numerous discordant parties in the city, pressed hard upon every one, and hopes were entertained that all might be brought to agree in terminating them. Agathokles affected to enter cordially into these projects of amnesty and reconciliation. The Carthaginian general Hamilkar, who had so recently aided Sosistratus and the Syracusan oligarchy, now did his best to promote the recall of Agathokles, and even made himself responsible for the good and pacific behavior of that exile. Agathokles, and the other exiles along with him were accordingly restored. A public assembly was convened in the temple of Demeter, in the presence of Hamilkar; where Agathokles swore by the most awful oaths, with his hands touching the altar and statue of the goddess, that he would behave as a good citizen of Syracuse, uphold faithfully the existing government, and carry out the engagements of the Carthaginian mediators—abstaining from encroachments on the rights and possessions of Carthage in Sicily. His oaths and promises were delivered with so much apparent sincerity, accompanied by emphatic harangues, that the people were persuaded to name him general and guardian of the peace, for the purpose of realizing the general aspirations towards harmony. Such appointment was recommended (it seems) by Hamilkar.[931]

[931] The account here given is the best which I can make out from Diodorus (xix. 5), Justin (xxii. 2),—Polyænus (v. 3, 8). The first two allude to the solemn oath taken by Agathokles—παραχθεὶς εἰς τὸ τῆς Δήμητρος ἱερὸν ὑπὸ τῶν πολιτῶν, ὤμοσε μηδὲν ἐναντιωθήσεσθαι τῇ δημοκρατίᾳ—“Tunc Hamilcari expositis ignibus Cereris tactisque in obsequia Pœnorum jurat.” “Jurare in obsequia Pœnorum” can hardly be taken to mean that Syracuse was to become subject to Carthage; there was nothing antecedent to justify such a proceeding, nor does anything follow in the sequel which implies it.

Compare also the speech which Justin puts into the mouth of Bomilkar when executed for treason by the Carthaginians—“objectans illis (Carthaginiensibus) in Hamilcarem patruum suum tacita suffragia, quod Agathoclem sociam illis facere, quam hostem, maluerit” (xxii. 7). This points to previous collusion between Hamilkar and Agathokles.

All this train of artifice had been concerted by Agathokles with Hamilkar, for the purpose of enabling the former to seize the supreme power. As general of the city, Agathokles had the direction of the military force. Under the pretence of marching against some refractory exiles at Erbita in the interior, he got together 3000 soldiers strenuously devoted to him—mercenaries and citizens of desperate character—to which Hamilkar added a reinforcement of Africans. As if about to march forth, he mustered his troops at daybreak in the Timoleonteon (chapel or precinct consecrated to Timoleon), while Peisarchus and Dekles, two chiefs of the senate already assembled, were invited with forty others to transact with him some closing business. Having these men in his power, Agathokles suddenly turned upon them, and denounced them to the soldiers as guilty of conspiring his death. Then, receiving from the soldiers a response full of ardor, he ordered them immediately to proceed to a general massacre of the senate and their leading partisans, with full permission of licentious plunder in the houses of these victims, the richest men in Syracuse. The soldiers rushed into the street with ferocious joy to execute this order. They slew not only the senators, but many others also, unarmed and unprepared; each man selecting victims personally obnoxious to him. They broke open the doors of the rich, or climbed over the roofs, massacred the proprietors within, and ravished the females. They chased the unsuspecting fugitives through the streets, not sparing even those who took refuge in the temples. Many of these unfortunate sufferers rushed for safety to the gates, but found them closed and guarded by special order of Agathokles; so that they were obliged to let themselves down from the walls, in which many perished miserably. For two days Syracuse was thus a prey to the sanguinary, rapacious, and lustful impulses of the soldiery; four thousand citizens had been already slain, and many more were seized as prisoners. The political purposes of Agathokles, as well as the passions of the soldiers, being then sated, he arrested the massacre. He concluded this bloody feat by killing such of his prisoners as were most obnoxious to him, and banishing the rest. The total number of expelled or fugitive Syracusans is stated at 6000; who found a hospitable shelter and home at Agrigentum. One act of lenity is mentioned, and ought not to be omitted amidst this scene of horror. Deinokrates, one among the prisoners, was liberated by Agathokles from motives of former friendship: he too, probably, went into voluntary exile.[932]

[932] Diodor. xix. 8, 9; Justin, xxii. 2.

After a massacre thus perpetrated in the midst of profound peace, and in the full confidence of a solemn act of mutual reconciliation immediately preceding—surpassing the worst deeds of the elder Dionysius, and indeed (we might almost say) of all other Grecian despots—Agathokles convened what he called an assembly of the people. Such of the citizens as were either oligarchical, or wealthy, or in any way unfriendly to him, had been already either slain or expelled; so that the assembly probably included few besides his own soldiers: Agathokles, addressing them in terms of congratulation on the recent glorious exploit, whereby they had purged the city of its oligarchical tyrants—proclaimed that the Syracusan people had now reconquered their full liberty. He affected to be weary of the toils of command, and anxious only for a life of quiet equality as one among the many; in token of which he threw off his general’s cloak and put on a common civil garment. But those whom he addressed, fresh from the recent massacre and plunder, felt that their whole security depended upon the maintenance of his supremacy, and loudly protested that they would not accept his resignation. Agathokles, with pretended reluctance, told them, that if they insisted, he would comply, but upon the peremptory condition of enjoying a single-handed authority, without any colleagues or counsellors for whose misdeeds he was to be responsible. The assembly replied by conferring upon him, with unanimous acclamations, the post of general with unlimited power, or despot.[933]

[933] Diodor. xix. 9.

Thus was constituted a new despot of Syracuse about fifty years after the decease of the elder Dionysius, and twenty-two years after Timoleon had rooted out the Dionysian dynasty, establishing on its ruins a free polity. On accepting the post, Agathokles took pains to proclaim that he would tolerate no farther massacre or plunder, and that his government would for the future be mild and beneficent. He particularly studied to conciliate the poorer citizens, to whom he promised abolition of debts and a new distribution of lands. How far he carried out this project systematically, we do not know; but he conferred positive donations on many of the poor—which he had abundant means of doing, out of the properties of the numerous exiles recently expelled. He was full of promises to every one, displaying courteous and popular manners, and abstaining from all ostentation of guards, or ceremonial attendants, or a diadem. He at the same time applied himself vigorously to strengthen his military and naval force, his magazines of arms and stores, and his revenues. He speedily extended his authority over all the territorial domain of Syracuse, with her subject towns, and carried his arms successfully over many other parts of Sicily.[934]

[934] Diodor. xix. 9.; Justin, xxii. 2.

The Carthaginian general Hamilkar, whose complicity or connivance had helped Agathokles to this blood-stained elevation, appears to have permitted him without opposition to extend his dominion over a large portion of Sicily, and even to plunder the towns in alliance with Carthage itself. Complaints having been made to Carthage, this officer was superseded, and another general (also named Hamilkar) was sent in his place. We are unable to trace in detail the proceedings of Agathokles during the first years of his despotism; but he went on enlarging his sway over the neighboring cities, while the Syracusan exiles, whom he had expelled, found a home partly at Agrigentum (under Deinokrates), partly at Messênê. About the year 314 B. C., we hear that he made an attempt on Messênê, which he was on the point of seizing, had he not been stopped by the interference of the Carthaginians (perhaps the newly-appointed Hamilkar), who now at length protested against his violation of the convention; meaning (as we must presume, for we know of no other convention) the oath which had been sworn by Agathokles at Syracuse under the guarantee of the Carthaginians.[935] Though thus disappointed at Messênê, Agathokles seized Abakænum—where he slew the leading citizens opposed to him,—and carried on his aggressions elsewhere so effectively, that the leaders at Agrigentum, instigated by the Syracusan exiles there harbored, became convinced of the danger of leaving such encroachments unresisted.[936] The people of Agrigentum came to the resolution of taking up arms on behalf of the liberties of Sicily, and allied themselves with Gela and Messênê for the purpose.

[935] Diodor. xix. 65. καθ᾽ ὃν δὴ χρόνον ἧκον ἐκ Καρχηδόνος πρέσβεις, οἳ τῷ μὲν Ἀγαθοκλεῖ περὶ τῶν πραχθέντων ἐπετίμησαν, ὡς παραβαίνοντι τὰς συνθήκας· τοῖς δὲ Μεσσηνίοις εἰρήνην παρεσκεύασαν, καὶ τὸ φρούριον ἀναγκάσαντες ἀποκαταστῆσαι τὸν τύραννον, ἀπέπλευσαν εἰς τὴν Λιβύην.

I do not know what συνθῆκαι can be here meant, except that oath described by Justin under the words “in obsequia Pœnorum jurat” (xxii. 2).

[936] Diodor. xix. 70. μὴ περιορᾷν Ἀγαθοκλέα συσκευαζόμενον τὰς πόλεις.

But the fearful example of Agathokles himself rendered them so apprehensive of the dangers from any military leader, at once native and energetic, that they resolved to invite a foreigner. Some Syracusan exiles were sent to Sparta, to choose and invoke some Spartan of eminence and ability, as Archidamus had recently been called to Tarentum—and even more, as Timoleon had been brought from Corinth, with results so signally beneficent. The old Spartan king Kleomenes (of the Eurysthenid race) had a son Akrotatus, then unpopular at home,[937] and well disposed towards foreign warfare. This prince, without even consulting the Ephors, listened at once to the envoys, and left Peloponnesus with a small squadron, intending to cross by Korkyra and the coast of Italy to Agrigentum. Unfavorable winds drove him as far north as Apollonia, and delayed his arrival at Tarentum; in which city, originally a Spartan colony, he met with a cordial reception, and obtained a vote of twenty vessels to assist his enterprise of liberating Syracuse from Agathokles. He reached Agrigentum with favorable hopes, was received with all the honors due to a Spartan prince, and undertook the command. Bitterly did he disappoint his party. He was incompetent as a general; he dissipated in presents or luxuries the money intended for the campaign, emulating Asiatic despots; his conduct was arrogant, tyrannical, and even sanguinary. The disgust which he inspired was brought to a height, when he caused Sosistratus, the leader of the Syracusan exiles, to be assassinated at a banquet. Immediately the exiles rose in a body to avenge this murder; while Akrotatus, deposed by the Agrigentines, only found safety in flight.[938]

[937] Diodor. xix. 70. After the defeat of Agis by Antipater, the severe Lacedæmonian laws against those who fled from battle had been suspended for the occasion; as had been done before, after the defeat of Leuktra. Akrotatus had been the only person (μόνος) who opposed this suspension; whereby he incurred the most violent odium generally, but most especially from the citizens who profited by the suspension. These men carried their hatred so far, that they even attacked, beat him and conspired against his life (οὗτοι γὰρ συστραφέντες πληγάς τε ἐνεφόρησαν αὐτῷ καὶ διετέλουν ἐπιβουλεύοντες).

This is a curious indication of Spartan manners.

[938] Diodor. xix. 71.

To this young Spartan prince, had he possessed a noble heart and energetic qualities, there was here presented a career of equal grandeur with that of Timoleon—against an enemy able indeed and formidable, yet not so superior in force as to render success impossible. It is melancholy to see Akrotatus, from simple worthlessness of character, throwing away such an opportunity; at a time when Sicily was the only soil on which a glorious Hellenic career was still open—when no similar exploits were practicable by any Hellenic leader in Central Greece, from the overwhelming superiority of force possessed by the surrounding kings.

The misconduct of Akrotatus broke up all hopes of active operations against Agathokles. Peace was presently concluded with the latter by the Agrigentines and their allies, under the mediation of the Carthaginian general Hamilkar. By the terms of this convention, all the Greek cities in Sicily were declared autonomous, yet under the hegemony of Agathokles; excepting only Himera, Selinus, and Herakleia, which were actually, and were declared still to continue, under Carthage. Messênê was the only Grecian city standing aloof from this convention; as such, therefore still remaining open to the Syracusan exiles. The terms were so favorable to Agathokles, that they were much disapproved at Carthage.[939] Agathokles, recognized as chief and having no enemy in the field, employed himself actively in strengthening his hold on the other cities, and in enlarging his military means at home. He sent a force against Messênê, to require the expulsion of the Syracusan exiles from that city, and to procure at the same time the recall of the Messenian exiles, partisans of his own, and companions of his army. His generals extorted these two points from the Messenians. Agathokles, having thus broken the force of Messênê, secured to himself the town still more completely, by sending for those Messenian citizens who had chiefly opposed him, and putting them all to death, as well as his leading opponents at Tauromenium. The number thus massacred was not less than six hundred.[940]

[939] Diodor. xix. 71, 72, 102. When the convention specifies Herakleia, Selinus, and Himera, as being under the Carthaginians, this is to be understood as in addition to the primitive Carthaginian settlements of Solus, Panormus, Lilybæum, etc., about which no question could arise.

[940] Diodor. xix. 72: compare a different narrative—Polyænus, v. 15.

It only remained for Agathokles to seize Agrigentum. Thither he accordingly marched. But Deinokrates and the Syracusan exiles, expelled from Messênê, had made themselves heard at Carthage, insisting on the perils to that city from the encroachments of Agathokles. The Carthaginians alarmed sent a fleet of sixty sail, whereby alone Agrigentum, already under siege by Agathokles, was preserved. The recent convention was now broken on all sides, and Agathokles kept no farther measures with the Carthaginians. He ravaged all their Sicilian territory, and destroyed some of their forts; while the Carthaginians on their side made a sudden descent with their fleet on the harbor of Syracuse. They could achieve nothing more, however, than the capture of one Athenian merchant-vessel, out of two there riding. They disgraced their acquisition by the cruel act (not uncommon in Carthaginian warfare) of cutting of the hands of the captive crew; for which, in a few days, retaliation was exercised upon the crews of some of their own ships, taken by the cruisers of Agathokles.[941]

[941] Diodor. xix. 103. It must be noticed, however, that even Julius Cæsar, in his wars in Gaul, sometimes cut off the hands of his Gallic prisoners taken in arms, whom he called rebels (Bell. Gall. viii. 44).

The defence of Agrigentum now rested principally on the Carthaginians in Sicily, who took up a position on the hill called Eknomus—in the territory of Gela, a little to the west of the Agrigentine border. Here Agathokles approached to offer them battle—having been emboldened by two important successes obtained over Deinokrates and the Syracusan exiles, near Kentoripa and Gallaria.[942] So superior was his force, however, that the Carthaginians thought it prudent to remain in their camp; and Agathokles returned in triumph to Syracuse, where he adorned the temples with his recently acquired spoils. The balance of force was soon altered by the despatch of a large armament from Carthage under Hamilkar, consisting of 130 ships of war, with numerous other transport ships, carrying many soldiers—2000 native Carthaginians, partly men of rank—10,000 Africans—1000 Campanian heavy-armed and 1000 Balearic slingers. The fleet underwent in its passage so terrific a storm, that many of the vessels sunk with all on board, and it arrived with very diminished numbers in Sicily. The loss fell upon the native Carthaginian soldiers with peculiar severity; insomuch that when the news reached Carthage, a public mourning was proclaimed, and the city walls were hung with black serge.

[942] Diodor. xix. 103, 104.

Those who reached Sicily, however, were quite sufficient to place Hamilkar in an imposing superiority of number as compared with Agathokles. He encamped on or near Eknomus, summoned all the reinforcements that his Sicilian allies could furnish, and collected additional mercenaries; so that he was soon at the head of 40,000 infantry and 5000 cavalry.[943] At the same time, a Carthaginian armed squadron, detached to the strait of Messênê, fell in with twenty armed ships belonging to Agathokles, and captured them all with their crews. The Sicilian cities were held to Agathokles principally by terror, and were likely to turn against him, if the Carthaginians exhibited sufficient strength to protect them. This the despot knew and dreaded; especially respecting Gela, which was not far from the Carthaginian camp. Had he announced himself openly as intending to place a garrison in Gela, he feared that the citizens might forestall him by calling in Hamilkar. Accordingly he detached thither, on various pretences, several small parties of soldiers, who presently found themselves united in a number sufficient to seize the town. Agathokles then marched into Gela with his main force. Distrusting the adherence of the citizens, he let loose his soldiers upon them, massacred four thousand persons, and compelled the remainder, as a condition of sparing their lives, to bring in to him all their money and valuables. Having by this atrocity both struck universal terror and enriched himself, he advanced onward towards the Carthaginian camp, and occupied a hill called Phalarion opposite to it.[944] The two camps were separated by a level plain or valley nearly five miles broad, through which ran the river Himera.[945]

[943] Diodor. xix. 106.

[944] Diodor. xix. 107, 108.

[945] Diodor. xix. 108, 109.

For some days of the hottest season (the dog-days), both armies remained stationary, neither of them choosing to make the attack. At length Agathokles gained what he thought a favorable opportunity. A detachment from the Carthaginian camp sallied forth in pursuit of some Grecian plunderers; Agathokles posted some men in ambush, who fell upon this detachment unawares, threw it into disorder, and pursued it back to the camp. Following up this partial success, Agathokles brought forward his whole force, crossed the river Himera, and began a general attack. This advance not being expected, the Grecian assailants seemed at first on the point of succeeding. They filled up a portion of the ditch, tore up the Stockade, and were forcing their way into the camp. They were however repulsed by redoubled efforts, and new troops coming up, on the part of the defenders; mainly, too, by the very effective action of the 1000 Balearic slingers in Hamilkar’s army, who hurled stones weighing a pound each, against which the Grecian armor was an inadequate defence. Still Agathokles, noway discouraged, caused the attack to be renewed on several points at once and with apparent success, when a reinforcement landed from Carthage—the expectation of which may perhaps have induced Hamilkar to refrain from any general attack. These new troops joined in the battle, coming upon the rear of the Greeks; who were intimidated and disordered by such unforeseen assailants, while the Carthaginians in their front, animated to more energetic effort, first repulsed them from the camp, and then pressed them vigorously back. After holding their ground for some time against their double enemy, the Greeks at length fled in disorder back to their own camp, recrossing the river Himera. The interval was between four and five miles of nearly level ground, over which they were actively pursued and severely handled by the Carthaginian cavalry, 5000 in number. Moreover, in crossing the river, many of them drank eagerly, from thirst, fatigue, and the heat of the weather; the saltness of the water proved so destructive to them, that numerous dead bodies are said to have been found unwounded on the banks.[946] At length they obtained shelter in their own camp, after a loss of 7000 men; while the loss of the victors is estimated at 500.

[946] Diodor. xix. 109.

Agathokles, after this great disaster, did not attempt to maintain his camp, but set it on fire, and returned to Gela; which was well fortified and provisioned, capable of a long defence. Here he intended to maintain himself against Hamilkar, at least until the Syracusan harvest (probably already begun) should be completed. But Hamilkar, having ascertained the strength of Gela, thought it prudent to refrain from a siege, and employed himself in operations for the purpose of strengthening his party in Sicily. His great victory at the Himera had produced the strongest effect upon many of the Sicilian cities, who were held to Agathokles by no other bonds except those of fear. Hamilkar issued conciliatory proclamations, inviting them all to become his allies, and marching his troops towards the most convenient points. Presently Kamarina, Leontini, Katana, Tauromenium, Messênê, Abakænum, with several other smaller towns and forts, sent to tender themselves as allies; and the conduct of Hamilkar towards all was so mild and equitable, as to give universal satisfaction. Agathokles appears to have been thus dispossessed of most part of the island, retaining little besides Gela and Syracuse. Even the harbor of Syracuse was watched by a Carthaginian fleet, placed to intercept foreign supplies. Returning to Syracuse after Hamilkar had renounced all attempts on Gela, Agathokles collected the corn from the neighborhood, and put the fortifications in the best state of defence. He had every reason to feel assured that the Carthaginians, encouraged by their recent success, and reinforced by allies from the whole island, would soon press the siege of Syracuse with all their energy; while for himself, hated by all, there was no hope of extraneous support, and little hope of a successful defence.[947]

[947] Diodor. xix. 110.

In this apparently desperate situation, he conceived the idea of a novelty alike daring, ingenious, and effective; surrounded indeed with difficulties in the execution, but promising, if successfully executed, to change altogether the prospects of the war.

He resolved to carry a force across from Syracuse to Africa, and attack the Carthaginians on their own soil. No Greek, so far as we know, had ever conceived the like scheme before; no one certainly had ever executed it. In the memory of man, the African territory of Carthage had never been visited by hostile foot. It was known that the Carthaginians would be not only unprepared to meet an attack at home, but unable even to imagine it as practicable. It was known that their territory was rich, and their African subjects harshly treated, discontented, and likely to seize the first opportunity for revolting. The landing of any hostile force near Carthage would strike such a blow, as at least to cause the recall of the Carthaginian armament in Sicily, and thus relieve Syracuse; perhaps the consequences of it might be yet greater.

How to execute the scheme was the grand difficulty—for the Carthaginians were superior not merely on land, but also at sea. Agathokles had no chance except by keeping his purpose secret, and even unsuspected. He fitted out an armament, announced as about to sail forth from Syracuse on a secret expedition, against some unknown town on the Sicilian coast. He selected for this purpose his best troops, especially his horsemen, few of whom had been slain at the battle of the Himera; he could not transport horses, but he put the horsemen aboard with their saddles and bridles, entertaining full assurance that he could procure horses in Africa. In selecting soldiers for his expedition, he was careful to take one member from many different families, to serve as hostage for the fidelity of those left behind. He liberated, and enrolled among his soldiers, many of the strongest and most resolute slaves. To provide the requisite funds, his expedients were manifold; he borrowed from merchants, seized the money belonging to orphans, stripped the women of their precious ornaments, and even plundered the richest temples. By all these proceedings, the hatred as well as fear towards him was aggravated, especially among the more opulent families. Agathokles publicly proclaimed, that the siege of Syracuse, which the Carthaginians were now commencing, would be long and terrible—that he and his soldiers were accustomed to hardships and could endure them, but that those, who felt themselves unequal to the effort, might retire with their properties while it was yet time. Many of the wealthier families—to a number stated as 1600 persons—profited by this permission; but as they were leaving the city, Agathokles set his mercenaries upon them, slew them all, and appropriated their possessions to himself.[948] By such tricks and enormities, he provided funds enough for an armament of sixty ships, well filled with soldiers. Not one of these soldiers knew where they were going; there was a general talk about the madness of Agathokles; nevertheless such was their confidence in his bravery and military resource, that they obeyed his orders without asking questions. To act as viceroy of Syracuse during his own absence, Agathokles named Antander his brother, aided by an Ætolian officer named Erymnon.[949]

[948] Diodor. xx. 4, 5; Justin, xxii. 4. Compare Polyænus, 3-5.

