History of Greece, Volume 04 (of 12)

[1] Herodot. i, 196; Skylax, c. 19-27; Appian. Illyric. c. 2, 4, 8.

The geography of the countries occupied in ancient times by the Illyrians, Macedonians, Pæonians, Thracians, etc., and now possessed by a great diversity of races, among whom the Turks and Albanians retain the primitive barbarism without mitigation, is still very imperfectly understood; though the researches of Colonel Leake, of Boué, of Grisebach, and others (especially the valuable travels of the latter), have of late thrown much light upon it. How much our knowledge is extended in this direction, may be seen by comparing the map prefixed to Mannert’s Geographie, or to O. Müller’s Dissertation on the Macedonians, with that in Boué’s Travels, but the extreme deficiency of the maps, even as they now stand, is emphatically noticed by Boué himself (see his Critique des Cartes de la Turquie in the fourth volume of his Voyage),—by Paul Joseph Schaffarik, the learned historian of the Sclavonic race, in the preface attached by him to Dr. Joseph Müller’s Topographical Account of Albania,—and by Grisebach, who in his surveys, taken from the summits of the mountains Peristeri and Ljubatrin, found the map differing at every step from the bearings which presented themselves to his eye. It is only since Boué and Grisebach that the idea has been completely dismissed, derived originally from Strabo, of a straight line of mountains (εὐθεῖα γραμμὴ, Strabo, lib. vii, Fragm. 3) running across from the Adriatic to the Euxine, and sending forth other lateral chains in a direction nearly southerly. The mountains of Turkey in Europe, when examined with the stock of geological science which M. Viquesnel (the companion of Boué) and Dr. Grisebach bring to the task, are found to belong to systems very different, and to present evidences of conditions of formation often quite independent of each other.

The thirteenth chapter of Grisebach’s Travels presents the best account which has yet been given of the chain of Skardus and Pindus: he has been the first to prove clearly, that the Ljubatrin, which immediately overhangs the plain of Kossovo at the southern border of Servia and Bosnia, is the north-eastern extremity of a chain of mountains reaching southward to the frontiers of Ætolia, in a direction not very wide of N-S.,—with the single interruption (first brought to view by Colonel Leake) of the Klissoura of Devol,—a complete gap, where the river Devol, rising on the eastern side, crosses the chain and joins the Apsus, or Beratino, on the western,—(it is remarkable that both in the map of Boué and in that annexed to Dr. Joseph Müller’s Topographical Description of Albania, the river Devol is made to join the Genussus, or Skoumi, considerably north of the Apsus, though Colonel Leake’s map gives the correct course.) In Grisebach’s nomenclature Skardus is made to reach from the Ljubatrin as its north-eastern extremity, south-westward and southward as far as the Klissoura of Devol: south of that point Pindus commences, in a continuation, however, of the same axis.

In reference to the seats of the ancient Illyrians and Macedonians Grisebach has made another observation of great importance (vol. ii, p. 121). Between the north-eastern extremity, Mount Ljubatrin, and the Klissoura of Devol, there are in the mighty and continuous chain of Skardus (above seven thousand feet high) only two passes fit for an army to cross: one near the northern extremity of the chain, over which Grisebach himself crossed, from Kalkandele to Prisdren, a very high col, not less than five thousand feet above the level of the sea; the other, considerably to the southward, and lower as well as easier, nearly in the latitude of Lychnidus, or Ochrida. It was over this last pass that the Roman Via Egnatia travelled, and that the modern road from Scutari and Durazzo to Bitolia now travels. With the exception of these two partial depressions, the long mountain-ridge maintains itself undiminished in height, admitting, indeed, paths by which a small company either of travellers or of Albanian robbers from the Dibren, may cross (there is a path of this kind which connects Struga with Ueskioub, mentioned by Dr. Joseph Müller, p. 70, and some others by Boué, vol. iv, p. 546), but nowhere admitting the passage of an army.

To attack the Macedonians, therefore, an Illyrian army would have to go through one or other of these passes, or else to go round the north-eastern pass of Katschanik, beyond the extremity of Ljubatrin. And we shall find that, in point of fact, the military operations recorded between the two nations carry us usually in one or other of these directions. The military proceedings of Brasidas (Thucyd. iv, 124),—of Philip the son of Amyntas king of Macedon (Diodor. xvi, 8),—of Alexander the Great in the first year of his reign (Arrian, i, 5), all bring us to the pass near Lychnidus (compare Livy, xxxii, 9; Plutarch, Flaminin. c. 4); while the Illyrian Dardani and Autariatæ border upon Pæonia, to the north of Pelagonia, and threaten Macedonia from the north-east of the mountain-chain of Skardus. The Autariatæ are not far removed from the Pæonian Agrianes, who dwelt near the sources of the Strymon, and both Autariatæ and Dardani threatened the return march of Alexander from the Danube into Macedonia, after his successful campaign against the Getæ, low down in the course of that great river (Arrian, i, 5). Without being able to determine the precise line of Alexander’s march on this occasion, we may see that these two Illyrian tribes must have come down to attack him from Upper Mœsia, and on the eastern side of the Axius. This, and the fact that the Dardani were the immediate neighbors of the Pæonians, shows us that their seats could not have been far removed from Upper Mœsia (Livy, xlv, 29): the fauces Pelagoniæ (Livy, xxxi, 34) are the pass by which they entered Macedonia from the north. Ptolemy even places the Dardani at Skopiæ (Ueskioub) (iii, 9); his information about these countries seems better than that of Strabo.