[949] Diodor. xx. 4-16.

The armament was equipped and ready, without any suspicion on the part of the Carthaginian fleet blockading the harbor. It happened one day that the approach of some corn-ships seduced this fleet into a pursuit; the mouth of the harbor being thus left unguarded, Agathokles took the opportunity of striking with his armament into the open sea. As soon as the Carthaginian fleet saw him sailing forth, they neglected the corn-ships, and prepared for battle, which they presumed that he was come to offer. To their surprise, he stood out to sea as fast as he could; they then pushed out in pursuit of him, but he had already got a considerable advance and strove to keep it. Towards nightfall however they neared him so much, that he was only saved by the darkness. During the night he made considerable way; but on the next day there occurred an eclipse of the sun so nearly total, that it became perfectly dark, and the stars were visible. The mariners were so terrified at this phenomenon, that all the artifice and ascendency of Agathokles were required to inspire them with new courage. At length, after six days and nights, they approached the coast of Africa. The Carthaginian ships had pursued them at a venture, in the direction towards Africa; and they appeared in sight, just as Agathokles was nearing the land. Strenuous efforts were employed by the mariners on both sides to touch land first; Agathokles secured that advantage, and was enabled to put himself into such a posture of defence that he repulsed the attack of the Carthaginian ships, and secured the disembarcation of his own soldiers, at a point called the Latomiæ or Stone quarries.[950]

[950] Diodor. xx. 6. Procopius, Bell. Vand. i. 15. It is here stated, that for nine days’ march eastward from Carthage, as far as Juka, the land is παντελῶς ἀλίμενος.

After establishing his position ashore, and refreshing his soldiers, the first proceeding of Agathokles was to burn his vessels; a proceeding which seemed to carry an air of desperate boldness. Yet in truth the ships were now useless—for, if he was unsuccessful on land, they were not enough to enable him to return in the face of the Carthaginian fleet; they were even worse than useless, since, if he retained them, it was requisite that he should leave a portion of his army to guard them, and thus enfeeble his means of action for the really important achievements on land. Convening his soldiers in assembly near the ships, he first offered a sacrifice to Demeter and Persephonê—the patron goddesses of Sicily, and of Syracuse in particular. He then apprised his soldiers, that during the recent crossing and danger from the Carthaginian pursuers, he had addressed a vow to these goddesses—engaging to make a burnt-offering of his ships in their honor, if they would preserve him safe across to Africa. The goddesses had granted this boon; they had farther, by favorably responding to the sacrifice just offered, promised full success to his African projects: it became therefore incumbent on him to fulfil his vow with exactness. Torches being new brought, Agathokles took one in his hand, and mounted on the stern of the admiral’s ship, directing each of the trierarchs to do the like on his own ship. All were set on fire simultaneously, amidst the sound of trumpets, and the mingled prayers and shouts of the soldiers.[951]

[951] This striking scene is described by Diodorus, xx. 7 (compare Justin, xxii. 6), probably enough copied from Kallias, the companion and panegyrist of Agathokles: see Diodor. xxi. Fragm. p. 281.

Though Agathokles had succeeded in animating his soldiers with a factitious excitement, for the accomplishment of this purpose, yet so soon as they saw the conflagration decided and irrevocable, thus cutting off all their communication with home—their spirits fell, and they began to despair of their prospects. Without allowing them time to dwell upon the novelty of the situation, Agathokles conducted them at once against the nearest Carthaginian town, called Megalê-Polis.[952] His march lay for the most part through a rich territory in the highest cultivation. The passing glance which we thus obtain into the condition of the territory near Carthage is of peculiar interest; more especially when contrasted with the desolation of the same coast, now and for centuries past. The corn-land, the plantations both of vines and olives, the extensive and well-stocked gardens, the size and equipment of the farm buildings, the large outlay for artificial irrigation, the agreeable country-houses belonging to wealthy Carthaginians, etc., all excited the astonishment, and stimulated the cupidity, of Agathokles and his soldiers. Moreover, the towns were not only very numerous, but all open and unfortified, except Carthage itself and a few others on the coast.[953]

[952] Megalê-Polis is nowhere else mentioned—nor is it noticed by Forbiger in his list of towns in the Carthaginian territory (Handbuch der Alten Geographie, sect. 109).

Dr. Barth (Wanderungen auf den Küsten Ländern des Mittelmeeres, vol. i. p. 131-133) supposes that Agathokles landed at an indentation of the coast on the western face of that projecting tongue of land which terminates in Cape Bon (Promontorium Mercurii), forming the eastern boundary of the Gulf of Carthage. There are stone quarries here, of the greatest extent as well as antiquity. Dr. Barth places Megalê-Polis not far off from this spot, on the same western face of the projecting land, and near the spot afterwards called Misua.

[953] Justin, xxii. 5. “Huc accedere, quod urbes castellaque Africæ non muris cinctæ, non in montibus positæ sint: sed in planis campis sine ullis munimentis jaceant: quas omnes metu excidii facile ad belli societatem perlici posse.”

The Carthaginians, besides having little fear of invasion by sea, were disposed to mistrust their subject cities, which they ruled habitually with harshness and oppression.[954] The Liby-Phenicians appear to have been unused to arms—a race of timid cultivators and traffickers, accustomed to subjection and practised in the deceit necessary for lightening it.[955] Agathokles, having marched through this land of abundance, assaulted Megalêpolis without delay. The inhabitants, unprepared for attack, distracted with surprise and terror, made little resistance. Agathokles easily took the town, abandoning both the persons of the inhabitants and all the rich property within, to his soldiers; who enriched themselves with a prodigious booty both from town and country—furniture, cattle, and slaves. From hence he advanced farther southward to the town called Tunês (the modern Tunis, at the distance of only fourteen miles south-west of Carthage itself), which he took by storm in like manner. He fortified Tunês as a permanent position; but he kept his main force united in camp, knowing well that he should presently have an imposing army against him in the field, and severe battles to fight.[956]

[954] Seven centuries and more after these events, we read that the Vandal king Genseric conquered Africa from the Romans—and that he demolished the fortifications of all the other towns except Carthage alone—from the like feeling of mistrust. This demolition materially facilitated the conquest of the Vandal kingdom by Belisarius, two generations afterwards (Procopius, Bell. Vandal. i. 5; i. 15).

[955] Livy (xxix. 25), in recounting the landing of Scipio in the Carthaginian territory in the latter years of the second Punic war, says, “Emporia ut peterent, gubernatoribus edixit. Fertilissimus ager, eoque abundans omnium copiâ rerum est regio, et imbelles (quod plerumque in uberi agro evenit) barbari sunt: priusque quam Carthagine subveniretur, opprimi videbantur posse.”

About the harshness of the Carthaginian rule over their African subjects, see Diodor. xv. 77; Polyb. i. 72. In reference to the above passage of Polybius, however, we ought to keep in mind—That in describing this harshness, he speaks with express and exclusive reference to the conduct of the Carthaginians towards their subjects during the first Punic war (against Rome), when the Carthaginians themselves were hard pressed by the Romans and required everything that they could lay hands upon for self-defence. This passage of Polybius has been sometimes cited as if it attested the ordinary character and measure of Carthaginian dominion; which is contrary to the intention of the author.

[956] Diodor. xx. 8. Compare Polybius, i. 29, where he describes the first invasion of the Carthaginian territory by the Roman consul Regulus. Tunês was 120 stadia or about fourteen miles south-east of Carthage (Polyb. i. 67). The Tab. Peuting. reckons it only ten miles. It was made the central place for hostile operations against Carthage both by Regulus in the first Punic war (Polyb. i. 30),—by Matho and Spendius, in the rebellion of the mercenary soldiers and native Africans against Carthage, which followed on the close of the first Punic war (Polyb. i. 73)—and by the revolted Libyans in 396 B. C. (Diodor. xiv. 77).

Diodorus places Tunês at the distance of 2000 stadia from Carthage, which must undoubtedly be a mistake. He calls it _White Tunês_; an epithet drawn from the chalk cliffs adjoining.

The Carthaginian fleet had pursued Agathokles during his crossing from Syracuse, in perfect ignorance of his plans. When he landed in Africa, on their own territory, and even burnt his fleet, they at first flattered themselves with the belief that they held him prisoner. But as soon as they saw him commence his march in military array against Megalêpolis, they divined his real purposes, and were filled with apprehension. Carrying off the brazen prow-ornaments of his burnt and abandoned ships, they made sail for Carthage, sending forward a swift vessel to communicate first what had occurred. Before this vessel arrived, however, the landing of Agathokles had been already made known at Carthage, where it excited the utmost surprise and consternation; since no one supposed that he could have accomplished such an adventure without having previously destroyed the Carthaginian army and fleet in Sicily. From this extreme dismay they were presently relieved by the arrival of the messengers from their fleet; whereby they learnt the real state of affairs in Sicily. They now made the best preparations in their power to resist Agathokles. Hanno and Bomilkar, two men of leading families, were named generals conjointly. They were bitter political rivals,—but this very rivalry was by some construed as an advantage, since each would serve as a check upon the other and as a guarantee to the state; or, what is more probable, each had a party sufficiently strong to prevent the separate election of the other.[957] These two generals, unable to wait for distant succors, led out the native forces of the city, stated at 40,000 infantry, 1000 cavalry, derived altogether from citizens and residents—with 2000 war-chariots. They took post on an eminence (somewhere between Tunis and Carthage) not far from Agathokles; Bomilkar commanding on the left, where the ground was so difficult that he was unable to extend his front, and was obliged to admit an unusual depth of files; while Hanno was on the right, having in his front rank the Sacred Band of Carthage, a corps of 2500 distinguished citizens, better armed and braver than the rest. So much did the Carthaginians outnumber the invaders—and so confident were they of victory—that they carried with them 20,000 pairs of handcuffs for their anticipated prisoners.[958]

[957] Diodor. xx. 10.

[958] Diodor. xx. 10-13. See, respecting the Sacred Band of Carthage (which was nearly cut to pieces by Timoleon at the battle of the Krimesus), Diodor. xvi. 80, 81; also Vol. XI. of this History, Chap. lxxxv. p. 171-177.

The amount of native or citizen-force given here by Diodorus (40,000 foot and 1000 horse) seems very great. Our data for appreciating it however are lamentably scanty; and we ought to expect a large total. The population of Carthage is said to have been 700,000 souls; even when it was besieged by the Romans in the third Punic war, and when its power was prodigiously lessened (Strabo, xvii. p. 833). Its military magazines, even in that reduced condition, were enormous,—as they stood immediately previous to their being given up to the Romans, under the treacherous delusions held out by Rome.

Agathokles placed himself on the left, with 1000 chosen hoplites round him, to combat the Sacred Band; the command of his right he gave to his son Archagathus. His troops—Syracusans, miscellaneous mercenary Greeks, Campanians or Samnites, Tuscans, and Gauls—scarcely equalled in numbers one-half of the enemy. Some of the ships’ crews were even without arms,—a deficiency, which Agathokles could only supply in appearance, by giving to them the leather cases or wrappers of shields, stretched out upon sticks. The outstretched wrappers thus exhibited looked from a distance like shields; so that these men, stationed in the rear, had the appearance of a reserve of hoplites. As the soldiers however were still discouraged, Agathokles tried to hearten them up by another device yet more singular, for which indeed he must have made deliberate provision beforehand. In various parts of the camp, he let fly a number of owls, which perched upon the shields and helmets of the soldiers. These birds, the favorite of Athênê, were supposed and generally asserted to promise victory; the minds of the soldiers are reported to have been much reassured by the sight.

The Carthaginian war-chariots and cavalry, which charged first, made little or no impression; but the infantry of their right pressed the Greeks seriously. Especially Hanno, with the Sacred Band around him, behaved with the utmost bravery and forwardness, and seemed to be gaining advantage, when he was unfortunately slain. His death not only discouraged his own troops, but became fatal to the army, by giving opportunity for treason to his colleague Bomilkar. This man had long secretly meditated the project of rendering himself despot of Carthage. As a means of attaining that end, he deliberately sought to bring reverses upon her; and no sooner had he heard of Hanno’s death, than he gave orders for his own wing to retreat. The Sacred Band, though fighting with unshaken valor, were left unsupported, attacked in rear as well as front, and compelled to give way along with the rest. The whole Carthaginian army was defeated and driven back to Carthage. Their camp fell into the hands of Agathokles, who found among their baggage the very handcuffs which they had brought for fettering their expected captives.[959]

[959] Diodor. xx. 12. The loss of the Carthaginians was differently given—some authors stated it at 1000 men—others at 6000. The loss in the army of Agathokles was stated at 200 men.

This victory made Agathokles for the time master of the open country. He transmitted the news to Sicily, by a boat of thirty oars, constructed expressly for the purpose—since he had no ships of his own remaining. Having fortified Tunês and established it as his central position, he commenced operations along the eastern coast (Zeugitana and Byzakium, as the northern and southern portions of it were afterwards denominated by the Romans) against the towns dependent on Carthage.[960]

[960] Diodor. xx. 17.

In that city, meanwhile, all was terror and despondency in consequence of the recent defeat. It was well known that the African subjects generally entertained nothing but fear and hatred towards the reigning city. Neither the native Libyans or Africans,—nor the mixed race called Liby-Phœnicians, who inhabited the towns[961]—could be depended on if their services were really needed. The distress of the Carthaginians took the form of religious fears and repentance. They looked back with remorse on the impiety of their past lives, and on their omissions of duty towards the gods. To the Tyrian Herakles, they had been slack in transmitting the dues and presents required by their religion; a backwardness which they now endeavored to make up by sending envoys to Tyre, with prayers and supplications, with rich presents, and especially with models in gold and silver of their sacred temples and shrines. Towards Kronus, or Moloch, they also felt that they had conducted themselves sinfully. The worship acceptable to that god required the sacrifice of young children, born of free and opulent parents, and even the choice child of the family. But it was now found out, on investigation, that many parents had recently put a fraud upon the god, by surreptitiously buying poor children, feeding them well, and then sacrificing them as their own. This discovery seemed at once to explain why Kronus had become offended, and what had brought upon them the recent defeat. They made an emphatic atonement, by selecting 200 children from the most illustrious families in Carthage, and offering them up to Kronus at a great public sacrifice; besides which, 300 parents, finding themselves denounced for similar omissions in the past, displayed their repentance by voluntarily immolating their own children for the public safety. The statue of Kronus,—placed with outstretched hands to receive the victim tendered to him, with fire immediately underneath—was fed on that solemnity certainly with 200, and probably with 500, living children.[962] By this monstrous holocaust the full religious duty being discharged, and forgiveness obtained from the god, the mental distress of the Carthaginians was healed.

[961] Diodor. xx. 55.

[962] Diodor. xx. 14. ᾐτιῶντο δὲ καὶ τὸν Κρόνον αὑτοῖς ἐναντιοῦσθαι, καθόσον ἐν τοῖς ἔμπροσθεν χρόνοις θύοντες τούτῳ τῷ θεῷ τῶν υἱῶν τοὺς κρατίστους, ὕστερον ὠνούμενοι λάθρα παῖδας καὶ θρέψαντες ἔπεμπον ἐπὶ τὴν θυσίαν· καὶ ζητήσεως γενομένης, εὑρέθησάν τινες τῶν καθιερουργημένων ὑποβολιμαῖοι γεγονότες· τούτων δὲ λαβόντες ἔννοιαν, καὶ τοὺς πολεμίους πρὸς τοῖς τείχεσιν ὁρῶντες στρατοπεδεύοντας, ἐδεισιδαιμόνουν ὡς καταλελυκότες τὰς πατρίους τῶν θεῶν τιμάς· διορθώσασθαι δὲ τὰς ἀγνοίας σπεύδοντες, διακοσίους μὲν τῶν ἐπιφανεστάτων παίδων προκρίναντες ἔθυσαν δημοσίᾳ· ἄλλοι δ᾽ ἐν διαβολαῖς ὄντες, ἑκουσίως ἑαυτοὺς ἔδοσαν, οὐκ ἐλάττους ὄντες τριακοσίων· ἦν δὲ παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἀνδριὰς Κρόνου χαλκοῦς, ἐκτετακὼς τὰς χεῖρας ὑπτίας ἐγκεκλιμένας ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν, ὥστε τὸν ἐπιτεθέντα τῶν παίδων ἀποκυλίεσθαι καὶ πίπτειν εἴς τι χάσμα πλῆρες πυρός. Compare Festus ap. Lactantium, Inst. Div. i. 21; Justin, xviii. 6, 12.

In this remarkable passage (the more remarkable because so little information concerning Carthaginian antiquity has reached us), one clause is not perfectly clear, respecting the three hundred who are said to have voluntarily given themselves up. Diodorus means (I apprehend) as Eusebius understood it, that these were fathers who gave up their children (not themselves) to be sacrificed. The victims here mentioned as sacrificed to Kronus were children, not adults (compare Diodor. xiii. 86): nothing is here said about adult victims. Wesseling in his note adheres to the literal meaning of the words, dissenting from Eusebius: but I think that the literal meaning is less in harmony with the general tenor of the paragraph. Instances of self-devotion, by persons torn with remorse, are indeed mentioned: see the case of Imilkon, Diodor. xiv. 76; Justin, xix. 3.

We read in the Fragment of Ennius—“Pœni sunt soliti suos sacrificare puellos:” see the chapter iv. of Münter’s work, Religion der Karthager, on this subject.

Having thus relieved their consciences on the score of religious obligation, the Carthaginians despatched envoys to Hamilkar in Sicily, acquainting him with the recent calamity, desiring him to send a reinforcement, and transmitting to him the brazen prow ornaments taken from the ships of Agathokles. They at the same time equipped a fresh army, with which they marched forth to attack Tunês. Agathokles had fortified that town, and established a strong camp before it; but he had withdrawn his main force to prosecute operations against the maritime towns on the eastern coast of the territory of Carthage. Among these towns, he first attacked Neapolis with success, granting to the inhabitants favorable terms. He then advanced farther southwards towards Adrumetum, of which he commenced the siege, with the assistance of a neighboring Libyan prince named Elymas, who now joined him. While Agathokles was engaged in the siege of Adrumetum, the Carthaginians attacked his position at Tunês, drove his soldiers out of the fortified camp into the town, and began to batter the defences of the town itself. Apprised of this danger while besieging Adrumetum, but nevertheless reluctant to raise the siege,—Agathokles left his main army before it, stole away with only a few soldiers and some camp-followers, and conducting them to an elevated spot—halfway between Adrumetum and Tunês, yet visible from both—he caused them to kindle at night upon this eminence a prodigious number of fires.[963] The effect, of these fires, seen from Adrumetum on one side and from Tunês on the other, was, to produce the utmost terror at both places. The Carthaginians besieging Tunês fancied that Agathokles with his whole army was coming to attack them, and forthwith abandoned the siege in disorder, leaving their engines behind. The defenders of Adrumetum, interpreting these fires as evidence of a large reinforcement on its way to join the besieging army, were so discouraged that they surrendered the town on capitulation.[964]

[963] Diodor. xx. 17. λάθρα προσῆλθεν ἐπί τινα τόπον ὀρεινὸν, ὅθεν ~ὁρᾶσθαι δυνατὸν ἦν αὐτὸν ὑπὸ τῶν Ἀδρυμητινῶν καὶ τῶν Καρχηδονίων τῶν Τύνητα πολιορκούντων~· νυκτὸς δὲ συντάξας τοῖς στρατιώταις ἐπὶ πολὺν τόπον πυρὰ καίειν, δόξαν ἐν εποίησε, τοῖς μὲν Καρχηδονίοις, ὡς μετὰ μεγάλης δυνάμεως ἐπ᾽ αὐτοὺς πορευόμενος, τοῖς δὲ πολιορκουμένοις, ὡς ἄλλης δυνάμεως ἁδρᾶς τοῖς πολεμίοις εἰς συμμαχίαν παραγεγενημένης.

[964] Diodor. xx. 17. The incident here recounted by Diodorus is curious, but quite distinct and intelligible. He had good authorities before him in his history of Agathokles. If true, it affords an evidence for determining, within some limits, the site of the ancient Adrumetum, which Mannert and Shaw place at Herkla— while Forbiger and Dr. Barth put it near the site of the modern port called Susa, still more to the southward, and at a prodigious distance from Tunis. Other anthem have placed it at Hamamat, more to the northward than Herkla, and nearer to Tunis.

Of these three sites, Hamamat is the only one which will consist with the narrative of Diodorus. Both the others are too distant. Hamamat is about forty-eight English miles from Tunis (see Barth, p. 184, with his note). This is as great a distance (if not too great) as can possibly be admitted; both Herkla and Susa are very much more distant, and therefore out of the question.

Nevertheless, the other evidence known to us tends apparently to place Adrumetum at Susa, and not at Hamamat (see Barth, p. 142-154; Forbiger, Handb. Geog. p. 845). It is therefore probable that the narrative of Diodorus is not true, or must apply to some other place on the coast (possibly Neapolis, the modern Nabel) taken by Agathokles, and not to Adrumetum.

By this same stratagem—if the narrative can be trusted—Agathokles both relieved Tunês, and acquired possession of Adrumetum. Pushing his conquests yet farther south, he besieged and took Thapsus, with several other towns on the coast to a considerable distance southward.[965] He also occupied and fortified the important position called Aspis, on the south-east of the headland Cape Bon, and not far distant from it; a point convenient for maritime communication with Sicily.[966]

[965] Diodor. xx. 17.

[966] Strabo, xvii. p. 834. Solinus (c. 30) talks of Aspis as founded by the Siculi. Aspis (called by the Romans Clypea), being on the eastern side of Cape Bon, was more convenient for communication with Sicily than either Carthage, or Tunis, or any part of the Gulf of Carthage, which was on the western side of Cape Bon. To get round that headland is, even at the present day, a difficult and uncertain enterprise for navigators: see the remarks of Dr. Barth, founded partly on his own personal experience (Wanderungen auf den Küstenländern des Mittelmeeres, i. p. 196). A ship coming from Sicily to Aspis was not under the necessity of getting round the headland.

In the case of Agathokles, there was a further reason for establishing his maritime position at Aspis. The Carthaginian fleet was superior to him at sea; accordingly they could easily interrupt his maritime communication from Sicily with Tunis, or with any point in the Gulf of Carthage. But it was not so easy for them to watch the coast at Aspis; for in order to do this, they must get from the Gulf round to Cape Bon.

By a series of such acquisitions, comprising in all not less than 200 dependencies of Carthage, Agathokles became master along the eastern coast.[967] He next endeavored to subdue the towns in the interior, into which he advanced as far as several days’ march. But he was recalled by intelligence from his soldiers at Tunês, that the Carthaginians had marched out again to attack them, and had already retaken some of his conquests. Returning suddenly by forced marches, he came upon them by surprise, and drove in their advanced parties with considerable loss; while he also gained an important victory over the Libyan prince Elymas, who had rejoined the Carthaginians, but was now defeated and slain.[968] The Carthaginians, however, though thus again humbled and discouraged, still maintained the field, strongly entrenched, between Carthage and Tunês.

[967] Diodor. xx. 17. The Roman consul Regulus, when he invaded Africa during the first Punic war, is said to have acquired, either by capture or voluntary adhesion, two hundred dependent cities of Carthage (Appian, Punica, c. 3). Respecting the prodigious number of towns in Northern Africa, see the very learned and instructive work of Mövers, Die Phönikier, vol. ii. p. 454 seqq. Even at the commencement of the third Punic war, when Carthage was so much reduced in power, she had still three hundred cities in Libya (Strabo, xvii. p. 833). It must be confessed that the name cities or towns (πόλεις) was used by some authors very vaguely. Thus Posidonius ridiculed the affirmation of Polybius (Strabo, iii. p. 162), that Tiberius Gracchus had destroyed three hundred πόλεις of the Celtiberians; Strabo censures others who spoke of one thousand πόλεις of the Iberians. Such a number could only be made good by including large κῶμαι.

[968] Diodor. xx. 17, 18.

Meanwhile the affairs of Agathokles at Syracuse had taken a turn unexpectedly favorable. He had left that city blocked up partially by sea and with a victorious enemy encamped near it; so that supplies found admission with difficulty. In this condition, Hamilkar, commander of the Carthaginian army, received from Carthage the messengers announcing their recent defeat in Africa; yet also bringing the brazen prow ornaments taken from the ships of Agathokles. He ordered the envoys to conceal the real truth, and to spread abroad news that Agathokles had been destroyed with his armament; in proof of which he produced the prow ornaments,—an undoubted evidence that the ships had really been destroyed. Sending envoys with these evidences into Syracuse, to be exhibited to Antander, and the ether authorities, Hamilkar demanded from them the surrender of the city, under promise of safety and favorable terms; at the same time marching his army close up to it, with the view of making an attack. Antander with others, believing the information and despairing of successful resistance, were disposed to comply; but Erymnon the Ætolian insisted on holding out until they had fuller certainty. This resolution Antander adopted. At the same time, mistrusting those citizens of Syracuse who were relatives or friends of the exiles without, he ordered them all to leave the city immediately, with their wives and families. No less than 8000 persons were expelled under this mandate. They were consigned to the mercy of Hamilkar, and his army without; who not only suffered them to pass, but treated them with kindness. Syracuse was now a scene of aggravated wretchedness and despondency; not less from this late calamitous expulsion, than from the grief of those who believed that their relatives in Africa had perished with Agathokles. Hamilkar had brought up his battering-engines, and was preparing to assault the town, when Nearchus, the messenger from Agathokles, arrived from Africa after a voyage of five days, having under favor of darkness escaped, though only just escaped, the blockading squadron. From him the Syracusan government learnt the real truth, and the victorious position of Agathokles. There was no farther talk of capitulation; Hamilkar—having tried a partial assault, which was vigorously repulsed,—withdrew his army, and detached from it a reinforcement of 5000 men to the aid of his countrymen in Africa.[969]

[969] Diodor. xx. 15, 16.

During some months, he seems to have employed himself in partial operations for extending the Carthaginian dominion throughout Sicily. But at length he concerted measures with the Syracusan exile Deinokrates, who was at the head of a numerous body of his exiled countrymen, for a renewed attack upon Syracuse. His fleet already blockaded the harbor, and he now with his army, stated as 120,000 men, destroyed the neighboring lands, hoping to starve out the inhabitants. Approaching close to the walls of the city, he occupied the Olympieion, or temple of Zeus Olympius, near the river Anapus and the interior coast of the Great Harbor. From hence—probably under the conduct of Deinokrates and the other exiles, well-acquainted with the ground—he undertook by a night-march to ascend the circuitous and difficult mountain track, for the purpose of surprising the fort called Euryalus, at the highest point of Epipolæ, and the western apex of the Syracusan lines of fortification. This was the same enterprise, at the same hour, and with the same main purpose, as that of Demosthenes during the Athenian siege, after he had brought the second armament from Athens to the relief of Nikias.[970] Even Demosthenes, though conducting his march with greater precaution than Hamilkar, and successful in surprising the fort of Euryalus, had been driven down again with disastrous loss. Moreover, since his time, this fort Euryalus, instead of being left detached, had been embodied by the elder Dionysius as an integral portion of the fortifications of the city. It formed the apex or point of junction for the two converging walls—one skirting the northern cliff, the other the southern cliff, of Epipolæ.[971] The surprise intended by Hamilkar—difficult in the extreme, if at all practicable—seems to have been unskilfully conducted. It was attempted with a confused multitude, incapable of that steady order requisite for night-movements. His troops, losing their way in the darkness, straggled, and even mistook each other for enemies; while the Syracusan guards from Euryalus, alarmed by the noise, attacked them vigorously and put them to the rout. Their loss, in trying to escape down the steep declivity, was prodigious; and Hamilkar himself, making brave efforts to rally them, became prisoner to the Syracusans. What lent peculiar interest to this incident, in the eyes of a pious Greek, was that it served to illustrate and confirm the truth of prophecy. Hamilkar had been assured by a prophet that he would sup that night in Syracuse; and this assurance had in part emboldened him to the attack, since he naturally calculated on entering the city as a conqueror.[972] He did indeed take his evening meal in Syracuse, literally fulfilling the augury. Immediately after it, he was handed over to the relatives of the slain, who first paraded him through the city in chains, then inflicted on him the worst tortures, and lastly killed him. His head was cut off and sent to Africa.[973]

[970] See Vol. VII. Ch. lx. p. 304 of this History.

[971] For a description of the fortifications added to Syracuse by the elder Dionysius, see Vol. X. Ch. lxxxii. p. 499 of this History.

[972] Diodor. xx. 29, 30. Cicero (Divinat. i. 24) notices this prophecy and its manner of fulfilment; but he gives a somewhat different version of the events preceding the capture of Hamilkar.

[973] Diodor. xx. 30. τὸν δ᾽ οὖν Ἁμίλκαν οἱ τῶν ἀπολωλότων συγγενεῖς δεδεμένον ἀγαγόντες διὰ τῆς πόλεως, καὶ δειναῖς αἰκίαις κατ᾽ αὐτοῦ χρησάμενοι, μετὰ τῆς ἐσχάτης ὕβρεως ἀνεῖλον.

The loss and humiliation sustained in this repulse—together with the death of Hamilkar, and the discord ensuing between the exiles under Deinokrates and the Carthaginian soldiers—completely broke up the besieging army. At the same time, the Agrigentines, profiting by the depression both of Carthaginians and exiles, stood forward publicly, proclaiming themselves as champions of the cause of autonomous city government throughout Sicily, under their own presidency, against both the Carthaginians on one side, and the despot Agathokles on the other. They chose for their general a citizen named Xenodokus, who set himself with vigor to the task of expelling everywhere the mercenary garrisons which held the cities in subjection. He began first with Gela, the city immediately adjoining Agrigentum, found a party of the citizens disposed to aid him, and in conjunction with them, overthrew the Agathoklean garrison. The Geloans, thus liberated, seconded cordially his efforts to extend the like benefits to others. The popular banner proclaimed by Agrigentum proved so welcome, that many cities eagerly invited her aid to shake off the yoke of the soldiery in their respective citadels, and regain their free governments.[974] Enna, Erbessus, Echetla,[975] Leontini, and Kamarina, were all thus relieved from the dominion of Agathokles; while other cities were in like manner emancipated from the sway of the Carthaginians; and joined the Agrigentine confederacy. The Agathoklean government at Syracuse was not strong enough to resist such spirited manifestations. Syracuse still continued to be blocked up by the Carthaginian fleet; though the blockade was less efficacious, and supplies were now introduced more abundantly than before.[976]

[974] Diodor. xx. 31. διαβοηθείσης δὲ τῆς τῶν Ἀκραγαντίνων ἐπιβολῆς κατὰ πᾶσαν τὴν νῆσον, ἐνέπεσεν ὁρμὴ ταῖς πόλεσι πρὸς τὴν ἐλευθερίαν.

[975] Enna is nearly in the centre of Sicily; Erbessus is not far to the north-east of Agrigentum; Echetla is placed by Polybius (i. 15) midway between the domain of Syracuse and that of Carthage.

[976] Diodor. xx. 32.

The ascendency of Agathokles was thus rather on the wane in Sicily: but in Africa, he had become more powerful than ever—not without perilous hazards which brought him occasionally to the brink of ruin. On receiving from Syracuse the head of the captive Hamilkar, he rode forth close to the camp of the Carthaginians, and held it up to their view in triumph; they made respectful prostration before it, but the sight was astounding and mournful to them.[977] While they were thus in despondency, however, a strange vicissitude was on the point of putting their enemy into their hands. A violent mutiny broke out in the camp of Agathokles at Tunês, arising out of a drunken altercation between his son Archagathus and an Ætolian officer named Lykiskus; which ended in the murder of the latter by the former. The comrades of Lykiskus rose in arms with fury to avenge him, calling for the head of Archagathus. They found sympathy with the whole army; who seized the opportunity of demanding their arrears of outstanding pay, chose new generals, and took regular possession of Tunês with its defensive works. The Carthaginians, informed of this outbreak, immediately sent envoys to treat with the mutineers, offering to them large presents and double pay in the service of Carthage. Their offer was at first so favorably entertained, that the envoys returned with confident hopes of success; when Agathokles, as a last resource, clothed himself in mean garb, and threw himself on the mercy of the soldiers. He addressed them in a pathetic appeal, imploring them not to desert him, and even drew his sword to kill himself before their faces. With such art did he manage this scene, that the feelings of the soldiers underwent a sudden and complete revolution. They not only became reconciled to him, but even greeted him with enthusiasm, calling on him to resume the dress and functions of general, and promising unabated obedience for the future.[978] Agathokles gladly obeyed the call, and took advantage of their renewed ardor to attack forthwith the Carthaginians; who, expecting nothing less, were defeated with considerable loss.[979]

[977] Diodor. xx. 33. οἱ δὲ Καρχηδόνιοι, περιαλγεῖς γενόμενοι, καὶ βαρβαρικῶς προσκυνήσαντες, etc.

[978] Compare the description in Tacitus, Hist. ii. 29, of the mutiny in the Vitellian army commanded by Fabius Valens, at Ticinum.

“Postquam immissis lictoribus, Valens coercere seditionem cœptabat, ipsum invadunt (milites), saxa jaciunt, fugientem sequuntur.—Valens, servili veste, apud decurionem equitum tegebatur.” (Presently the feeling changes, by the adroit management of Alphenus Varus, prefect of the camp)—then, “silentio, patientia, postremo precibus et lacrymis, veniam quærebant. Ut vero deformis et flens, et præter spem incolumis Valens processit, gaudium, miseratio, favor: versi in lætitiam (ut est vulgus utroque immodicum) laudantes gratantesque circumdatum aquilis signisque, in tribunal ferunt.”

[979] Diodor. xx. 34.

In spite of this check, the Carthaginians presently sent a considerable force into the interior, for the purpose of reconquering or regaining the disaffected Numidian tribes. They met with good success in this enterprise; but the Numidians were in the main faithless and indifferent to both the belligerents, seeking only to turn the war to their own profit. Agathokles, leaving his son in command at Tunês, followed the Carthaginians into the interior with a large portion of his army. The Carthaginian generals were cautious, and kept themselves in strong position. Nevertheless Agathokles felt confident enough to assail them in their camp; and after great effort, with severe loss on his own side, he gained an indecisive victory. This advantage however was countervailed by the fact, that during the action the Numidians assailed his camp, slew all the defenders, and carried off nearly all the slaves and baggage. The loss on the Carthaginian side fell most severely upon the Greek soldiers in their pay; most of them exiles under Klinon, and some Syracusan exiles. These men behaved with signal gallantry, and were nearly all slain, either during the battle or after the battle, by Agathokles.[980]

[980] Diodor. xx. 39.

It had now become manifest, however, to this daring invader that the force of resistance possessed by Carthage was more than he could overcome—that though humbling and impoverishing her for the moment, he could not bring the war to a triumphant close; since the city itself, occupying the isthmus of a peninsula from sea to sea, and surrounded with the strongest fortifications, could not be besieged except by means far superior to his.[981] We have already seen, that though he had gained victories and seized rich plunder, he had not been able to provide even regular pay for his soldiers, whose fidelity was consequently precarious. Nor could he expect reinforcements from Sicily; where his power was on the whole declining, though Syracuse itself was in less danger than before. He therefore resolved to invoke aid from Ophellas at Kyrênê and despatched Orthon as envoy for that purpose.[982]

[981] Diodor. xx. 59. Ὁ δὲ τῆς πόλεως οὐκ ἦν κίνδυνος, ἀπροσίτου τῆς πόλεως οὔσης διὰ τὴν ἀπὸ τῶν τειχῶν καὶ τῆς θαλάττης ὀχυρότητα.

[982] Diodor. xx. 40.

To Kyrênê and what was afterwards called its Pentapolis (i. e. the five neighboring Grecian towns, Kyrênê, its port Apollonia, Barka, Teucheira, and Hesperides), an earlier chapter of this history has already been devoted.[983] Unfortunately information respecting them, for a century and more anterior to Alexander the Great, is almost wholly wanting. Established among a Libyan population, many of whom were domiciliated with the Greeks as fellow-residents, these Kyreneans had imbibed many Libyan habits in war, in peace, and in religion; of which their fine breed of horses, employed both for the festival chariot-matches and in battle, was one example. The Libyan tribes, useful as neighbors, servants, and customers,[984] were frequently also troublesome as enemies. In 413 B. C. we hear accidentally that Hesperides was besieged by Libyan tribes, and rescued by some Peloponnesian hoplites on their way to Syracuse during the Athenian siege.[985] About 401 B. C. (shortly after the close of the Peloponnesian war), the same city was again so hard pressed by the same enemies, that she threw open her citizenship to any Greek new-comer who would aid in repelling them. This invitation was accepted by several of the Messenians, just then expelled from Peloponnesus, and proscribed by the Spartans; they went to Africa, but, becoming involved in intestine warfare among the citizens of Kyrênê, a large proportion of them perished.[986] Except these scanty notices, we hear nothing about the Greco-Libyan Pentapolis in relation to Grecian affairs, before the time of Alexander. It would appear that the trade with the native African tribes, between the Gulfs called the Greater and Lesser Syrtis, was divided between Kyrênê (meaning the Kyrenaic Pentapolis) and Carthage—at a boundary point called the Altars of the Philæni, ennobled by a commemorative legend; immediately east of these Altars was Automala, the westernmost factory of Kyrênê.[987] We cannot doubt that the relations, commercial and otherwise, between Kyrênê and Carthage, the two great emporia on the coast of Africa, were constant and often lucrative—though not always friendly.

[983] See Vol. IV. Ch. xxvii. p. 29-49.

[984] See Isokrates, Or. iv. (Philipp.) s. 6, where he speaks of Kyrênê as a spot judiciously chosen for colonization; the natives near it being not dangerous, but suited for obedient neighbors and slaves.

[985] Thucyd. vii. 50.

[986] Pausan. iv. 26; Diodor. xiv. 34.

[987] Strabo, xvii. p. 836; Sallust, Bell. Jugurth. p. 126.

In the year 331 B. C., when the victorious Alexander overran Egypt, the inhabitants of Kyrênê sent to tender presents and submission to him, and became enrolled among his subjects.[988] We hear nothing more about them until the last year of Alexander’s life (324 B. C. to 323 B. C.). About that time, the exiles from Kyrênê and Barka, probably enough emboldened by the rescript of Alexander (proclaimed at the Olympic festival of 324 B. C., and directing that all Grecian exiles, except those guilty of sacrilege, should be recalled forthwith), determined to accomplish their return by force. To this end they invited from Krete an officer named Thimbron; who, having slain Harpalus after his flight from Athens (recounted in a previous chapter), had quartered himself in Krete, with the treasure, the ships, and the 6000 mercenaries, brought over from Asia by that satrap.[989] Thimbron willingly carried over his army to their assistance, intending to conquer for himself a principality in Libya. He landed near Kyrênê, defeated the Kyrenean forces with great slaughter, and made himself master of Apollonia, the fortified port of that city, distant from it nearly ten miles. The towns of Barka and Hesperides sided with him; so that he was strong enough to force the Kyreneans to a disadvantageous treaty. They covenanted to pay 500 talents,—to surrender to him half of their war-chariots for his ulterior projects—and to leave him in possession of Apollonia. While he plundered the merchants in the harbor, he proclaimed his intention of subjugating the independent Libyan tribes, and probably of stretching his conquests to Carthage.[990] His schemes were however frustrated by one of his own officers, a Kretan named Mnasikles; who deserted to the Kyreneans, and encouraged them to set aside the recent convention. Thimbron, after seizing such citizens of Kyrênê as happened to be at Apollonia, attacked Kyrênê itself, but was repulsed; and the Kyreneans were then bold enough to invade the territory of Barka and Hesperides. To aid them, Thimbron moved his quarters from Apollonia; but during his absence, Mnasikles contrived to surprise that valuable port; thus mastering at once his base of operations, the station for his fleet, and all the baggage of his soldiers. Thimbron’s fleet could not be long maintained without a harbor. The seamen, landing here and there for victuals and water, were cut off by the native Libyans, while the vessels were dispersed by storms.[991]

[988] Arrian, vii. 9, 12; Curtius, iv. 7, 9; Diodor. xvii. 49. It is said that the inhabitants of Kyrênê (exact date unknown) applied to Plato to make laws for them, but that he declined. See Thrige, Histor. Cyrênês, p. 191. We should be glad to have this statement better avouched.

[989] Diodor. xvii. 108, xviii. 19; Arrian, De Rebus; post Alexandr. vi. apud Photium, Cod. 92; Strabo, xvii. p. 837.

[990] Diodor. xviii. 19.

[991] Diodor. xvii. 20.

The Kyreneans, now full of hope, encountered Thimbron in the field, and defeated him. Yet though reduced to distress, he contrived to obtain possession of Teucheira; to which port he invoked as auxiliaries 2500 fresh soldiers, out of the loose mercenary bands dispersed near Cape Tænarus in Peloponnesus. This reinforcement again put him in a condition for battle. The Kyreneans on their side also thought it necessary to obtain succor, partly from the neighboring Libyans, partly from Carthage. They got together a force stated as 30,000 men, with which they met him in the field. But, on this occasion they were totally routed, with the loss of all their generals and much of their army. Thimbron was now in the full tide of success; he pressed both Kyrênê and the harbor so vigorously, that famine began to prevail, and sedition broke out among the citizens. The oligarchical men, expelled by the more popular party, sought shelter, some in the camp of Thimbron; some at the court of Ptolemy in Egypt.[992]

[992] Diodor. xviii. 21.

I have already mentioned, that in the partition after the decease of Alexander, Egypt had been assigned to Ptolemy. Seizing with eagerness the opportunity of annexing to it so valuable a possession as the Kyrenaic Pentapolis, this chief sent an adequate force under Ophellas to put down Thimbron and restore the exiles. His success was complete. All the cities in the Pentapolis were reduced; Thimbron, worsted and pursued as a fugitive, was seized in his flight by some Libyans, and brought prisoner to Teucheira; the citizens of which place (by permission of the Olynthian Epikydes, governor for Ptolemy), first tortured him, and then conveyed him to Apollonia to be hanged. A final visit from Ptolemy himself regulated the affairs of the Pentapolis, which were incorporated with his dominions and placed under the government of Ophellas.[993]

[993] Arrian, De Rebus post Alex. vi. ap. Phot. Cod. 92; Diodor. xviii. 21; Justin, xiii. 6, 20.

It was thus that the rich and flourishing Kyrênê, an interesting portion of the once autonomous Hellenic world, passed like the rest under one of the Macedonian Diadochi. As the proof and guarantee of this new sovereignty, we find erected within the walls of the city, a strong and completely detached citadel, occupied by a Macedonian or Egyptian garrison (like Munychia at Athens), and forming the stronghold of the viceroy. Ten years afterwards (B. C. 312) the Kyreneans made an attempt to emancipate themselves, and besieged this citadel; but being again put down by an army and fleet which Ptolemy despatched under Agis from Egypt,[994] Kyrênê passed once more under the vice-royalty of Ophellas.[995]

[994] Diodor. xix. 79. Οἱ Κυρηναῖοι ... τὴν ἄκραν περιεστρατοπέδευσαν, ὡς αὔτικα μάλα τὴν φρουρὰν ἐκβαλοῦντες, etc.