[2] Hekatæi Fragm. ed. Klausen, Fr. 66-70; Thucyd. i, 26.

Skylax places the Encheleis north of Epidamnus and of the Taulantii. It may be remarked that Hekatæus seems to have communicated much information respecting the Adriatic: he noticed the city of Adria at the extremity of the Gulf, and the fertility and abundance of the territory around it (Fr. 58: compare Skymnus Chius, 384).

[3] Livy, xliii, 9-18. Mannert (Geograph. der Griech. und Römer, part vii, ch. 9, p. 386, seq.) collects the points and shows how little can be ascertained respecting the localities of these Illyrian tribes.

[4] Strabo, iv, p. 206.

[5] Strabo, vii, p. 315; Arrian, i, 5, 4-11. So impracticable is the territory, and so narrow the means of the inhabitants, in the region called Upper Albania, that most of its resident tribes even now are considered as free, and pay no tribute to the Turkish government: the Pachas cannot extort it without greater expense and difficulty than the sum gained would repay. The same was the case in Epirus, or Lower Albania, previous to the time of Ali Pacha: in Middle Albania, the country does not present the like difficulties, and no such exemptions are allowed (Boué, Voyage en Turquie, vol. iii, p. 192). These free Albanian tribes are in the same condition with regard to the Sultan as the Mysians and Pisidians in Asia Minor with regard to the king of Persia in ancient times (Xenophon, Anab. iii, 2, 23).

[6] Diodor. xv, 13: Polyb. ii, 4.

[7] See the description in Thucydidês (iv, 124-128); especially the exhortation which he puts into the mouth of Brasidas,—αὐτοκράτωρ μάχῃ, contrasted with the orderly array of Greeks.

[8] See Pouqueville, Voyage en Grèce, vol. i, chs. 23 and 24; Grisebach, Reise durch Rumelien und nach Brussa, vol. ii, pp. 138-139; Boué, La Turquie en Europe, Géographie Générale, vol. i, pp. 60-65.

[9] Skymnus Chius, v, 418-425.

[10] Thucydidês mentions the ὑφαντὰ τε καὶ λεῖα, καὶ ἡ ἄλλη κατασκευὴ, which the Greek settlements on the Thracian coast sent up to king Seuthês (ii, 98): similar to the ὑφασμαθ᾽ ἱερὰ, and to the χεριαρᾶν τεκτόνων δαίδαλα, offered as presents to the Delphian god (Eurip. Ion. 1141; Pindar, Pyth. v, 46).

[11] Strabo, vii, p. 317; Appian, Illyric. 17; Aristot. Mirab. Ausc. c. 138. For the extreme importance of the trade in salt, as a bond of connection, see the regulations of the Romans when they divided Macedonia into four provinces, with the distinct view of cutting off all connection between one and the other. All commercium and connubium were forbidden between them: the fourth region, whose capital was Pelagonia (and which included all the primitive or Upper Macedonia, east of the range of Pindus and Skardus), was altogether inland, and it was expressly forbidden to draw its salt from the third region, or the country between the Axius and the Peneius; while on the other hand the Illyrian Dardani, situated northward of Upper Macedonia, received express permission to draw their salt from this third or maritime region of Macedonia: the salt was to be conveyed from the Thermaic gulf along the road of the Axius to Stobi in Pæonia, and was there to be sold at a fixed price.

The inner or fourth region of Macedonia, which included the modern Bitoglia and Lake Castoria, could easily obtain its salt from the Adriatic, by the communication afterwards so well known as the Roman Egnatian way; but the communication of the Dardani with the Adriatic led through a country of the greatest possible difficulty, and it was probably a great convenience to them to receive their supply from the gulf of Therma by the road along the Vardar (Axius) (Livy, xlv, 29). Compare the route of Grisebach from Salonichi to Scutari, in his Reise durch Rumelien, vol. ii.

[12] About the cattle in Illyria, Aristotle, De Mirab. Ausc. c. 128. There is a remarkable passage in Polybius, wherein he treats the importation of slaves as a matter of necessity to Greece (iv, 37). The purchasing of the Thracian slaves in exchange for salt is noticed by Menander.—Θρᾶξ εὐγενὴς εῖ, πρὸς ἄλας ἠγορασμένος: see Proverb. Zenob. ii, 12, and Diogenian, i, 100.