[995] Justin (xxii. 7, 4) calls Ophellas “rex Cyrenarum;” but it is noway probable that he had become independent of Ptolemy—as Thrige (Hist. Cyrênês, p. 214) supposes. The expression in Plutarch (Demetrius, 14), Ὀφέλλᾳ τῷ ἄρξαντι Κυρήνης, does not necessarily imply an independent authority.

To this viceroy Agathokles now sent envoys, invoking his aid against Carthage. Ophellas was an officer of consideration and experience. He had served under Alexander, and had married an Athenian wife, Euthydikê,—a lineal descendant from Miltiades the victor of Marathon, and belonging to a family still distinguished at Athens. In inviting Ophellas to undertake jointly the conquest of Carthage, the envoys proposed that he should himself hold it when conquered. Agathokles (they said) wished only to overthrow the Carthaginian dominion in Sicily, being well aware that he could not hold that island in conjunction with an African dominion. To Ophellas,[996] such an invitation proved extremely seducing. He was already on the look out for aggrandizement towards the west, and had sent an exploring nautical expedition along the northern coast of Africa, even to some distance round and beyond the Strait of Gibraltar.[997] Moreover, to all military adventurers, both on sea and on land, the season was one of boundless speculative promise. They had before them not only the prodigious career of Alexander himself, but the successful encroachments of the great officers his successors. In the second distribution, made at Triparadeisus, of the Alexandrine empire, Antipater had assigned to Ptolemy not merely Egypt and Libya, but also an undefined amount of territory west of Libya, to be afterwards acquired;[998] the conquest of which was known to have been among the projects of Alexander, had he lived longer. To this conquest Ophellas was now specially called, either as the viceroy or the independent equal of Ptolemy, by the invitation of Agathokles. Having learnt in the service of Alexander not to fear long marches, he embraced the proposition with eagerness. He undertook an expedition from Kyrênê on the largest scale. Through his wife’s relatives, he was enabled to make known his projects at Athens, where, as well as in other parts of Greece, they found much favor. At this season, the Kassandrian oligarchies were paramount not only at Athens, but generally throughout Greece. Under the prevalent degradation and suffering, there was ample ground for discontent, and no liberty of expressing it; many persons therefore were found disposed either to accept army-service with Ophellas, or to enrol themselves in a foreign colony under his auspices. To set out under the military protection of this powerful chief—to colonize the mighty Carthage, supposed to be already enfeebled by the victories of Agathokles—to appropriate the wealth, the fertile landed possessions, and the maritime position, of her citizens—was a prize well calculated to seduce men dissatisfied with their homes, and not well informed of the intervening difficulties.[999]

[996] Diodor. xx. 40.

[997] From an incidental allusion in Strabo (xvii. p. 826), we learn this fact—that Ophellas had surveyed the whole coast of Northern Africa, to the straits of Gibraltar, and round the old Phenician settlements on the western coast of modern Morocco. Some eminent critics (Grosskurd among them) reject the reading in Strabo—ἀπὸ τοῦ Ὀφέλα (or Ὀφέλλα) περιπλοῦ, which is sustained by a very great preponderance of MSS. But I do not feel the force of their reasons; and the reading which they would substitute has nothing to recommend it. In my judgment, Ophellas, ruling in the Kyrenaica and indulging aspirations towards conquest westward, was a man both likely to order, and competent to bring about, an examination of the North African coast. The knowledge of this fact may have induced Agathokles to apply to him.

[998] Arrian, De Rebus post Alex. ap. Photium, Cod. 92. Αἴγυπτον μὲν γὰρ καὶ Λιβύην, καὶ τὴν ἐπέκεινα ταύτης τὴν πολλὴν, καὶ ὅ,τι περ ἂν πρὸς τούτοις δ᾽ ὅριον ἐπικτήσηται πρὸς δυομένου ἡλίου, Πτολεμαίου εἶναι.

[999] Diodor. xx. 40. πολλοὶ τῶν Ἀθηναίων προθύμως ὑπήκουσαν εἰς τὴν στρατείαν· οὐκ ὀλίγοι δὲ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων Ἑλλήνων, ἔσπευδον κοινωνῆσαι τῆς ἐπιβολῆς, ἐλπίζοντες τήν τε κρατίστην τῆς Λιβύης κατακληρουχήσειν, καὶ τὸν ἐν Καρχηδόνι διαρπάσειν πλοῦτον.

As to the great encouragement held out to settlers, when a new colony was about to be founded by a powerful state, see Thucyd. iii. 93, about Herakleia Trachinia—πᾶς γάρ τίς, Λακεδαιμονίων οἰκιζόντων, θαρσαλέως ᾔει, βέβαιαν νομίζων τὴν πόλιν.

Under such hopes, many Grecian colonists joined Ophellas at Kyrênê, some even with wives and children. The total number is stated at 10,000. Ophellas conducted them forth at the head of a well appointed army of 10,000 infantry, 600 cavalry, and 100 war-chariots; each chariot carrying the driver and two fighting men. Marching with this miscellaneous body of soldiers and colonists, he reached in eighteen days the post of Automalæ—the westernmost factory of Kyrênê.[1000] From thence he proceeded westward along the shore between the two Syrtes, in many parts a sandy, trackless desert, without wood and almost without water (with the exception of particular points of fertility), and infested by serpents many and venomous. At one time, all his provisions were exhausted; he passed through the territory of the natives called Lotophagi, near the lesser Syrtis; where the army had nothing to eat except the fruit of the lotus, which there abounded.[1001] Ophellas met with no enemies; but the sufferings of every kind endured by his soldiers—still more of course by the less hardy colonists and their families—were most distressing. After miseries endured for more than two months, he joined Agathokles in the Carthaginian territory; With what abatement of number, we do not know, but his loss must have been considerable.[1002]

[1000] Diodor. xx. 41.

[1001] Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. iv. 3. p. 127, ed. Schneider.

The philosopher would hear this fact from some of the Athenians concerned in the expedition.

[1002] Diodor. xx. 42. See the striking description of the miseries of this same march, made by Cato and his Roman troops after the death of Pompey, in Lucan, Pharsalia, ix. 382-940:—

“Vadimus in campos steriles, exustaque mundi. Quà nimius Titan, et raræ in fontibus undæ, Siccaque letiferis squalent serpentibus arva, Durum iter.”

The entire march of Ophellas must (I think) have lasted longer than two months; probably Diodorus speaks only of the more distressing or middle portion of it when he says—κατὰ τὴν ὁδοιπορίαν πλεῖον ἢ δύο μῆνας κακοπαθήσαντες, etc. (xx. 42).

Ophellas little knew the man whose invitation and alliance he had accepted. Agathokles at first received him with the warmest protestations of attachment, welcoming the new-comers with profuse hospitality, and supplying to them full means of refreshment and renovation after their past sufferings. Having thus gained the confidence and favorable sympathies of all, he proceeded to turn it to his own purposes. Convening suddenly the most devoted among his own soldiers, he denounced Ophellas as guilty of plotting against his life. They listened to him with the same feelings of credulous rage as the Macedonian soldiers exhibited when Alexander denounced Philotas before them. Agathokles then at once called them to arms, set upon Ophellas unawares, and slew him with his more immediate defenders. Among the soldiers of Ophellas, this act excited horror and indignation, no less than surprise; but Agathokles at length succeeded in bringing them to terms, partly by deceitful pretexts, partly by intimidation: for this unfortunate army, left without any commander of fixed purpose, had no resource except to enter into his service.[1003] He thus found himself (like Antipater after the death of Leonnatus) master of a double army, and relieved from a troublesome rival. The colonists of Ophellas—more unfortunate still, since they could be of no service to Agathokles—were put by him on board some merchant vessels, which he was sending to Syracuse with spoil. The weather becoming stormy, many of these vessels foundered at sea,—some were driven off and wrecked on the coast of Italy—and a few only reached Syracuse.[1004] Thus miserably perished the Kyrenean expedition of Ophellas; one of the most commanding and powerful schemes, for joint conquest and colonization, that ever set out from any Grecian city.

[1003] Diodor. xx. 42; Justin. xxii. 7.

[1004] Diodor. xx. 44.

It would have fared ill with Agathokles, had the Carthaginians been at hand, and ready to attack him in the confusion immediately succeeding the death of Ophellas. It would also have fared yet worse with Carthage, had Agathokles been in a position to attack her during the terrible sedition excited, nearly at the same time, within her walls by the general Bomilkar.[1005] This traitor (as has been already stated) had long cherished the design to render himself despot, and had been watching for a favorable opportunity. Having purposely caused the loss of the first battle—fought in conjunction with his brave colleague Hanno, against Agathokles—he had since carried on the war with a view to his own project (which explains in part the continued reverses of the Carthaginians); he now thought that the time was come for openly raising his standard. Availing himself of a military muster in the quarter of the city called Neapolis, he first dismissed the general body of the soldiers, retaining near him only a trusty band of 500 citizens, and 4000 mercenaries. At the head of these, he then fell upon the unsuspecting city: dividing them into five detachments, and slaughtering indiscriminately the unarmed citizens in the streets, as well as in the great market-place. At first the Carthaginians were astounded and paralyzed. Gradually however they took courage, stood upon their defence against the assailants, combatted them in the streets and poured upon them missiles from the house-tops. After a prolonged conflict, the partisans of Bomilkar found themselves worsted, and were glad to avail themselves of the mediation of some elder citizens. They laid down their arms on promise of pardon. The promise was faithfully kept by the victors, except in regard to Bomilkar himself; who was hanged in the market-place, having first undergone severe tortures.[1006]

[1005] Diodor. xx. 43.

[1006] Diodor. xx. 44; Justin, xxii. 7. Compare the description given by Appian (Punic. 128), of the desperate defence made by the Carthaginians in the last siege of the city, against the assault of the Romans, from the house-tops and in the streets.

Though the Carthaginians had thus escaped from an extreme peril, yet the effects of so formidable a conspiracy weakened them for some time against their enemy without; while Agathokles on the other hand, reinforced by the army from Kyrênê, was stronger than ever. So elate did he feel, that he assumed the title of King;[1007] following herein the example of the great Macedonian officers, Antigonus, Ptolemy, Seleukus, Lysimachus, and Kassander; the memory of Alexander being now discarded, as his heirs had been already put to death. Agathokles, already master of nearly all the dependent towns east and south-east of Carthage, proceeded to carry his arms to the north-west of the city. He attacked Utica,—the second city next to Carthage in importance, and older indeed than Carthage itself—situated on the western or opposite shore of the Carthaginian Gulf, and visible from Carthage, though distant from it twenty-seven miles around the Gulf on land.[1008] The Uticans had hitherto remained faithful to Carthage, in spite of her reverses, and of defection elsewhere.[1009] Agathokles marched into their territory with such unexpected rapidity (he had hitherto been on the south-east of Carthage, and he now suddenly moved to the north-west of that city), that he seized the persons of three hundred leading citizens, who had not yet taken the precaution of retiring within the city. Having vainly tried to prevail on the Uticans to surrender, he assailed their walls, attaching in front of his battering engines the three hundred Utican prisoners; so that the citizens, in hurling missiles of defence, were constrained to inflict death on their own comrades and relatives. They nevertheless resisted the assault with unshaken resolution; but Agathokles found means to force an entrance through a weak part of the walls, and thus became master of the city. He made it a scene of indiscriminate slaughter, massacring the inhabitants, armed and unarmed, and hanging up the prisoners. He further captured the town of Hippu-Akra, about thirty miles north-west of Utica, which had also remained faithful to Carthage—and which now, after a brave defence, experienced the like pitiless treatment.[1010] The Carthaginians, seemingly not yet recovered from their recent shock, did not interfere, even to rescue these two important places; so that Agathokles, firmly established in Tunês as a centre of operations, extended his African dominion more widely than ever all round Carthage, both on the coast and in the interior; while he interrupted the supplies of Carthage itself, and reduced the inhabitants to great privations.[1011] He even occupied and fortified strongly a place called Hippagreta, between Utica and Carthage; thus pushing his posts within a short distance both east and west of her gates.[1012]

[1007] There are yet remaining coins—Ἀγαθοκλέος Βασιλέως—the earliest Sicilian coins that bear the name of a prince (Humphreys, Ancient Coins and Medals, p. 50).

[1008] Strabo, xvii. p. 832; Polyb. i. 73.

[1009] Polybius (i. 82) expressly states that the inhabitants of Utica and of Hippu-Akra (a little further to the west than Utica), remained faithful to Carthage throughout the hostilities carried on by Agathokles. This enables us to correct the passage wherein Diodorus describes the attack of Agathokles upon Utica (xx. 54)—ἐπὶ μὲν Ἰτυκαίους ἐστράτευσεν ~ἀφεστηκότας~, ἄφνω δὲ αὐτῶν τῇ πόλει προσπεσών, etc. The word ~ἀφεστηκότας~ here is perplexing. It must mean that the Uticans had revolted from Agathokles; yet Diodorus has not before said a word about the Uticans, nor reported that they had either joined Agathokles, or been conquered by him. Everything that Diodorus has reported hitherto about Agathokles, relates to operations among the towns east or south-east of Carthage.

It appears to me that the passage ought to stand—ἐπὶ μὲν Ἰτυκαίους ἐστράτευσεν ~οὐκ ἀφεστηκότας~, i. e. from Carthage; which introduces consistency into the narrative of Diodorus himself, while it brings him into harmony with Polybius.

[1010] Diodor. xx. 54, 55. In attacking Hippu-Akra (otherwise called Hippo-Zarytus, near the Promontorium Pulchrum, the northernmost point of Africa), Agathokles is said to have got the better in a naval battle—ναυμαχία περιγενόμενος. This implies that he must have got a fleet superior to the Carthaginians even in their own gulf; perhaps ships seized at Utica.

[1011] Diodor. xx. 59.

[1012] Appian distinctly mentions this place Hippagreta as having been fortified by Agathokles—and distinctly describes it as being between Utica and Carthage (Punic. 110). It cannot therefore be the same place as Hippu-Akra (or Hippo-Zarytus); which was considerably further from Carthage than Utica was.

In this prosperous condition of his African affairs, he thought the opportunity favorable for retrieving his diminished ascendency in Sicily; to which island he accordingly crossed over, with 2000 men, leaving the command in Africa to his son Archagathus. That young man was at first successful, and seemed even in course of enlarging his father’s conquests. His general Eumachus overran a wide range of interior Numidia, capturing Tokæ, Phellinê, Meschelæ, Akris, and another town bearing the same name of Hippu-Akra—and enriching his soldiers with a considerable plunder. But in a second expedition, endeavoring to carry his arms yet farther into the interior, he was worsted in an attack upon a town called Miltinê, and compelled to retreat. We read that he marched through one mountainous region abounding in wild cats—and another, in which there were a great number of apes, who lived in the most tame and familiar manner in the houses with men—being greatly caressed, and even worshipped as gods.[1013]

[1013] Diodor. xx. 57, 58. It is vain to attempt to identify the places mentioned as visited and conquered by Eumachus. Our topographical knowledge is altogether insufficient. This second Hippu-Akra is supposed to be the same as Hippo-Regius; Tokæ may be Tucca Terebinthina, in the south-eastern region or Byzakium.

The Carthaginians however had now regained internal harmony and power of action. Their senate and their generals were emulous, both in vigor and in provident combinations, against the common enemy. They sent forth 30,000 men, a larger force than they had yet had in the field; forming three distinct camps, under Hanno, Imilkon, and Adherbal, partly in the interior, partly on the coast. Archagathus, leaving a sufficient guard at Tunês, marched to meet them, distributing his army in three divisions also; two, under himself and Æschrion, besides the corps under Eumachus in the mountainous region. He was however unsuccessful at all points. Hanno, contriving to surprise the division of Æschrion, gained a complete victory, wherein Æschrion himself with more than 4000 men were slain. Imilkon was yet more fortunate in his operations against Eumachus, whom he entrapped by simulated flight into an ambuscade, and attacked at such advantage, that the Grecian army was routed and cut off from all retreat. A remnant of them defended themselves for some time on a neighboring hill, but being without water, nearly all soon perished, from thirst, fatigue, and the sword of the conqueror.[1014]

[1014] Diodor. xx. 59, 60.

By such reverses, destroying two-thirds of the Agathoklean army, Archagathus was placed in serious peril. He was obliged to concentrate his force in Tunês, calling in nearly all his outlying detachments. At the same time, those Liby-Phenician cities, and rural Libyan tribes, who had before joined Agathokles, now detached themselves from him when his power was evidently declining, and made their peace with Carthage. The victorious Carthaginian generals established fortified camps round Tunês, so as to restrain the excursions of Archagathus; while with their fleet they blocked up his harbor. Presently provisions became short, and much despondency prevailed among the Grecian army. Archagathus transmitted this discouraging news to his father in Sicily, with urgent entreaties that he would come to the rescue.[1015]

[1015] Diodor. xx. 61.

The career of Agathokles in Sicily, since his departure from Africa, had been checkered, and on the whole unproductive. Just before his arrival in the island,[1016] his generals Leptines and Demophilus had gained an important victory over the Agrigentine forces commanded by Xenodokus, who were disabled from keeping the field. This disaster was a fatal discouragement both to the Agrigentines, and to the cause which they had espoused as champions—free and autonomous city-government with equal confederacy for self-defence, under the presidency of Agrigentum.[1017] The outlying cities confederate with Agrigentum were left without military protection, and exposed to the attacks of Leptines, animated and fortified by the recent arrival of his master Agathokles. That despot landed at Selinus—subdued Herakleia, Therma, and Kephaloidion, on or near the northern coast of Sicily—then crossed the interior of the island to Syracuse. In his march he assaulted Kentoripa, having some partisans within, but was repulsed with loss. At Apollonia,[1018] he was also unsuccessful in his first attempt; but being stung with mortification, he resumed the assault next day, and at length, by great efforts, carried the town. To avenge his loss, which had been severe, he massacred most of the citizens, and abandoned the town to plunder.[1019]

[1016] Diodor. xx. 56. Ἀγαθοκλῆς δὲ, τῆς ~μάχης ἄρτι~ γεγενημένης, καταπλεύσας τῆς Σικελίας εἰς Σελινοῦντα, etc.

[1017] Diodor. xx. 56. Οἱ μὲν οὖν Ἀκραγαντῖνοι ταύτῃ τῇ συμφορᾷ περιπεσόντες, διέλυσαν ἑαυτῶν μὲν τὴν καλλίστην ἐπιβολὴν, τῶν δὲ συμμάχων τὰς τῆς ἐλευθερίας ἐλπίδας.

[1018] Apollonia was a town in the interior of the island, somewhat to the north-east of Enna (Cicero, Verr. iii. 43).

[1019] Diodor. xx. 56.

From hence he proceeded to Syracuse, which he now revisited after an absence of (apparently) more than two years in Africa. During all this interval, the Syracusan harbor had been watched by a Carthaginian fleet, obstructing the entry of provisions, and causing partial scarcity.[1020] But there was no blockading army on land; nor had the dominion of Agathokles, upheld as it was by his brother Antander and his mercenary force, been at all shaken. His arrival inspired his partisans and soldiers with new courage, while it spread terror throughout most parts of Sicily. To contend with the Carthaginian blockading squadron, he made efforts to procure maritime aid from the Tyrrhenian ports in Italy;[1021] while on land, his forces were now preponderant—owing to the recent defeat, and broken spirit, of the Agrigentines. But his prospects were suddenly checked by the enterprising move of his old enemy—the Syracusan exile Deinokrates; who made profession of taking up that generous policy which the Agrigentines had tacitly let fall—announcing himself as the champion of autonomous city-government, and equal confederacy, throughout Sicily. Deinokrates received ready adhesion from most of the cities belonging to the Agrigentine confederacy—all of them who were alarmed by finding that the weakness or fears of their presiding city had left them unprotected against Agathokles. He was soon at the head of a powerful army—20,000 foot, and 1500 horse. Moreover a large proportion of his army were not citizen militia, but practised soldiers; for the most part exiles, driven from their homes by the distractions and violences of the Agathoklean æra.[1022] For military purposes, both he and his soldiers were far more strenuous and effective than the Agrigentines under Xenodokus had been. He not only kept the field against Agathokles, but several times offered him battle, which the despot did not feel confidence enough to accept. Agathokles could do no more than maintain himself in Syracuse, while the Sicilian cities generally were put in security against his aggressions.

[1020] Diodor. xx. 62.

[1021] Diodor. xx. 61.

[1022] Diodor. xx. 57. καὶ πάντων τούτων ἐν φυγαῖς καὶ μελέταις τοῦ πονεῖν συνεχῶς γεγονότων, etc.

Amidst this unprosperous course of affairs in Sicily, Agathokles received messengers from his son, reporting the defeats in Africa. Preparing immediately to revisit that country, he was fortunate enough to obtain a reinforcement of Tyrrhenian ships of war, which enabled him to overcome the Carthaginian blockading squadron at the mouth of the Syracusan harbor. A clear passage to Africa was thus secured for himself, together with ample supplies of imported provisions for the Syracusans.[1023] Though still unable to combat Deinokrates in the field, Agathokles was emboldened by his recent naval victory to send forth Leptines with a force to invade the Agrigentines—the jealous rivals, rather than the allies, of Deinokrates. The Agrigentine army—under the general Xenodokus, whom Leptines had before defeated—consisted of citizen militia mustered on the occasion; while the Agathoklean mercenaries, conducted by Leptines, had made arms a profession, and were used to fighting as well as to hardships.[1024] Here as elsewhere in Greece, we find the civic and patriotic energy trampled down by professional soldiership, and reduced to operate only as an obsequious instrument for administrative details.

[1023] Diodor. xx. 61, 62.

[1024] Diodor. xx. 62.

Xenodokus, conscious of the inferiority of his Agrigentine force, was reluctant to hazard a battle. Driven to this imprudence by the taunts of his soldiers, he was defeated a second time by Leptines, and became so apprehensive of the wrath of the Agrigentines, that he thought it expedient to retire to Gela. After a period of rejoicing, for his recent victories by land as well as by sea, Agathokles passed over to Africa, where he found his son, with the army at Tunês in great despondency and privation, and almost mutiny for want of pay. They still amounted to 6000 Grecian mercenaries, 6000 Gauls, Samnites, and Tyrrhenians—1500 cavalry—and no less than 6000 (if the number be correct) Libyan war-chariots. There were also a numerous body of Libyan allies; faithless time-servers, watching for the turn of fortune. The Carthaginians, occupying strong camps in the vicinity of Tunês, and abundantly supplied, awaited patiently the destroying effects of privation and suffering on their enemies. So desperate was the position of Agathokles, that he was compelled to go forth and fight. Having tried in vain to draw the Carthaginians down into the plain, he at length attacked them in the full strength of their entrenchments. But in spite of the most strenuous efforts, his troops were repulsed with great slaughter, and driven back to their camp.[1025]

[1025] Diodor. xx. 64; Justin, xxii. 8.

The night succeeding this battle was a scene of disorder and panic in both camps; even in that of the victorious Carthaginians. The latter, according to the ordinances of their religion, eager to return their heartfelt thanks to the gods for this great victory, sacrificed to them as a choice offering the handsomest prisoners captured.[1026] During this process, the tent or tabernacle consecrated to the gods, close to the altar as well as to the general’s tent, accidentally took fire. The tents being formed by mere wooden posts, connected by a thatch of hay or straw both on roof and sides,—the fire spread rapidly, and the entire camp was burnt, together with many soldiers who tried to arrest the conflagration. So distracting was the terror occasioned by this catastrophe, that the whole Carthaginian army for the time dispersed; and Agathokles, had he been prepared, might have destroyed them. But it happened that at the same hour, his own camp was thrown into utter confusion by a different accident, rendering his soldiers incapable of being brought into action.[1027]

[1026] Diodor. xx. 65. See an incident somewhat similar (Herod. vii. 180)—the Persians, in the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, sacrificed the handsomest Grecian prisoner whom they captured on board the first prize-ship that fell into their hands.

[1027] Diodor. xx. 66, 67.

His position at Tunês had now become desperate. His Libyan allies had all declared against him, after the recent defeat. He could neither continue to hold Tunês, nor carry away his troops to Sicily; for he had but few vessels, and the Carthaginians were masters at sea. Seeing no resource, he resolved to embark secretly with his younger son Herakleides; abandoning Archagathus and the army to their fate. But Archagathus and the other officers, suspecting his purpose, were thoroughly resolved that the man who had brought them into destruction should not thus slip away and betray them. As Agathokles was on the point of going aboard at night, he found himself watched, arrested, and held prisoner, by the indignant soldiery. The whole town now became a scene of disorder and tumult, aggravated by the rumor that the enemy were marching up to attack them. Amidst the general alarm, the guards who had been set over Agathokles, thinking his services indispensable for defence, brought him out with his fetters still on. When the soldiers saw him in this condition, their sentiment towards him again reverted to pity and admiration, notwithstanding his projected desertion; moreover they hoped for his guidance to resist the impending attack. With one voice they called upon the guards to strike off his chains and set him free. Agathokles was again at liberty. But insensible to everything except his own personal safety, he presently stole away, leaped unperceived into a skiff, with a few attendants, but without either of his sons,—and was lucky enough to arrive, in spite of stormy November weather, on the coast of Sicily.[1028]

[1028] Diodor. xx. 69; Justin, xxii. 8. ... τὸ δὲ πλῆθος, ὡς εἶδεν, εἰς ἔλεον ἐτράπη, καὶ πάντες ἐπεβόων ἀφεῖναι· ὁ δὲ λυθεὶς καὶ μετ᾽ ὀλίγων ἐμβὰς εἰς τὸ πορθμεῖον, ἔλαθεν ἐκπλεύσας κατὰ τὴν δύσιν τῆς Πλειάδος, χειμῶνος ὄντος.

So terrible was the fury of the soldiers, on discovering that Agathokles had accomplished his desertion, that they slew both his sons, Archagathus and Herakleides. No resource was left but to elect new generals, and make the best terms they could with Carthage. They were still a formidable body, retaining in their hands various other towns besides Tunês; so that the Carthaginians, relieved from all fear of Agathokles, thought it prudent to grant an easy capitulation. It was agreed that all the towns should be restored to the Carthaginians, on payment of 300 talents; that such soldiers as chose to enter into the African service of Carthage, should be received on full pay; but that such as preferred returning to Sicily should be transported thither, with permission to reside in the Carthaginian town of Solus (or Soluntum). On these terms the convention was concluded, and the army finally broken up. Some indeed among the Grecian garrisons, quartered in the outlying posts, being rash enough to dissent and hold out, were besieged and taken by the Carthaginian force. Their commanders were crucified, and the soldiers condemned to rural work as fettered slaves.[1029]

[1029] Diodor. xx. 69.

Thus miserably terminated the expedition of Agathokles to Africa, after an interval of four years from the time of his landing. By the vana mirantes,[1030] who looked out for curious coincidences (probably Timæus), it was remarked, that his ultimate flight, with the slaughter of his two sons, occurred exactly on the same day of the year following his assassination of Ophellas.[1031] Ancient writers extol, with good reason, the bold and striking conception of transferring the war to Africa, at the very moment when he was himself besieged in Syracuse by a superior Carthaginian force. But while admitting the military resource, skill, and energy, of Agathokles, we must not forget that his success in Africa was materially furthered by the treasonable conduct of the Carthaginian general Bomilkar—an accidental coincidence in point of time. Nor is it to be overlooked, that Agathokles missed the opportunity of turning his first success to account, at a moment when the Carthaginians would probably have purchased his evacuation of Africa by making large concessions to him in Sicily.[1032] He imprudently persisted in the war, though the complete conquest of Carthage was beyond his strength—and though it was still more beyond his strength to prosecute effective war, simultaneously and for a long time, in Sicily and in Africa. The African subjects of Carthage were not attached to her; but neither were they attached to him;—nor, on the long run, did they do him any serious good. Agathokles is a man of force and fraud—consummate in the use of both. His whole life is a series of successful adventures, and strokes of bold ingenuity to extricate himself from difficulties; but there is wanting in him all predetermined general plan, or measured range of ambition, to which these single exploits might be made subservient.

[1030] Tacit. Annal. i. 9. “Multus hinc ipso de Augusto sermo, plerisque vana mirantibus—quod idem dies accepti quondam imperii princeps, et vitæ supremus—quod Nolæ in domo et cubiculo, in quo pater ejus Octavius, vitam finivisset”, etc.

[1031] Diodor. xx. 70.

[1032] This is what Agathokles might have done, but did not do. Nevertheless, Valerius Maximus (vii. 4, 1) represents him as having actually done it, and praises his sagacity on that ground. Here is an example how little careful these collectors of anecdotes sometimes are about their facts.

After his passage from Africa, Agathokles landed on the western corner of Sicily near the town of Egesta, which was then in alliance with him. He sent to Syracuse for a reinforcement. But he was hard pressed for money; he suspected, or pretended to suspect, the Egestæans of disaffection; accordingly, on receiving his new force, he employed it to commit revolting massacre and plunder in Egesta. The town is reported to have contained 10,000 citizens. Of these Agathokles caused the poorer men to be for the most part murdered; the richer were cruelly tortured, and even their wives tortured and mutilated, to compel revelations of concealed wealth; the children of both sexes were transported to Italy, and there sold as slaves to the Bruttians. The original population being thus nearly extirpated, Agathokles changed the name of the town to Dikæopolis, assigning it as a residence to such deserters as might join him.[1033] This atrocity, more suitable to Africa[1034] than Greece (where the mutilation of women is almost unheard of), was probably the way in which his savage pride obtained some kind of retaliatory satisfaction for the recent calamity and humiliation in Africa. Under the like sentiment, he perpetrated another deed of blood at Syracuse. Having learnt that the soldiers, whom he had deserted at Tunês, had after his departure put to death his two sons, he gave orders to Antander his brother (viceroy of Syracuse), to massacre all the relatives of those Syracusans who had served him in the African expedition. This order was fulfilled by Antander (we are assured) accurately and to the letter. Neither age or sex—grandsire or infant—wife or mother—were spared by the Agathoklean executioners. We may be sure that their properties were plundered at the same time; we hear of no mutilations.[1035]

[1033] Diodor. xx. 71. We do not know what happened afterwards with this town under its new population. But the old name Egesta was afterwards resumed.

[1034] Compare the proceedings of the Greco-Libyan princess Pheretimê (of the Battiad family) at Barka (Herodot. iv. 202).

[1035] Diodor. xx. 72. Hippokrates and Epikydes—those Syracusans who, about a century afterwards, induced Hieronymus of Syracuse to prefer the Carthaginian alliance to the Roman—had resided at Carthage for some time, and served in the army of Hannibal, because their grandfather had been banished from Syracuse as one concerned in killing Archagathus (Polyb. vii. 2).

Still Agathokles tried to maintain his hold on the Sicilian towns which remained to him; but his cruelties as well as his reverses had produced a strong sentiment against him, and even his general Pasiphilus revolted to join Deinokrates. That exile was now at the head of an army stated at 20,000 men, the most formidable military force in Sicily; so that Agathokles, feeling the inadequacy of his own means, sent to solicit peace, and to offer tempting conditions. He announced his readiness to evacuate Syracuse altogether, and to be content, if two maritime towns on the northern coast of the island—Therma and Kephaloidion—were assigned to his mercenaries and himself. Under this proposition, Deinokrates, and the other Syracusan exiles, had the opportunity of entering Syracuse, and reconstituting the free city-government. Had Deinokrates been another Timoleon, the city might now have acquired and enjoyed another temporary sunshine of autonomy and prosperity; but his ambition was thoroughly selfish. As commander of this large army, he enjoyed a station of power and license such as he was not likely to obtain under the reconstituted city-government of Syracuse. He therefore evaded the propositions of Agathokles, requiring still larger concessions; until at length the Syracusan exiles in his own army (partly instigated by emissaries from Agathokles himself) began to suspect his selfish projects, and to waver in their fidelity to him. Meanwhile Agathokles, being repudiated by Deinokrates, addressed himself to the Carthaginians, and concluded a treaty with them, restoring or guaranteeing to them all the possessions that they had ever enjoyed in Sicily. In return for this concession, he received from them a sum of money, and a large supply of corn.[1036]

[1036] Diodor. xx. 78, 79. Some said that the sum of money paid by the Carthaginians was 300 talents. Timæus stated it at 150 talents.

Relieved from Carthaginian hostility, Agathokles presently ventured to march against the army of Deinokrates. The latter was indeed greatly superior in strength, but many of his soldiers were now lukewarm or disaffected, and Agathokles had established among them correspondences upon which he could rely. At a great battle fought near Torgium, many of them went over on the field to Agathokles, giving to him a complete victory. The army of Deinokrates was completely dispersed. Shortly afterwards a considerable body among them (4000 men, or 7000 men, according to different statements) surrendered to the victor on terms. As soon as they had delivered up their arms, Agathokles, regardless of his covenant, caused them to be surrounded by his own army, and massacred.[1037]

[1037] Diodor. xx. 89.

It appears as if the recent victory had been the result of a secret and treacherous compact between Agathokles and Deinokrates; and as if the prisoners massacred by Agathokles were those of whom Deinokrates wished to rid himself as malcontents; for immediately after the battle, a reconciliation took place between the two. Agathokles admitted the other as a sort of partner in his despotism; while Deinokrates not only brought into the partnership all the military means and strong posts which he had been two years in acquiring, but also betrayed to Agathokles the revolted general Pasiphilus with the town of Gela occupied by the latter. It is noticed as singular, that Agathokles, generally faithless and unscrupulous towards both friends and enemies, kept up the best understanding and confidence with Deinokrates to the end of his life.[1038]

[1038] Diodor. xx. 90.

The despot had now regained full power at Syracuse, together with a great extent of dominion in Sicily. The remainder of his restless existence was spent in operations of hostility or plunder against more northerly enemies—the Liparæan isles[1039]—the Italian cities and the Bruttians—the island of Korkyra. We are unable to follow his proceedings in detail. He was threatened with a formidable attack[1040] by the Spartan prince Kleonymus, who was invited by the Tarentines to aid them against the Lucanians and Romans. But Kleonymus found enough to occupy him elsewhere, without visiting Sicily. He collected a considerable force on the coast of Italy, undertook operations with success against the Lucanians, and even captured the town of Thurii. But the Romans, now pushing their intervention even to the Tarentine Gulf, drove him off and retook the town; moreover his own behavior was so tyrannical and profligate, as to draw upon him universal hatred. Returning from Italy to Korkyra, Kleonymus made himself master of that important island, intending to employ it as a base of operations both against Greece and against Italy.[1041] He failed however in various expeditions both in the Tarentine Gulf and the Adriatic. Demetrius Poliorketes and Kassander alike tried to conclude an alliance with him; but in vain.[1042] At a subsequent period, Korkyra was besieged by Kassander with a large naval and military force; Kleonymus then retired (or perhaps had previously retired) to Sparta. Kassander, having reduced the island to great straits, was on the point of taking it, when it was relieved by Agathokles with a powerful armament. That despot was engaged in operations on the coast of Italy against the Bruttians when his aid to Korkyra was solicited; he destroyed most part of the Macedonian fleet, and then seized the island for himself.[1043] On returning from this victorious expedition to the Italian coast, where he had left a detachment of his Ligurian and Tuscan mercenaries, he was informed that these mercenaries had been turbulent during his absence, in demanding the pay due to them from his grandson Archagathus. He caused them all to be slain, to the number of 2000.[1044]

[1039] Diodor. xx. 101. This expedition of Agathokles against the Lyparæan isles seems to have been described in detail by his contemporary historian, the Syracusan Kallias: see the Fragments of that author, in Didot’s Fragment. Hist. Græc. vol. ii. p. 383. Fragm. 4.

[1040] Diodor. xx. 104.

[1041] Diodor. xx. 104; Livy, x. 2. A curious anecdote appears in the Pseudo-Aristotle, De Mirabilibus (78) respecting two native Italians, Aulus and Caius, who tried to poison Kleonymus at Tarentum, but were detected and put to death by the Tarentines.

That Agathokles, in his operations on the coast of southern Italy, found himself in conflict with the Romans, and that their importance was now strongly felt—we may judge by the fact, that the Syracusan Kallias (contemporary and historian of Agathokles) appears to have given details respecting the origin and history of Rome. See the Fragments of Kallias, ap. Didot, Hist. Græc. Frag. vol. ii. p. 383; Fragm. 5—and Dionys. Hal. Ant. Rom. i. 72.

[1042] Diodor. xx. 105.

[1043] Diodor. xxi. Fragm. 2. p. 265.

[1044] Diodor. xxi. Fragm. 3. p. 266.

As far as we can trace the events of the last years of Agathokles, we find him seizing the towns of Kroton and Hipponia in Italy, establishing an alliance with Demetrius Poliorketes,[1045] and giving his daughter Lanassa in marriage to the youthful Pyrrhus king of Epirus. At the age of seventy-two, still in the plenitude of vigor as well as of power, he was projecting a fresh expedition against the Carthaginians in Africa, with two hundred of the largest ships of war, when his career was brought to a close by sickness and by domestic enemies.

[1045] Diodor. xxi. Fragm. 4, 8, 11. p. 266-273.

He proclaimed as future successor to his dominion, his son, named Agathokles; but Archagathus his grandson (son of Archagathus who had perished in Africa), a young prince of more conspicuous qualities, had already been singled out for the most important command, and was now at the head of the army near Ætna. The old Agathokles, wishing to strengthen the hands of his intended successor, sent his favored son Agathokles to Ætna, with written orders directing that Archagathus should yield up to him the command. Archagathus, noway disposed to obey, invited his uncle Agathokles to a banquet, and killed him; after which he contrived the poisoning of his grandfather the old despot himself. The instrument of his purpose was Mænon; a citizen of Egesta, enslaved at the time when Agathokles massacred most of the Egestæan population. The beauty of his person procured him much favor with Agathokles; but he had never forgotten, and had always been anxious to avenge, the bloody outrage on his fellow-citizens. To accomplish this purpose, the opportunity was now opened to him, together with a promise of protection, through Archagathus. He accordingly poisoned Agathokles, as we are told, by means of a medicated quill, handed to him for cleaning his teeth after dinner.[1046] Combining together the various accounts, it seems probable that Agathokles was at the time sick—that this sickness may have been the reason why he was so anxious to strengthen the position of his intended successor—and that his death was as much the effect of his malady as of the poison. Archagathus, after murdering his uncle, seems by means of his army to have made himself real master of the Syracusan power; while the old despot, defenceless on a sick bed, could do no more than provide for the safety of his Egyptian wife Theoxena and his two young children, by despatching them on shipboard with all his rich movable treasures to Alexandria. Having secured this object, amidst extreme grief on the part of those around, he expired.[1047]

[1046] Diodor. xxi. Fragm. 12. p. 276-278. Neither Justin (xxiii. 2) nor Trogus before him, (as it seems from the Prologue) alludes to poison. He represents Agathokles as having died by a violent distemper. He notices however the bloody family feud, and the murder of the uncle by the nephew.

[1047] Justin (xxiii. 2) dwells pathetically on this last parting between Agathokles and Theoxena. It is difficult to reconcile Justin’s narrative with that of Diodorus; but on this point, as far as we can judge, I think him more credible than Diodorus.

The great lines in the character of Agathokles are well marked. He was of the stamp of Gelon and the elder Dionysius—a soldier of fortune, who raised himself from the meanest beginnings to the summit of political power—and who, in the acquisition as well as maintenance of that power, displayed an extent of energy, perseverance, and military resource, not surpassed by any one, even of the generals formed in Alexander’s school. He was an adept in that art at which all aspiring men of his age aimed—the handling of mercenary soldiers for the extinction of political liberty and security at home, and for predatory aggrandizement abroad. I have already noticed the opinion delivered by Scipio Africanus—that the elder Dionysius and Agathokles were the most daring, sagacious, and capable men of action within his knowledge.[1048] Apart from this enterprising genius, employed in the service of unmeasured personal ambition, we know nothing of Agathokles except his sanguinary, faithless, and nefarious dispositions; in which attributes also he stands pre-eminent, above all his known contemporaries, and above nearly all predecessors.[1049] Notwithstanding his often-proved perfidy, he seems to have had a joviality and apparent simplicity of manner (the same is recounted of Cæsar Borgia) which amused men and put them off their guard, throwing them perpetually into his trap.[1050]

[1048] Polyb. xv. 35. See above in this History, Vol. XI. Ch. lxxxiii. p. 46.

[1049] Polybius (ix. 23) says that Agathokles, though cruel in the extreme at the beginning of his career, and in the establishment of his power, yet became the mildest of men after his power was once established. The latter half of this statement is contradicted by all the particular facts which we know respecting Agathokles.

As to Timæus the historian, indeed (who had been banished from Sicily by Agathokles, and who wrote the history of the latter in five books), Polybius had good reason to censure him, as being unmeasured in his abuse of Agathokles. For Timæus not only recounted of Agathokles numerous acts of nefarious cruelty—acts of course essentially public, and therefore capable of being known—but also told much scandal about his private habits, and represented him (which is still more absurd) as a man vulgar and despicable in point of ability. See the Fragments of Timæus ap. Histor. Græc. ed. Didot. Frag. 144-150.

All, or nearly all, the acts of Agathokles, as described in the preceding pages, have been copied from Diodorus; who had as good authorities before him as Polybius possessed. Diodorus does not copy the history of Agathokles from Timæus; on the contrary, he censures Timæus for his exaggerated acrimony and injustice towards Agathokles, in terms not less forcibly than those which Polybius employs (xxi. Fragm. p. 279). Diodorus cites Timæus by name, occasionally and in particular instances: but he evidently did not borrow from that author the main stream of his narrative. He seems to have had before him other authorities—among them some highly favorable to Agathokles—the Syracusan Kallias—and Antander, brother of Agathokles (xxi. p. 278-282).

[1050] Diodor. xx. 63.

Agathokles, however, though among the worst of Greeks, was yet a Greek. During his government of thirty-two years, the course of events in Sicily continued under Hellenic agency, without the preponderant intervention of any foreign power. The power of Agathokles indeed rested mainly on foreign mercenaries; but so had that of Dionysius and Gelon before him; and he as well as they, kept up vigorously the old conflict against the Carthaginian power in the island. Grecian history in Sicily thus continues down to the death of Agathokles; but it continues no longer. After his death, Hellenic power and interests become incapable of self-support, and sink into a secondary and subservient position, overridden or contended for by foreigners. Syracuse and the other cities passed from one despot to another, and were torn with discord arising out of the crowds of foreign mercenaries who had obtained footing among them. At the same time, the Carthaginians made increased efforts to push their conquests in the island, without finding any sufficient internal resistance; so that they would have taken Syracuse, and made Sicily their own, had not Pyrrhus king of Epirus (the son-in-law of Agathokles) interposed to arrest their progress. From this time forward, the Greeks of Sicily become a prize to be contended for—first between the Carthaginians and Pyrrhus—next, between the Carthaginians and Romans[1051]—until at length they dwindle into subjects of Rome; corn-growers for the Roman plebs, clients under the patronage of the Roman Marcelli, victims of the rapacity of Verres, and suppliants for the tutelary eloquence of Cicero. The historian of self-acting Hellas loses sight of them at the death of Agathokles.

[1051] The poet Theokritus (xvi. 75-80) expatiates on the bravery of the Syracusan Hiero II., and on the great warlike power of the Syracusans under him (B. C. 260-240), which he represents as making the Carthaginians tremble for their possessions in Sicily. Personally, Hiero seems to have deserved this praise—and to have deserved yet more praise for his mild and prudent internal administration of Syracuse. But his military force was altogether secondary in the great struggle between Rome and Carthage for the mastery of Sicily.

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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 self-action, 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.

In my third volume (ch. xxii. p. 397), I briefly noticed the foundation and first proceedings of Massalia (the modern Marseilles), on the Mediterranean coast of Gaul or Liguria. This Ionic city, founded by the enterprising Phokæans 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 Massaliots maintained their own relations of commerce, friendship or hostility with their barbaric neighbors, 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 neighbors. 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 harbor securely closed against enemies.[1052] 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.[1053] 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 transport and commercial interchange; while their numerous maritime successes were attested by many trophies adorning the temples.[1054] The city contained docks and arsenals admirably provided with provisions, stores, arms, and all the various muniments of naval war.[1055] Except the Phenicians and Carthaginians, these Massaliots were the only enterprising mariners in the Western Mediterranean; from the year 500 B. 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 neighbors to Massalia as well by their piracies at sea as from their depredations by land.[1056] 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.[1057] It was not until the first century before the Christian era that they were outstripped in this career by Narbon, and a few other neighbors, exalted into Roman colonies.

[1052] Cæsar, Bell. Gall. ii. 1; Strabo, iv. p. 179.

[1053] See Poseidonius ap. Athenæum, iv. p. 152.

[1054] Strabo, iv. p. 180.

[1055] Strabo (xii. p. 575) places Massalia in the same rank as Kyzikus, Rhodes and Carthage; types of maritime cities highly and effectively organized.

[1056] Livy, xl. 18; Polybius, xxx. 4.

[1057] The oration composed by Demosthenes πρὸς Ζηνόδεμιν, 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. 382 seq.).

Along the coast on both sides of their own city, the Massaliots planted colonies, each commended to the protection, and consecrated by the statue and peculiar rites, of their own patron goddess, the Ephesian Artemis.[1058] Towards the east were Tauroentium, Olbia, Antipolis, Nikæa, and the Portus Monœki; 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 Emporiæ 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 guard on the walls, or at least held themselves prepared to do so. How long these strict and fatiguing precautions were found necessary, we do not know; but after a certain time they were relaxed, and the intervening wall disappeared, so that Greeks and Iberians freely coalesced into one community.[1059] It is not often that we are allowed to see so much in detail the early difficulties and dangers of a Grecian colony. Massalia itself was situated under nearly similar circumstances among the rude Ligurian Salyes; we hear of these Ligurians hiring themselves as laborers to dig on the fields of Massaliot proprietors.[1060] The various tribes of Ligurians, Gauls, and Iberians extended down to the coast, so that there was no safe road along it, nor any communication except by sea, until the conquests of the Romans in the second and first century before the Christian era.[1061]

[1058] Brückner, Histor. Massiliensium, c. 7 (Göttingen).

[1059] Livy, xxxiv. 8; Strabo. iii. p. 160. At Massalia, it is said that no armed stranger was ever allowed to enter the city, without depositing his arms at the gate (Justin, xliii. 4).

This precaution seems to have been adopted in other cities also: see Æneas, Poliorket. c. 30.

[1060] Strabo, iii. p. 165. A fact told to Poseidonius by a Massaliot proprietor who was his personal friend.

In the siege of Massalia by Cæsar, a detachment of Albici,—mountaineers not far from the town, and old allies or dependents—were brought in to help in the defence (Cæsar, Bell. G. i. 34).

[1061] Strabo, iv. p. 180.

The government of Massalia was oligarchical, carried on chiefly by a Senate or Great Council of Six Hundred (called Timuchi), elected for life—and by a small council of fifteen, chosen among this larger body to take turn in executive duties.[1062] 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.[1063] 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-hellenic;[1064] 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 Gallic[1065]) 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 among the causes which threw them betimes into alliance and active co-operation with Rome, under whose rule they obtained favorable treatment, when the blessing of freedom was no longer within their reach.

[1062] Strabo, iv. p. 181; Cicero, De Republ. xxvii. Fragm. Vacancies in the senate seem to have been filled up from meritorious citizens generally—as far as we can judge by a brief allusion in Aristotle (Polit. vi. 7).

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.

[1063] Strabo, l. c. However, one author from whom Athenæus borrowed (xii. p. 523), described the Massaliots as luxurious in their habits.

[1064] Strabo, iv. p. 199. Ἔφορος δὲ ὑπερβάλλουσαν τῷ μεγέθει λέγει τὴν Κελτικὴν, ὥστε ἧσπερ νῦν Ἰβηρίας καλοῦμεν ἐκείνοις τὰ πλεῖστα προσνέμειν μέχρι Γαδείρων, ~φιλέλληνάς τε ἀποφαίνει τοὺς ἀνθρώπους~, καὶ πολλὰ ἰδίως λέγει περὶ αὐτῶν οὐκ ἐοικότα τοῖς νῦν. Compare p. 181.

It is to be remembered that Ephorus was a native of the Asiatic Kymê the immediate neighbor of Phokæa, which was the metropolis of Massalia. The Massaliots never forgot or broke off their connection with Phokæa: 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.

[1065] Varro, Antiq. Fragm. p. 350, ed. Bipont.

Enough is known about Massalia to show that the city was a genuine specimen of Hellenism and Hellenic influences—acting not by force or constraint, but simply by superior intelligence and activity—by power of ministering to wants which must otherwise have remained unsupplied—and by the assimilating effect of a lettered civilization upon ruder neighbors. 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.),[1066] 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.

[1066] See the Fragmenta Pytheæ collected by Arfwedson, Upsal, 1824. He wrote two works—1. Γῆς Περιόδος. 2. Περὶ Ὠκεανοῦ. 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 character 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.

From the western wing of the Hellenic world, we pass to the eastern—the Euxine Sea. Of the Pentapolis on its western coast south of the Danube (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.[1067] 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 or Sparta, all these cities were legitimate members of the Hellenic brotherhood. All supplied spectators and competitors for the Pan-hellenic festivals—pupils 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.

[1067] Aristotle, Politic. v. 2, 11; v. 5, 2.

Of Sinôpê, and its three dependent colonies Kotyôra, Kerasus, and Trapezus, I have already said something,[1068] in describing the retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks. Like Massalia with its dependencies 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 through those regions. The citizens were on terms of equal alliance, mutually advantageous, with Korylas 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 behavior 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.[1069] Alexander however numbered them among 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.[1070] 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 Achæmenidæ),[1071] 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. Sinôpê 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.

[1068] See Vol. IX. Ch. lxxi. p. 129 seqq.

[1069] 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.

[1070] Arrian, iii. 24, 8; Curtius, vi. 5, 6.

[1071] Polybius, v. 43.

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 day’s voyage of a rowboat—was established by Megarians and Bœotians on the coast of the Mariandyni. These natives were subdued, and reduced to a kind of serfdom; whereby they became slaves, 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.[1072] We are told in general terms that the government of Herakleia was oligarchical;[1073] 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 Bosporus.[1074] They were also engaged in land-war with Mithridates, a prince of the ancient Persian family established as district rulers in Northern Kappadokia.[1075]

[1072] Xenoph. Anab. vi. 6, 2.

[1073] 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.

[1074] Aristot. Polit. vii. 5, 7; Polyæn. vi. 9, 3, 4; compare Pseudo-Aristotle Œconomic. 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.

[1075] Justin, xvi. 4.

Towards 380-370 B. C., the Herakleots became disturbed by violent party-contentions within the city. As far as we can divine from a few obscure hints, these contentions began among the oligarchy themselves;[1076] some of whom opposed, and partially threw open, a close political monopoly—yet not without a struggle, in the course of which an energetic citizen named Klearchus was banished. Presently however the contest assumed larger dimensions; the plebs sought admission into the constitution, and are even said to have required abolition of debts with a redivision of the lands.[1077] A democratical constitution was established; but it was speedily menaced by conspiracies of the rich, to guard against which, the classification of the citizens was altered. Instead of three tribes, and four centuries, all were distributed anew into sixty-four centuries; the tribes being discontinued. It would appear that in the original four centuries, the rich men had been so enrolled as to form separate military divisions (probably their rustic serfs being armed along with them)—-while the three tribes had contained all the rest of the people; so that the effect of thus multiplying the centuries was, to divest the rich of their separate military enrolment, and to disseminate them in many different regiments along with a greater number of poor.[1078]

[1076] Aristot. v. 5, 2; 5, 10.

[1077] Justin, xvi. 4.

[1078] Æneas, Poliorket. c. 11. I have given what seems the most probable explanation of a very obscure passage.

It is to be noted that the distribution of citizens into centuries (ἑκατοστύες) prevailed also at Byzantium; see Inscript. No. 2060 ap. Boeck. Corp. Inscr. Græc. p. 130. A citizen of Olbia, upon whom the citizenship of Byzantium is conferred, is allowed to enroll himself in any one of the ἑκατοστύες, that he prefers.

Still however the demands of the people were not fully granted, and dissension continued. Not merely the poorer citizens, but also the population of serfs—homogeneous, speaking the same language, and sympathizing with each other, like Helots or Penestæ—when once agitated by the hope of liberty, were with difficulty appeased. The government, though greatly democratized, found itself unable to maintain tranquillity, and invoked assistance from without. Application was made first, to the Athenian Timotheus—next, to the Theban Epaminondas; but neither of them would interfere—nor was there, indeed, any motive to tempt them. At length application was made to the exiled citizen Klearchus.

This exile, now about forty years of age, intelligent, audacious and unprincipled, had passed four years at Athens partly in hearing the lessons of Plato and Isokrates—and had watched with emulous curiosity the brilliant fortune of the despot Dionysius at Syracuse, in whom both these philosophers took interest.[1079] During his banishment, moreover, he had done what was common with Grecian exiles; he had taken service with the enemy of his native city, the neighboring prince Mithridates,[1080] and probably enough against the city itself. As an officer, he distinguished himself much; acquiring renown with the prince and influence over the minds of soldiers. Hence his friends, and a party in Herakleia, became anxious to recall him, as moderator and protector under the grievous political discords prevailing. It was the oligarchical party who invited him to come back, at the head of a body of troops, as their auxiliary in keeping down the plebs. Klearchus accepted their invitation; but with the full purpose of making himself the Dionysius of Herakleia. Obtaining from Mithridates a powerful body of mercenaries, under secret promise to hold the city only as his prefect, he marched thither with the proclaimed purpose of maintaining order, and upholding the government. As his mercenary soldiers were soon found troublesome companions, he obtained permission to construct a separate stronghold in the city, under color of keeping them apart in the stricter discipline of a barrack.[1081] Having thus secured a strong position, he invited Mithridates into the city, to receive the promised possession; but instead of performing this engagement, he detained the prince as prisoner, and only released him on payment of a considerable ransom. He next cheated, still more grossly, the oligarchy who had recalled him; denouncing their past misrule, declaring himself their mortal enemy, and espousing the pretensions as well as the antipathies of the plebs. The latter willingly seconded him in his measures—even extreme measures of cruelty and spoliation—against their political enemies. A large number of the rich were killed, imprisoned, or impoverished and banished; their slaves or serfs, too, were not only manumitted by order of the new despot, but also married to the wives and daughters of the exiles. The most tragical scenes arose out of these forced marriages; many of the women even killed themselves, some after having first killed their new husbands. Among the exiles, a party, driven to despair, procured assistance from without, and tried to obtain by force readmittance into the city; but they were totally defeated by Klearchus, who after this victory became more brutal and unrelenting than ever.[1082]

[1079] Diodor. xv. 81. ἐζήλωσε μὲν τὴν Διονυσίου τοῦ Συρακοσίου διαγωγὴν, etc. Memnon, Fragm. c. 1; Isokrates, Epist. vii.

It is here that the fragments of Memnon, as abstracted by Photius (Cod. 224), begin. Photius had seen only eight books of Memnon’s History of Herakleia (Books ix.-xvi. inclusive); neither the first eight books (see the end of his Excerpta from Memnon), nor those after the sixteenth, had come under his view. This is greatly to be regretted, as we are thus shut out from the knowledge of Heraklean affairs anterior to Klearchus.

It happens, not unfrequently, with Photius, that he does not possess an entire work, but only parts of it; this is a curious fact, in reference to the libraries of the ninth century A. D.

The fragments of Memnon are collected out of Photius, together with those of Nymphis and other Herakleotic historians, and illustrated with useful notes and citations, in the edition of Orelli; as well as by K. Müller, in Didot’s Fragm. Hist. Græc. tom. iii. p. 525. Memnon carried his history down to the time of Julius Cæsar, and appears to have lived shortly after the Christian era. Nymphis (whom he probably copied) was much older; having lived seemingly from about 300-230 B. C. (see the few Fragmenta remaining from him, in the same work, iii. p. 12). The work of the Herakleotic author Herodôrus seems to have been altogether upon legendary matter (see Fragm. in the same work, ii. p. 27). He was half a century earlier than Nymphis.

[1080] Suidas v. Κλέαρχος.

[1081] Polyænus, ii. 30, 1; Justin, xvi. 4. “A quibus revocatus in patriam, per quos in arce collocatus fuerat”, etc.

Æneas (Poliorket. c. 12) cites this proceeding as an example of the mistake made by a political party, in calling in a greater number of mercenary auxiliaries than they could manage or keep in order.

[1082] Justin, xvi. 4, 5; Theopompus ap. Athenæ. iii. p. 85. Fragm. 200, ed. Didot.

He was now in irresistible power; despot of the whole city, plebs as well as oligarchy. Such he continued to be for twelve years; during which he displayed great warlike energy against exterior enemies, together with unabated cruelty towards the citizens. He farther indulged in the most overweening insolence of personal demeanor, adopting an Oriental costume and ornaments, and proclaiming himself the son of Zeus—as Alexander the Great did after him. Amidst all these enormities, however, his literary tastes did not forsake him; he collected a library, at that time a very rare possession.[1083] Many were the conspiracies attempted by suffering citizens against this tyrant; but his vigilance baffled and punished all. At length two young men, Chion and Leonidas (they too having been among the hearers of Plato), found an opportunity to stab him at a Dionysiac festival. They, with those who seconded them, were slain by his guards, after a gallant resistance; but Klearchus himself died of the wound, in torture and mental remorse.[1084]

[1083] Memnon, c. 1. The seventh Epistle of Isokrates, addressed to Timotheus son of Klearchus, recognizes generally this character of the latter with whose memory Isokrates disclaims all sympathy.

[1084] Memnon, c. 1; Justin, xvi. 5; Diodor. xvi 36.

His death unfortunately brought no relief to the Herakleots. The two sons whom he left, Timotheus and Dionysius, were both minors; but his brother Satyrus, administering in their name, grasped the sceptre and continued the despotism, with cruelty not merely undiminished, but even aggravated and sharpened by the past assassination. Not inferior to his predecessor in energy and vigilance, Satyrus was in this respect different, that he was altogether rude and unlettered. Moreover he was rigidly scrupulous in preserving the crown for his brother’s children, as soon as they should be of age. To ensure to them an undisturbed succession, he took every precaution to avoid begetting children of his own by his wife.[1085] After a rule of seven years, Satyrus died of a lingering and painful distemper.

[1085] Memnon, c. 2. ἐπὶ δὲ τῇ φιλαδελφίᾳ τὸ πρῶτον ἠνέγκατο· τὴν γὰρ ἀρχὴν τοῖς τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ παισὶν ἀνεπηρέαστον συντηρῶν, ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον τῆς αὐτῶν κηδεμονίας λόγον ἐτίθετο, ὡς καὶ γυναικὶ συνὼν, καὶ τότε λίαν στεργομένῃ, μὴ ἀνασχέσθαι παιδοποιῆσαι, ἀλλὰ μηχανῇ πάσῃ γονῆς στέρησιν ἑαυτῷ δικάσαι, ὡς ἂν μήδ᾽ ὅλως ὑπολίποι τινὰ ἐφεδρεύοντα τοῖς τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ παισίν.

In the Antigonid dynasty of Macedonia, we read that Demetrius, son of Antigonus Gonatas, died leaving his son Philip a boy. Antigonus called Doson, younger brother of Demetrius, assumed the regency on behalf of Philip; he married the widow of Demetrius, and had children by her; but he was so anxious to guard Philip’s succession against all chance of being disturbed, that he refused to bring up his own children—Ὁ δὲ παιδῶν γενομένων ἐκ τῆς Χρυσηΐδος, οὐκ ἀνεθρέψατο, τὴν ἀρχὴν τῷ Φιλιππῷ περισώζων (Porphyry, Fragm. ap. Didot, Fragm. Histor. Græc. vol. iii. p. 701).

In the Greek and Roman world, the father was generally considered to have the right of determining whether he would or would not bring up a new-born child. The obligation was only supposed to commence when he accepted or sanctioned it, by taking up the child.

The government of Herakleia now devolved on Timotheus, who exhibited a contrast, alike marked and beneficent, with his father and uncle. Renouncing all their cruelty and constraint, he set at liberty every man whom he found in prison. He was strict in dispensing justice, but mild and even liberal in all his dealings towards the citizens. At the same time, he was a man of adventurous courage, carrying on successful war against foreign enemies, and making his power respected all round. With his younger brother Dionysius, he maintained perfect harmony, treating him as an equal and partner. Though thus using his power generously towards the Herakleots, he was, however, still a despot, and retained the characteristic marks of despotism—the strong citadel, fortified separately from the town, with a commanding mercenary force. After a reign of about nine years, he died, deeply mourned by every one.[1086]

[1086] Memnon, c. 3. The Epistle of Isokrates (vii.) addressed to Timotheus in recommendation of a friend, is in harmony with this general character, but gives no new information.

Diodorus reckons Timotheus as immediately succeeding Klearchus his father—considering Satyrus simply as regent (xvi. 36).

Dionysius, who succeeded him, fell upon unsettled times, full both of hope and fear; opening chances of aggrandizement, yet with many new dangers and uncertainties. The sovereignty which he inherited doubtless included, not simply the city of Herakleia, but also foreign dependencies and possessions in its neighborhood; for his three predecessors[1087] had been all enterprising chiefs, commanding a considerable aggressive force. At the commencement of his reign, indeed, the ascendency of Memnon and the Persian force in the north-western part of Asia Minor was at a higher pitch than ordinary; it appears too that Klearchus—and probably his successors also—had always taken care to keep on the best terms with the Persian court.[1088] But presently came the invasion of Alexander (334 B. C.), with the battle of the Granikus, which totally extinguished the Persian power in Asia Minor, and was followed, after no long interval, by the entire conquest of the Persian empire. The Persian control being now removed from Asia Minor—while Alexander with the great Macedonian force merely passed through it to the east, leaving viceroys behind him—new hopes of independence or aggrandizement began to arise among the native princes in Bithynia, Paphlagonia, and Kappadokia. The Bithynian prince even contended successfully in the field against Kalas, who had been appointed by Alexander as satrap in Phrygia.[1089] The Herakleot Dionysius, on the other hand, enemy by position of these Bithynians, courted the new Macedonian potentates, playing his political game with much skill in every way. He kept his forces well in hand, and his dominions carefully guarded; he ruled in a mild and popular manner, so as to preserve among the Herakleots the same feelings of attachment which had been inspired by his predecessor. While the citizens of the neighboring Sinôpê (as has been already related) sent their envoys to Darius, Dionysius kept his eyes upon Alexander; taking care to establish a footing at Pella, and being peculiarly assiduous in attentions to Alexander’s sister, the princess Kleopatra.[1090] He was the better qualified for this courtly service, as he was a man of elegant and ostentatious tastes, and had purchased from his namesake, the fallen Syracusan Dionysius, all the rich furniture of the Dionysian family, highly available for presents.[1091]

[1087] We hear of Klearchus as having besieged Astakus (afterwards Nikomedia)—at the interior extremity of the north-eastern indentation of the Propontis, called the Gulf of Astakus (Polyænus, ii. 30, 3).

[1088] Memnon, c. 1.

[1089] Memnon, c. 20.

[1090] Memnon, c. 3.

[1091] Memnon, c. 3. See in this History, Vol. XI. Ch. lxxxv. p. 154.

By the favor of Antipater and the regency at Pella, the Herakleotic despot was enabled both to maintain and extend his dominions, until the return of Alexander to Susa and Babylon in 324 B. C. All other authority was now superseded by the personal will of the omnipotent conqueror; who, mistrusting all his delegates—Antipater, the princesses, and the satraps—listened readily to complainants from all quarters, and took particular pride in espousing the pretensions of Grecian exiles. I have already recounted how in June 324 B. C., Alexander promulgated at the Olympic festival a sweeping edict, directing that in every Grecian city the exiles should be restored—by force, if force was required. Among the various Grecian exiles, those from Herakleia were not backward in soliciting his support, to obtain their own restoration, as well as the expulsion of the despot. As they were entitled, along with others, to the benefit of the recent edict, the position of Dionysius became one of extreme danger. He now reaped the full benefit of his antecedent prudence, in having maintained both his popularity with the Herakleots at home, and his influence with Antipater, to whom the enforcement of the edict was entrusted. He was thus enabled to ward off the danger for a time; and his good fortune rescued him from it altogether, by the death of Alexander in June 323 B. C. That event, coming as it did unexpectedly upon every one, filled Dionysius with such extravagant joy, that he fell into a swoon: and he commemorated it by erecting a statue in honor of Euthymia, or the tranquillizing goddess. His position however seemed again precarious, when the Herakleotic exiles renewed their solicitations to Perdikkas: who favored their cause, and might probably have restored them, if he had chosen to direct his march towards the Hellespont against Antipater and Kraterus, instead of undertaking the ill-advised expedition against Egypt, wherein he perished.[1092]

[1092] Memnon, c. 4.

The tide of fortune now turned more than ever in favor of Dionysius. With Antipater and Kraterus, the preponderant potentates in his neighborhood, he was on the best terms; and it happened at this juncture to suit the political views of Kraterus to dismiss his Persian wife Amastris (niece of the late Persian king Darius, and conferred upon Kraterus by Alexander when he himself married Statira), for the purpose of espousing Phila daughter of Antipater. Amastris was given in marriage to Dionysius; for him, a splendid exaltation—attesting the personal influence which he had previously acquired. His new wife, herself a woman of ability and energy, brought to him a large sum from the regal treasure, as well as the means of greatly extending his dominion round Herakleia. Noway corrupted by this good fortune, he still persevered both in his conciliating rule at home, and his prudent alliances abroad, making himself especially useful to Antigonus. That great chief, preponderant throughout most parts of Asia Minor, was establishing his ascendency in Bithynia and the neighborhood of the Propontis, by founding the city of Antigonia in the rich plain adjoining the Askanian Lake.[1093] Dionysius lent effective maritime aid to Antigonus, in that war which ended by his conquest of Cyprus from the Egyptian Ptolemy (307 B. C.) To the other Ptolemy, nephew and general of Antigonus, Dionysius gave his daughter in marriage; and even felt himself powerful enough to assume the title of king, after Antigonus, Lysimachus, and the Egyptian Ptolemy had done the like.[1094] He died, after reigning thirty years with consummate political skill and uninterrupted prosperity—except that during the last few years he lost his health from excessive corpulence.[1095]

[1093] Strabo, xii. p. 565.

[1094] Memnon, c. 4: compare Diodor. xx. 53.

[1095] Nymphis, Fragm. 16. ap. Athenæum, xii. p. 549; Ælian, V. H. ix. 13.

Dionysius left three children under age—Klearchus, Oxathres and a daughter—by his wife Amastris; whom he constituted regent, and who, partly through the cordial support of Antigonus, maintained the Herakleotic dominion unimpaired. Presently Lysimachus, king of Thrace and of the Thracian Chersonese (on the isthmus of which he had founded the city of Lysimacheia), coveted this as a valuable alliance, paid his court to Amastris, and married her. The Herakleotic queen thus enjoyed double protection, and was enabled to avoid taking a part in the formidable conflict of Ipsus (300 B. C.); wherein the allies Lysimachus, Kassander, Ptolemy, and Seleukus were victorious over Antigonus. The latter being slain, and his Asiatic power crushed, Lysimachus got possession of Antigonia, the recent foundation of his rival in Bithynia, and changed its name to Nikæa.[1096] After a certain time, however, Lysimachus became desirous of marrying Arsinoê, daughter of the Egyptian Ptolemy; accordingly, Amastris divorced herself from him, and set up for herself separately as regent of Herakleia. Her two sons being now nearly of age, she founded and fortified, for her own residence, the neighboring city of Amastris, about sixty miles eastward of Herakleia on the coast of the Euxine.[1097] These young men, Klearchus and Oxathres, assumed the government of Herakleia, and entered upon various warlike enterprises; of which we know only, that Klearchus accompanied Lysimachus in his expedition against the Getæ, sharing the fate of that prince, who was defeated and taken prisoner. Both afterwards obtained their release, and Klearchus returned to Herakleia; where he ruled in a cruel and oppressive manner, and even committed the enormity (in conjunction with his brother Oxathres) of killing his mother Amastris. This crime was avenged by her former husband Lysimachus; who, coming to Herakleia under professions of friendship (B. C. 286), caused Klearchus and Oxathres to be put to death, seized their treasure, and keeping separate possession of the citadel only, allowed the Herakleots to establish a popular government.[1098]

[1096] Strabo, xii. p. 565. So also Antioch, on the Orontes in Syria, the great foundation of Seleukus Nikator, was established on or near the site of another Antigonia, also previously founded by Antigonus Monophthalmus (Strabo, xv. p. 750).

[1097] Strabo, xii. p. 544.

[1098] Memnon, c. 6.

Lysimachus, however, was soon persuaded by his wife Arsinoê to make over Herakleia to her, as it had been formerly possessed by Amastris; and Arsinoê sent thither a Kymæan officer named Herakleides, who carried with him force sufficient to re-establish the former despotism, with its oppressions and cruelties. For other purposes too, not less mischievous, the influence of Arsinoê was all-powerful. She prevailed upon Lysimachus to kill his eldest son (by a former marriage) Agathokles, a young prince of the most estimable and eminent qualities. Such an atrocity, exciting universal abhorrence among the subjects of Lysimachus, enabled his rival Seleukus to attack him with success. In a great battle fought between these two princes, Lysimachus was defeated and slain—by the hand and javelin of a citizen of Herakleia, named Malakon.[1099]

[1099] Memnon, c. 7, 8.

This victory transferred the dominions of the vanquished prince to Seleukus. At Herakleia too, its effect was so powerful, that the citizens were enabled to shake off their despotism. They at first tried to make terms with the governor Herakleides, offering him money as an inducement to withdraw. From him they obtained only an angry refusal; yet his subordinate officers of mercenaries, and commanders of detached posts in the Herakleotic territory, mistrusting their own power of holding out, accepted an amicable compromise with the citizens, who tendered to them full liquidation of arrears of pay, together with the citizenship. The Herakleots were this enabled to discard Herakleides, and regain their popular government. They signalized their revolution by the impressive ceremony of demolishing their Bastile—the detached fort or stronghold within the city, which had served for eighty-four years as the characteristic symbol, and indispensable engine, of the antecedent despotism.[1100] The city, now again a free commonwealth, was farther reinforced by the junction of Nymphis (the historian) and other Herakleotic citizens, who had hitherto been in exile. These men were restored, and welcomed by their fellow-citizens in full friendship and harmony; yet with express proviso, that no demand should be made for the restitution of their properties, long since confiscated.[1101] To the victor Seleukus, however, and his officer Aphrodisius, the bold bearing of the newly-emancipated Herakleots proved offensive. They would probably have incurred great danger from him, had not his mind been first set upon the conquest of Macedonia in the accomplishment of which he was murdered by Ptolemy Keraunus.

[1100] Memnon, c. 9; Strabo, xii. p. 542.

[1101] Memnon, c. 11.

The Herakleots thus became again a commonwealth of free citizens, without any detached citadel or mercenary garrison; yet they lost, seemingly through the growing force and aggressions of some inland dynasts, several of their outlying dependencies—Kierus, Tium, and Amastris. The two former they recovered some time afterwards by purchase, and they wished also to purchase back Amastris; but Eumenes, who held it, hated them so much, that he repudiated their money, and handed over the place gratuitously to the Kappadokian chief Ariobarzanes.[1102] That their maritime power was at this time very great, we may see by the astonishing account given of their immense 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.[1103]

[1102] Memnon, c. 16. The inhabitants of Byzantium also purchased for a considerable sum the important position called the Ἱερὸν, at the entrance of the Euxine on the Asiatic side (Polybius, iv. 50).

These are rare examples, in ancient history, of cities acquiring territory or dependencies by purchase. Acquisitions were often made in this manner by the free German, Swiss, and Italian cities of mediæval Europe; but as to the Hellenic cities, I have not had occasion to record many such transactions in the course of this history.

[1103] Memnon, c. 13: compare Polyb. xviii. 34.

It is not my purpose to follow lower down the destinies of Herakleia. It maintained its internal autonomy, with considerable maritime power, a 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 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 discord—while 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 neighbors,[1104] who were themselves however hardly less formidable to the Grecian cities on the coast.[1105] Sinôpê, Herakleia, Byzantium,—and even Rhodes, in spite of the advantage of an insular position,—isolated relics of what had once been an Hellenic aggregate, become from henceforward cribbed and confined by inland neighbors almost at their gates[1106]—dependent on the barbaric potentates, between whom they were compelled to trim, making themselves useful in turn to all. It was however frequent with 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.

[1104] This is a remarkable observation made by Memnon, c. 19.

[1105] See the statement of Polybius, xxii. 24.

[1106] 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.—harassed and pillaged almost to the gates of the town by the neighboring Thracians and Gauls, and only purchased immunity by continued money payments: see Polybius, iv. 45.

Of the Grecian maritime towns in the Euxine south of the Danube—Apollonia, Mesembria, Odêssus, Kallatis, Tomi, and Istrus—five (seemingly without Tomi) formed a confederate Pentapolis.[1107] About the year 312 B. C., we hear of them as under the power of Lysimachus king of Thrace, who kept a garrison in Kallatis—probably in the rest also. They made a struggle to shake off his yoke, obtaining assistance from some of the neighboring 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.[1108] 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 Getæ—Dromichætes; by whom he was defeated and captured, but generously released.[1109] 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 neighbors 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 large infusion of barbaric residents.[1110] 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 horse-bowmen, 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 water.[1111]

[1107] 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. Odêssus 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 Ordêsus.

An Inscription (2056) immediately preceding the above, also found at Odêssus, contains a vote of thanks and honors 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.

[1108] Diodor. xix. 73; xx. 25.

[1109] Strabo, vii. p. 302-305; Pausanias, i. 9, 5.

[1110] Dion Chrysost. Orat. xxxvi. (Borysthenitica) p. 75, Reisk. εἶλον δὲ καὶ ταύτην (Olbia) Γέται, καὶ τὰς ἄλλας τὰς ἐν τοῖς ἀριστέροις τοῦ Πόντου πόλεις, μέχρι Ἀπολλωνίας· 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 συῤῥεόντων.

[1111] 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, presently 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, Quæ sibi non rapto vivere turpe putant. Nil extra tutum est: tumulus defenditur ægre Mœnibus exiguis ingenioque soli. Cum minime credas, ut avis, densissimus hostis Advolat, et prædam vix bene visus agit. Sæpe intra muros clausis venientia portis Per medias legimus noxia tela vias. Est igitur rarus, qui colere audeat, isque Hac arat infelix, hac tenet arma manu. Vix ope castelli defendimur: et tamen intus Mista facit Græcis barbara turba metum. Quippe simul nobis habitat discrimine nullo Barbarus, et tecti plus quoque parte tenet. Quos ut non timeas, possis odisse, videndo Pellibus et longâ corpora tecta comâ. Hos quoque, qui geniti Graiâ creduntur ab urbe, Pro patrio cultu Persica bracca tegit,” etc.

This is a 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 Arte Tomitanæ non didicere nurus. Femina pro lanâ Cerealia munera frangit, Suppositoque gravem vertice portat aquam.”

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 neighborhood. They paid a stipulated tribute, giving presents besides to the prince and his immediate favorites; and on these conditions, their persons and properties were respected. The Scythian prince Skylês (son of an Hellenic mother from Istrus, who had familiarized 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.[1112] It is true, that this proceeding cost Skylês his life; for the Scythians would not tolerate their own prince in the practice of foreign religious rites, though they did not quarrel with the same rites when observed by the Greeks.[1113] To their own customs the Scythians adhered tenaciously, and those customs were often sanguinary, ferocious, and brutish. Still they were warriors, rather than robbers—they abstained from habitual pillage, and maintained with the Greeks a reputation for honesty and fair dealing, which became proverbial with the early poets. Such were the Scythians as seen by Herodotus (probably about 440 to 430 B. C.); and the picture drawn by Ephorus a century afterwards (about 340 B. C.), appears to have been not materially different.[1114] But after that time it gradually altered. New tribes seem to have come in—the Sarmatians out of the East—the Gauls out of the West; from Thrace northward to the Tanais and the Palus Mæotis, the most different tribes became intermingled—Gauls, Thracians, Getæ, Scythians, Sarmatians, etc.[1115] Olbia was in an open plain, with no defence except its walls and the adjoining river Hypanis, frozen over in the winter. The hybrid Helleno-Scythian race, formed by intermarriages of Greeks with Scythians—and the various Scythian tribes who had become partially sedentary cultivators of corn for exportation—had probably also acquired habits less warlike than the tribes of primitive barbaric type. At any rate, even if capable of defending themselves, they could not continue their production and commerce under repeated hostile incursions.

[1112] 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).

[1113] Herodot. iv. 76-80.

[1114] Strabo, vii. p. 302: Skymnus Chius, v. 112, who usually follows Ephorus.

The rhetor Dion tells us (Orat. xxxvi. init.) that he went to Olbia in order that he might go through the Scythians to the Getæ. This shows that in his time (about A. D. 100) the Scythians must have been between the Bug and Dniester—the Getæ nearer to the Danube—just as they had been four centuries earlier. But many new hordes were mingled with them.

[1115] Strabo, vii. p. 296-304.

A valuable inscription remaining enables us to compare the Olbia (or Borysthenes) seen by Herodotus, with the same town in the second century B. C.[1116] At this latter period, the city was diminished in population, impoverished in finances, exposed to constantly increasing exactions and menace from the passing barbaric hordes, and scarcely able to defend against them even the security of its walls. Sometimes there approached the barbaric chief Saitapharnes with his personal suite, sometimes his whole tribe or horde in mass, called Saii. Whenever they came, they required to be appeased by presents, greater than the treasury could supply, and borrowed only from the voluntary help of rich citizens; while even these presents did not always avert ill treatment or pillage. Already the citizens of Olbia had repelled various attacks, partly by taking into pay a semi-Hellenic population in their neighborhood (Mix-Hellenes, like the Liby-Phenicians in Africa); but the inroads became more alarming, and their means of defence less, through the uncertain fidelity of these Mix-Hellenes, as well as of their own slaves—the latter probably barbaric natives purchased from the interior.[1117] In the midst of public poverty, it was necessary to enlarge and strengthen the fortifications; for they were threatened with the advent of the Gauls—who inspired such terror that the Scythians and other barbarians were likely to seek their own safety by extorting admission within the walls of Olbia. Moreover even corn was scarce, and extravagantly dear. There had been repeated failures in the produce of the lands around, famine was apprehended, and efforts were needed, greater than the treasury could sustain, to lay in a stock at the public expense. Among the many points of contrast with Herodotus, this is perhaps the most striking; for in his time, corn was the great produce and the principal export from Olbia; the growth had now been suspended, or was at least perpetually cut off, by increased devastation and insecurity.

[1116] This Inscription—No. 2058—in Boeckh’s Inscr. Græc. part xi. p. 121 seq.—is among the most interesting in that noble collection. It records a vote of public gratitude and honor to a citizen of Olbia named Protogenes, and recites the valuable services which he as well as his father had rendered to the city. It thus describes the numerous situations of difficulty and danger from which he had contributed to extricate them. A vivid picture is presented to us of the distress of the city. The introduction prefixed by Boeckh (p. 86-89) is also very instructive.

Olbia is often spoken of by the name of Borysthenes, which name was given to it by foreigners, but not recognized by the citizens. Nor was it even situated on the Borysthenes river; but on the right or western bank of the Hypanis (Bug) river; not far from the modern Oczakoff.

The date of the above Inscription is not specified, and has been differently determined by various critics. Niebuhr assigns it (Untersuchungen über die Skythen, etc. in his Kleine Schriften, p. 387) to a time near the close of the second Punic war. Boeckh also believes that it is not much after that epoch. The terror inspired by the Gauls, even to other barbarians, appears to suit the second century B. C. better than it suits a later period.

The Inscription No. 2059 attests the great number of strangers resident at Olbia; strangers from eighteen different cities, of which the most remote is Miletus, the mother-city of Olbia.

[1117] On one occasion, we know not when, the citizens of Olbia are said to have been attacked by one Zopyrion, and to have succeeded in resisting him only by emancipating their slaves, and granting the citizenship to foreigners (Macrobius, Saturnal. i. 11).

After perpetual attacks, and even several captures, by barbaric neighbors—this unfortunate city, about fifty years before the Christian era, was at length so miserably sacked by the Getæ, as to become for a time abandoned.[1118] Presently, however, the fugitives partially returned, to re-establish themselves on a reduced scale. For the very same barbarians who had persecuted and plundered them, still required an emporium with a certain amount of import and export, such as none but Greek settlers could provide; moreover it was from the coast near Olbia, and from care of its inhabitants, that many of the neighboring tribes derived their supply of salt.[1119] Hence arose a puny after-growth of Olbia—preserving the name, traditions, and part of the locality, of the deserted city—by the return of a portion of the colonists with an infusion of Scythian or Sarmatian residents; an infusion indeed so large, as seriously to dishellenize both the speech and the personal names in the town.[1120]

[1118] Dion Chrys. (Or. xxxvi. p. 75), ἀεὶ μὲν πολεμεῖται, πολλάκις δὲ καὶ ἑάλωκε, etc.

[1119] Dion Chrysost. Orat. xxxvi. (Borysthenit.) p. 75, 76, Reisk.

[1120] See Boeckh’s Commentary on the language and personal names of the Olbian Inscriptions, part xi. p. 108-116.

To this second edition of Olbia, the rhetor Dion Chrysostom paid a summer visit (about a century after the Christian era), of which he has left a brief but interesting account. Within the wide area once filled by the original Olbia—the former circumference of which was marked by crumbling walls and towers—the second town occupied a narrow corner; with poor houses, low walls, and temples having no other ornament except the ancient statues mutilated by the plunderers. The citizens dwelt in perpetual insecurity, constantly under arms or on guard; for the barbaric horsemen, in spite of sentinels posted to announce their approach, often carried off prisoners, cattle, or property, from the immediate neighborhood of the gates. The picture drawn of Olbia by Dion confirms in a remarkable way that given of Tomi by Ovid. And what imparts to it a touching interest is, that the Greeks whom Dion saw contending with the difficulties, privations, and dangers of this inhospitable outpost, still retained the activity, the elegance, and the intellectual aspirations of their Ionic breed; in this respect much superior to the Tomitans of Ovid. In particular, they were passionate admirers of Homer; a considerable proportion of the Greeks of Olbia could repeat the Iliad from memory.[1121] Achilles (localized under the surname of Pontarches, on numerous islands and capes in the Euxine) was among the chief divine or heroic persons to whom they addressed their prayers.[1122] Amidst Grecian life, thus degraded and verging towards its extinction, and stripped even of the purity of living speech—the thread of imaginative and traditional sentiment thus continues without suspension or abatement.

[1121] Dion, Orat. xxxvi. (Borysthenit.), p. 78, Reiske. ... καὶ τἄλλα μὲν οὐκέτι σαφῶς ἑλληνίζοντες, διὰ τὸ ἐν μέσοις οἰκεῖν τοῖς βαρβάροις, ὅμως τήν γε Ἰλιάδα ὀλίγου πάντες ἴσασιν ἀπὸ στόματος. I translate the words ὀλίγου πάντες with some allowance for rhetoric.

The representation given by Dion of the youthful citizen of Olbia—Kallistratus—with whom he conversed, is curious as a picture of Greek manners in this remote land; a youth of eighteen years of age, with genuine Ionic features, and conspicuous for his beauty (εἶχε πολλοὺς ἐραστάς) a zealot for literature and philosophy, but especially for Homer; clothed in the costume of the place, suited for riding—the long leather trowsers, and short black cloak; constantly on horseback for defence of the town, and celebrated as a warrior even at that early age, having already killed or made prisoners several Sarmatians (p. 77).

[1122] See Inscriptions, Nos. 2076, 2077, ap. Boeckh; and Arrian’s Periplus of the Euxine, ap. Geogr. Minor. p. 21, ed. Hudson.

Respecting Bosporus or Pantikapæum (for both names denote the same city, though the former name often comprehends the whole annexed dominion), founded by Milesian settlers[1123] on the European side of the Kimmerian Bosporus (near Kertsch), we first hear, about the period when Xerxes was repulsed from Greece (480-479 B. C.). It was the centre of a dominion including Phanagoria, Kepi, Hermonassa, and other Greek cities on the Asiatic side of the strait; and is said to have been governed by what seems to have been an oligarchy—called the Archæanaktidæ, for forty-two years[1124] (480-438 B. C.).

[1123] Strabo, vii. p. 310.

[1124] Diodor. xii. 31.

After them we have a series of princes standing out individually by name, and succeeding each other in the same family. Spartokus I. was succeeded by Seleukus; next comes Spartokus II.; then Satyrus I. (407-393 B. C.); Leukon (393-353 B. C.); Spartokus III. (353-348 B. C.); Parisades I. (348-310 B. C.); Satyrus II., Prytanis, Eumelus (310-304 B. C.); Spartokus IV. (304-284 B. C.); Parisades II.[1125] During the reigns of these princes, a connection of some intimacy subsisted between Athens and Bosporus; a connection not political, since the Bosporanic princes had little interest in the contentions about Hellenic hegemony—but of private intercourse, commercial interchange, and reciprocal good offices. The eastern corner of the Tauric Chersonesus, between Pantikapæum and Theodosia, was well-suited for the production of corn; while plenty of fish, as well as salt, was to be had in or near the Palus Mæotis. Corn, salted fish and meat, hides, and barbaric slaves in considerable numbers, were in demand among all the Greeks round the Ægean, and not least at Athens, where Scythian slaves were numerous;[1126] while oil and wine, with other products of more southern regions, were acceptable in Bosporus and the other Pontic ports. This important traffic seems to have been mainly carried on in ships and by capital belonging to Athens and other Ægean maritime towns; and must have been greatly under the protection and regulation of the Athenians, so long as their maritime empire subsisted. Enterprising citizens of Athens went to Bosporus (as to Thrace and the Thracian Chersonesus), to push their fortunes; merchants from other cities found it advantageous to settle as resident strangers or metics at Athens, where they were more in contact with the protecting authority, and obtained readier access to the judicial tribunals. It was probably during the period preceding the great disaster at Syracuse in 413 B. C., that Athens first acquired her position as a mercantile centre for the trade with the Euxine; which we afterwards find her retaining, even with reduced power, in the time of Demosthenes.

[1125] See Mr. Clinton’s Appendix on the Kings of Bosporus—Fast. Hellen. App. c. 13. p. 280. etc.; and Boeckh’s Commentary on the same subject, Inscript. Græc. part xi. p. 91 seq.

[1126] Polybius (iv. 38) enumerates the principal articles of this Pontic trade; among the exports τά τε δέρματα καὶ τὸ τῶν εἰς τὰς δουλείας ἀγομένων σωμάτων πλῆθος, etc., where Schweighäuser has altered ~δέρματα~ to ~θρέμματα~ seemingly on the authority of one MS. only. I doubt the propriety of this change, as well as the facts of any large exportation of live cattle from the Pontus; whereas the exportation of hides was considerable: see Strabo, xi. p. 493.

The Scythian public slaves or policemen of Athens are well known. Σκύθαινα also is the name of a female slave (Aristoph. Lysistr. 184). Σκύθης, for the name of a slave, occurs as early as Theognis, v. 826.

Some of the salted preparations from the Pontus were extravagantly dear; Cato complained of a κεράμιον Ποντικῶν ταρίχον as sold for 300 drachmæ (Polyb. xxxi. 24).

How strong was the position enjoyed by Athens in Bosporus, during her unimpaired empire, we may judge from the fact, that Nymphæum (south of Pantikapæum, between that town and Theodosia) was among her tributary towns, and paid a talent annually.[1127] Not until the misfortunes of Athens in the closing years of the Peloponnesian war, did Nymphæum pass into the hands of the Bosporanic princes; betrayed (according to Æschines) by the maternal grandfather of Demosthenes, the Athenian Gylon; who however probably did nothing more than obey a necessity rendered unavoidable by the fallen condition of Athens.[1128] We thus see that Nymphæum, in the midst of the Bosporanic dominion, was not only a member of the Athenian empire, but also contained influential Athenian citizens, engaged in the corn-trade. Gylon was rewarded by a large grant of land at Kepi—probably other Athenians of Nymphæum were rewarded also—by the Bosporanic prince; who did not grudge a good price for such an acquisition. We find also other instances,—both of Athenian citizens sent out to reside with the prince Satyrus,—and of Pontic Greeks who, already in correspondence and friendship with various individual Athenians, consign their sons to be initiated in the commerce, society, and refinements of Athens.[1129] Such facts attest the correspondence and intercourse of that city, during her imperial greatness, with Bosporus.

[1127] Harpokration and Photius, v. Νυμφαῖον—from the ψηφίσματα collected by Kraterus. Compare Boeckh, in the second edition of his Staatshaushaltung der Athener, vol. ii. p. 658.

[1128] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 78. c. 57. See my last preceding Vol. XI. Ch. lxxxvii. p. 263.

[1129] Lysias, pro Mantitheo, Or. xvi. s. 4; Isokrates (Trapezitic.), Or. xvii. s. 5. The young man, whose case Isokrates sets forth, was sent to Athens by his father Sopæus, a rich Pontic Greek (s. 52) much in the confidence of Satyrus. Sopæus furnished his son with two ship-loads of corn, and with money besides—and then despatched him to Athens ἅμα κατ᾽ ἐμπορίαν καὶ κατὰ θεωρίαν.

The Bosporanic prince Satyrus was in the best relations with Athens, and even seems to have had authorized representatives there to enforce his requests, which met with very great attention.[1130] He treated the Athenian merchants at Bosporus with equity and even favor, granting to them a preference in the export of corn when there was not enough for all.[1131] His son Leukon not only continued the preference to Athenian exporting ships, but also granted to them remission of the export duty (of one-thirtieth part), which he exacted from all other traders. Such an exemption is reckoned as equivalent to an annual present of 13,000 medimni of corn (the medimnus being about 1⅓ bushel); the total quantity of corn brought from Bosporus to Athens in a full year being 400,000 medimni.[1132] It is easy to see moreover that such a premium must have thrown nearly the whole exporting trade into the hands of Athenian merchants. The Athenians requited this favor by public votes of gratitude and honor, conferring upon Leukon the citizenship, together with immunity from all the regular burthens attaching to property at Athens. There was lying in that city money belonging to Leukon;[1133] who was therefore open (under the proposition of Leptines) to that conditional summons for exchange of properties, technically termed Antidosis. In his time, moreover, the corn-trade of Bosporus appears to have been farther extended; for we learn that he established an export from Theodosia as well as from Pantikapæum. His successor Parisades I. continuing to Athenian exporters of corn the same privilege of immunity from export duty, obtained from Athens still higher honors than Leukon; for we learn that his statue, together with those of two relatives, was erected in the agora, on the motion of Demosthenes.[1134] The connection of Bosporus with Athens was durable as well as intimate; its corn-trade being of high importance to the subsistence of the people. Every Athenian exporter was bound by law to bring his cargo in the first instance to Athens. The freighting and navigating of ships for that purpose, together with the advance of money by rich capitalists (citizens and metics) upon interest and conditions enforced by the Athenian judicature, was a standing and profitable business. And we may appreciate the value of equitable treatment, not to say favor, from the kings of Bosporus—when we contrast it with the fraudulent and extortionate behavior of Kleomenes, satrap of Egypt, in reference to the export of Egyptian corn.[1135]

[1130] Isokrates, Trapez. s. 5, 6. Sopæus, father of this pleader, had incurred the suspicions of Satyrus in the Pontus, and had been arrested; upon which Satyrus sends to Athens to seize the property of the son, to order him home,—and if he refused, then to require the Athenians to deliver him up—ἐπιστέλλει δὲ τοῖς ἐνθάδε ἐπιδημοῦσιν ἐκ τοῦ Πόντου τά τε χρήματα παρ᾽ ἐμοῦ κομίσασθαι, etc.

[1131] Isokrates, Trapezit. s. 71. Demosthenes also recognizes favors from Satyrus—καὶ αὐτὸς (Leukon) καὶ οἱ πρόγονοι, etc. (adv. Leptin. p. 467).

[1132] Demosth. adv. Leptin., p. 467.

[1133] Demosth. adv. Leptin., p. 469.

[1134] Demosth. adv. Phormion., p. 917; Deinarchus adv. Demosth., p. 34. The name stands Berisades as printed in the oration; but it is plain that Parisades is the person designated. See Boeckh, Introd. ad Inscr. No. 2056, p. 92.

Deinarchus avers, that Demosthenes received an annual present of 1000 modii of corn from Bosporus.

[1135] Demosthen. adv. Dionysodor. p. 1285.

The political condition of the Greeks at Bosporus was somewhat peculiar. The hereditary princes (above enumerated), who ruled them substantially as despots, assumed no other title (in respect to the Greeks) than that of Archon. They paid tribute to the powerful Scythian tribes who bounded them on the European side, and even thought it necessary to carry a ditch across the narrow isthmus, from some point near Theodosia northward to the Palus Mæotis, as a protection against incursions.[1136] Their dominion did not extend farther west than Theodosia; this ditch was their extreme western boundary; and even for the land within it, they paid tribute. But on the Asiatic side of the strait, they were lords paramount for a considerable distance, over the feebler and less warlike tribes who pass under the common name of Mæotæ or Mæêtae—the Sindi, Toreti, Dandarii, Thatês, etc. Inscriptions, yet remaining, of Parisades I. record him as King of these various barbaric tribes, but as Archon of Bosporus and Theodosia.[1137] His dominion on the Asiatic side of the Kimmerian Bosporus, sustained by Grecian and Thracian mercenaries, was of considerable (though to us unknown) extent, reaching to somewhere near the borders of Caucasus.[1138]

[1136] Strabo, vii. p. 310, 311.

[1137] See Inscript. Nos. 2117, 2118, 2119, in Boeckh’s Collection, p. 156.

In the Memorabilia of Xenophon (ii. 1, 10). Sokrates cites the Scythians as an example of ruling people, and the Mæotæ as an example of subjects. Probably this refers to the position of the Bosporanic Greeks, who paid tribute to the Scythians, but ruled over the Mæotæ. The name Mæotæ seems confined to tribes on the Asiatic side of the Palus Mæotis; while the Scythians were on the European side of that sea. Sokrates and the Athenians had good means of being informed about the situation of the Bosporani and their neighbors on both sides. See K. Neumann, die Hellenen im Skythenlande, b. ii. p. 216.

[1138] This boundary is attested in another Inscription No. 2104, of the same collection. Inscription No. 2103, seems to indicate Arcadian mercenaries in the service of Leukon: about the mercenaries, see Diodor. xx. 22.

Parisades I. is said to have been worshipped as a god, after his death (Strabo, vii. p. 310).

Parisades I. on his death left three sons—Satyrus, Prytanis, and Eumelus. Satyrus, as the eldest, succeeded; but Eumelus claimed the crown, sought aid without, and prevailed on various neighbors—among them a powerful Thracian king named Ariopharnes—to espouse his cause. At the head of an army said to consist of 20,000 horse and 22,000 foot, the two allies marched to attack the territories of Satyrus, who advanced to meet them, with 2000 Grecian mercenaries, and 2000 Thracians of his own, reinforced by a numerous body of Scythian allies—20,000 foot, and 10,000 horse, and carrying with him a plentiful supply of provisions in waggons. He gained a complete victory, compelling Eumelus and Ariopharnes to retreat and seek refuge in the regal residence of the latter, near the river Thapsis; a fortress built of timber, and surrounded with forest, river, marsh, and rock, so as to be very difficult of approach. Satyrus, having first plundered the country around, which supplied a rich booty of prisoners and cattle, proceeded to assail his enemies in their almost impracticable position. But though he, and Meniskus his general of mercenaries, made the most strenuous efforts, and even carried some of the outworks, they were repulsed from the fortress itself; and Satyrus, exposing himself forwardly to extricate Meniskus, received a wound of which he shortly died—after a reign of nine months. Meniskus, raising the siege, withdrew the army to Gargaza; from whence he conveyed back the regal corpse to Pantikapæum.[1139]

[1139] Diodor. xx. 24 The scene of these military operations (as far as we can pretend to make it out from the brief and superficial narrative of Diodorus), seems to have been on the European side of Bosporus; somewhere between the Borysthenes river and the Isthmus of Perekop, in the territory called by Herodotus Hylæa. This is Niebuhr’s opinion, which I think more probable than that of Boeckh, who supposes the operations to have occurred on the Asiatic territory of Bosporus. So far I concur with Niebuhr; but his reasons for placing Dromichætes king of the Getæ (the victor over Lysimachus), east of the Borysthenes, are noway satisfactory.

Compare Niebuhr’s Untersuchungen über die Skythen, etc. (in his Kleine Schriften, p. 380). with Boeckh’s Commentary on the Sarmatian Inscriptions, Corp. Ins. Græc. part xi. p. 83-103.

The mention by Diodorus of a wooden fortress, surrounded by morass and forest, is curious, and may be illustrated by the description in Herodotus (iv. 108) of the city of the Budini. This habit of building towns and fortifications of wood, prevailed among the Slavonic population in Russia and Poland until far down in the middle ages. See Paul Joseph Schaffarik, Slavische Alterhümer, in the German translation of Wuttke, vol. i. ch. 10 p. 192; also K. Neumann, Die Hellenen im Skythenlande, p. 91.

Prytanis, the next brother, rejecting an offer of partition tendered by Eumelus, assumed the sceptre, and marched forth to continue the struggle. But the tide of fortune now turned in favor of Eumelus; who took Gargaza with several other places, worsted his brother in battle, and so blocked him up in the isthmus near the Palus Mæotis, that he was forced to capitulate and resign his pretensions. Eumelus entered Pantikapæum as conqueror. Nevertheless, the defeated Prytanis, in spite of his recent covenant, made a renewed attempt upon the crown; wherein he was again baffled, forced to escape to Kêpi, and there slain. To assure himself of the throne, Eumelus put to death the wives and children of both his two brothers, Satyrus and Prytanis—together with all their principal friends. One youth alone—Parisades, son of Satyrus—escaped and found protection with the Scythian prince Agarus.

Eumelus had now put down all rivals; yet his recent cruelties had occasioned wrath and disgust among the Bosporanic citizens. He convoked them in assembly, to excuse his past conduct, and promised good government for the future; at the same time guaranteeing to them their full civic constitution, with such privileges and immunities as they had before enjoyed, and freedom from direct taxation.[1140] Such assurances, combined probably with an imposing mercenary force, appeased or at least silenced the prevailing disaffection. Eumelus kept his promises so far as to govern in a mild and popular spirit. While thus rendering himself acceptable at home, he maintained an energetic foreign policy, and made several conquests among the surrounding tribes. He constituted himself a sort of protector of the Euxine, repressing the piracies of the Heniochi and Achæi (among the Caucasian mountains to the east) as well as of the Tauri in the Chersonesus (Crimea); much to the satisfaction of the Byzantines, Sinopians, and other Pontic Greeks. He received a portion of the fugitives from Kallatis, when besieged by Lysimachus, and provided for them a settlement in his dominions. Having thus acquired great reputation, Eumelus was in the full career of conquest and aggrandizement, when an accident terminated his life, after a reign of rather more than five years. In returning from Scythia to Pantikapæum, in a four-wheeled carriage (or waggon) and four with a tent upon it, his horses took fright and ran away. Perceiving that they were carrying him towards a precipice, he tried to jump out; but his sword becoming entangled in the wheel, he was killed on the spot.[1141] He was succeeded by his son Spartokus IV., who reigned twenty years (304-284 B. C.); afterwards came the son of Spartokus, Parisades II.; with whose name our information breaks off.[1142]

[1140] Diodor. xx. 24.

[1141] Diodor. xx. 25.

[1142] Diodor. xx. 100. Spartokus IV.—son of Eumelus—is recognized in one Attic Inscription (No. 107), and various Bosporanic (No. 2105, 2106, 2120) in Boeckh’s Collection. Parisades II.—son of Spartokus—is recognized in another Bosporanic Inscription, No. 2107—seemingly also in No. 2120 b.

This dynasty, the Spartokidæ, though they ruled the Greeks of Bosporus as despots by means of a foreign mercenary force—yet seem to have exercised power with equity and moderation.[1143] Had Eumelus lived, he might probably have established an extensive empire over the barbaric tribes on all sides of him. But empire over such subjects was seldom permanent; nor did his successors long maintain even as much as he left. We have no means of following their fortunes in detail; but we know that about a century B. C., the then reigning prince, Parisades IV., found himself so pressed and squeezed by the Scythians,[1144] that he was forced (like Olbia and the Pentapolis) to forego his independence; and to call in, as auxiliary or master, the formidable Mithridates Eupator of Pontus; from whom a new dynasty of Bosporanic kings began—subject however after no long interval, to the dominion and interference of Rome.

[1143] Strabo, vii. p. 310. Deinarchus however calls Parisades, Satyrus, and Gorgippus, τοὺς ἐχθίστους τύραννους (adv. Demosth. s. 44).

[1144] Strabo, vii. p. 310. οὐχ οἷός τε ὢν ἀντέχειν πρὸς τοὺς βαρβάρους, φόρον πραττομένους μείζω τοῦ πρότερον, etc.

These Mithridatic princes lie beyond our period; but the cities of Bosporus under the Spartokid princes, in the fourth century B. C., deserve to be ranked among the conspicuous features of the living Hellenic world. They were not indeed purely Hellenic, but presented a considerable admixture of Scythian or Oriental manners; analogous to the mixture of the Hellenic and Libyan elements at Kyrênê with its Battiad princes. Among the facts attesting the wealth and power of these Spartokid princes, and of the Bosporanic community, we may number the imposing groups of mighty sepulchral tumuli near Kertch (Pantikapæum); some of which have been recently examined, while the greater part still remain unopened. These spacious chambers of stone—enclosed in vast hillocks (Kurgans), cyclopian works piled up with prodigious labor and cost—have been found to contain not only a profusion of ornaments of the precious metals (gold, silver, and electron, or a mixture of four parts of gold to one of silver), but also numerous vases, implements, and works of art, illustrating the life and ideas of the Bosporanic population. “The contents of the tumuli already opened are so multifarious, that from the sepulchres of Pantikapæum alone, we might become acquainted with everything which served the Greeks either for necessary use, or for the decoration of domestic life.”[1145] Statues, reliefs and frescoes on the walls, have been found, on varied subjects both of war and peace, and often of very fine execution; besides these, numerous carvings in wood, and vessels of bronze or terra cotta; with necklaces, armlets, bracelets, rings, drinking cups, etc. of precious metal—several with colored beads attached.[1146] The costumes, equipment, and physiognomy represented, are indeed a mixture of Hellenic and barbaric; moreover, even the profusion of gold chains and other precious ornaments, indicates a tone of sentiment partially orientalized, in those for whom they were destined.

[1145] Neumann, Die Hellenen im Skythenlande, p. 503.

[1146] An account of the recent discoveries near Kertch or Pantikapæum, will be found in Dubois de Montpéreux, Voyage dans le Caucase, vol. v. p. 135 seqq.; and in Neumann, Die Hellenen im Skythenlande, pp. 483-533. The last-mentioned work is peculiarly copious and instructive; relating what has been done since Dubois’s travels, and containing abundant information derived from the recent memoirs of the St. Petersburg Literary Societies.

The local and special type, which shows itself so much on these works of art, justifies the inference that they were not brought from other Grecian cities, but executed by Grecian artists resident at Pantikapæum (p. 507). Two marble statues, a man and a woman, both larger than life, exhumed in 1850, are spoken of with peculiar admiration (p. 491). Coins of the third and fourth century B. C. have been found in several (p. 494, 495). A great number of the so-called Etruscan vases have also been discovered, probably fabricated from a species of clay still existing in the neighborhood: the figures on these vases are often excellent, with designs and scenes of every description, religious, festal, warlike, domestic (p. 522). Many of the sarcophagi are richly ornamented with carvings, in wood, ivory, etc; some admirably executed (p. 521).

Unfortunately, the belief prevails, and has long prevailed, among the neighboring population, that these tumuli contain hidden treasures. One of the most striking among them—called the Kul-Obo—was opened in 1830 by the Russian authorities. After great pains and trouble, the means of entrance were discovered, and the interior chamber was reached. It was the richest that had ever been opened; being found to contain some splendid golden ornaments, as well as many other relics. The Russian officers placed a guard to prevent any one from entering it; but the cupidity of the population of Kertch was so inflamed by the report of the expected treasure being discovered, that they forced the guard, broke into the interior, and pillaged most of the contents (p. 509). The Russian authorities have been generally anxious for the preservation and gradual excavation of these monuments, but have had to contend against repugnance and even rapacity on the part of the people near.

Dubois de Montpéreux gives an interesting description of the opening of these tumuli near Kertch—especially of the Kul-Obo, the richest of all, which he conceives to have belonged to one of the Spartokid kings, and the decorations of which were the product of Hellenic art:—

“Si l’on a enterré (he observes) un roi entouré d’un luxe Scythique, ce sont des Græcs et des artistes de cette nation qui ont travaillé à ses funerailles” (Voyage autour du Caucase, pp. 195, 213, 227). Pantikapæum and Phanagoria (he says) “se reconnoissent de loin à la foule de leurs tumulus” (p. 137).

But the design as well as the execution comes clearly out of the Hellenic workshop; and there is good ground for believing, that in the fourth century B. C., Pantikapæum was the seat, not only of enterprising and wealthy citizens, but also of strenuous and well-directed artistic genius. Such manifestations of the refinements of Hellenism, in this remote and little-noticed city, form an important addition to the picture of Hellas as a whole,—prior to its days of subjection,—which it has been the purpose of this history to present.

* * * * *

I have now brought down the history of Greece to the point of time marked out in the Preface to my First Volume—the close of the generation contemporary with Alexander—the epoch, from whence dates not only the extinction of Grecian political freedom and self-action, but also the decay of productive genius, and the debasement of that consummate literary and rhetorical excellence which the fourth century B. C. had seen exhibited in Plato and Demosthenes.[1147] The contents of this last Volume indicate but too clearly that Greece as a separate subject of history no longer exists; for one full half of it is employed in depicting Alexander and his conquests—ἄγριον αἰχμητὴν, κρατερὸν μήστωρα φόβοιο[1148]—that Non-Hellenic conqueror into whose vast possessions the Greeks are absorbed, with their intellectual brightness bedimmed, their spirit broken, and half their virtue taken away by Zeus—the melancholy emasculation inflicted (according to Homer) upon victims overtaken by the day of slavery.[1149]

[1147] How marked that degradation was, may be seen attested by Dionysius of Halikarnassus, De Antiquis Oratoribus, pp. 445, 446, Reiske—ἐν γὰρ δὴ τοῖς πρὸ ἡμῶν χρόνοις ἡ μὲν ἀρχαία καὶ φιλόσοφος ῥητορικὴ προπηλακιζομένη καὶ δεινὰς ὕβρεις ὑπομένουσα κατελύετο, ἀρξαμένη μὲν ἀπὸ τῆς Ἀλεξάνδρου τοῦ Μακεδόνος τελευτῆς ἐκπνεῖν καὶ μαραίνεσθαι κατ᾽ ὀλίγον, ἐπὶ δὲ τῆς καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς ἡλικίας μικροῦ δεήσασα εἰς τέλος ἠφανίσθαι. Compare Dionys. De Composit. Verbor. p. 29, 30, Reisk.; and Westermann, Geschichte der Griechischen Beredtsamkeit, s. 75-77.

[1148] Hom. Iliad, vi. 97.

[1149] Hom. Odyss. xvii. 322.—

ἥμισυ γάρ τ᾽ ἀρετῆς ἀποαίνυται εὐρύοπα Ζεὺς ἀνέρος, εὖτ᾽ ἄν μιν κατὰ δούλιον ἦμαρ ἕλῃσιν.

One branch of intellectual energy there was, and one alone, which continued to flourish, comparatively little impaired, under the preponderance of the Macedonian sword—the spirit of speculation and philosophy. During the century which we have just gone through, this spirit was embodied in several eminent persons, whose names have been scarcely adverted to in this history. Among these names, indeed, there are two, of peculiar grandeur, whom I have brought partially before the reader, because both of them belong to general history as well as to philosophy; Plato, as citizen of Athens, companion of Sokrates at his trial, and counsellor of Dionysius in his glory—Aristotle, as the teacher of Alexander. I had at one time hoped to include in my present work a record of them as philosophers also, and an estimate of their speculative characteristics; but I find the subject far too vast to be compressed into such a space as this volume would afford. The exposition of the tenets of distinguished thinkers is not now numbered by historians, either ancient or modern, among the duties incumbent upon them, nor yet among the natural expectations of their readers; but is reserved for the special historian of philosophy. Accordingly, I have brought my history of Greece to a close, without attempting to do justice either to Plato or to Aristotle. I hope to contribute something towards supplying this defect, the magnitude of which I fully appreciate, in a separate work, devoted specially to an account of Greek speculative philosophy in the fourth century B. C.

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XCVII. SICILIAN AND ITALIAN GREEKS. — AGATHOKLES…

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XCVII. SICILIAN AND ITALIAN GREEKS. — AGATHOKLES

XCVIII. OUTLYING HELLENIC CITIES