The same trade was carried on in antiquity with the nations on and near Caucasus, from the seaport of Dioskurias at the eastern extremity of the Euxine (Strabo, xi, p. 506). So little have those tribes changed, that the Circassians now carry on much the same trade. Dr. Clarke’s statement carries us back to the ancient world: “The Circassians frequently sell their children to strangers, particularly to the Persians and Turks, and their princes supply the Turkish seraglios with the most beautiful of the prisoners of both sexes whom they take in war. In their commerce with the Tchernomorski Cossacks (north of the river Kuban), the Circassians bring considerable quantities of wood, and the delicious honey of the mountains, sewed up in goats’ hides, with the hair on the outside. These articles they exchange for salt, a commodity found in the neighboring lakes, of a very excellent quality. Salt is more precious than any other kind of wealth to the Circassians, and it constitutes the most acceptable present which can be offered to them. They weave mats of very great beauty, which find a ready market both in Turkey and Russia. They are also ingenious in the art of working silver and other metals, and in the fabrication of guns, pistols, and sabres. Some, which they offered us for sale, we suspected had been procured in Turkey in exchange for slaves. Their bows and arrows are made with inimitable skill, and the arrows being tipped with iron, and otherwise exquisitely wrought, are considered by the Cossacks and Russians as inflicting incurable wounds.” (Clarke’s Travels, vol. i, ch. xvi, p. 378.)

[13] Theophrast. Hist. Plant. iv, 5, 2; ix, 7, 4: Pliny. H. N. xiii, 2; xxi, 19: Strabo, vii, p. 326. Coins of Epidamnus and Apollonia are found not only in Macedonia, but in Thrace and in Italy: the trade of these two cities probably extended across from sea to sea, even before the construction of the Egnatian way; and the Inscription 2056 in the Corpus of Boeckh proclaims the gratitude of Odêssus (Varna) in the Euxine sea towards a citizen of Epidamnus (Barth, Corinthiorum Mercatur. Hist. p. 49; Aristot. Mirab. Auscult. c. 104).

[14] Herodot. v, 61; viii, 137: Strabo, vii, p. 326. Skylax places the λίθοι of Kadmus and Harmonia among the Illyrian Manii, north of the Encheleis (Diodor. xix, 53; Pausan. ix, 5, 3).

[15] Herodot. v, 22.

[16] Aristot. Polit. vii, 2, 6. That the Macedonians were chiefly village residents, appears from Thucyd. ii, 100, iv, 124, though this does not exclude some towns.

[17] Boué, Voyage en Turquie, vol. i, p. 199: “Un bon nombre de cols dirigés du nord au sud, comme pour inviter les habitans de passer d’une de ces provinces dans l’autre.”

[18] For the general physical character of the region, both east and west of Skardus, continued by Pindus, see the valuable charter of Grisebach’s Travels above referred to (Reisen, vol. ii. ch. xiii, pp. 125-130; c. xiv, p. 175; c. xvi, pp. 214-216; c. xvii, pp. 244-245).

Respecting the plains comprised in the ancient Pelagonia, see also the Journal of the younger Pouqueville, in his progress from Travnik in Bosnia to Janina. He remarks, in the two days’ march from Prelepe (Prilip) through Bitolia to Florina, “Dans cette route on parcourt des plaines luxuriantes couvertes de moissons, de vastes prairies remplies de trèfle, des plateaux abondans en pâturages inépuisables, où paissent d’innombrables troupeaux de bœufs, de chèvres, et de menu bétail.... Le blé, le maïs, et les autres grains sont toujours à très bas prix, à cause de la difficulté des débouchés, d’où l’on exporte une grande quantité de laines, de cotons, de peaux d’agneaux, de buffles, et de chevaux, qui passent par le moyen des caravanes en Hongrie.” (Pouqueville, Voyage dans la Grèce, tom. ii, ch. 62, p. 495.)

Again, M. Boué remarks upon this same plain, in his Critique des Cartes de la Turquie, Voyage, vol. iv, p. 483, “La plaine immense de Prilip, de Bitolia, et de Florina, n’est pas représentée (sur les cartes) de manière à ce qu’on ait une idée de son étendue, et surtout de sa largeur.... La plaine de Sarigoul est changée en vallée,” etc. The basin of the Haliakmôn he remarks to be represented equally imperfectly on the maps: compare also his Voyage, i, pp. 211, 299, 300.

I notice the more particularly the large proportion of fertile plain and valley in the ancient Macedonia, because it is often represented (and even by O. Müller, in his Dissertation on the ancient Macedonians, attached to his History of the Dorians) as a cold and rugged land, pursuant to the statement of Livy (xlv, 29), who says, respecting the fourth region of Macedonia as distributed by the Romans, “Frigida hæc omnis, duraque cultu, et aspera plaga est: cultorum quoque ingenia terræ similia habet: ferociores eos et accolæ barbari faciunt, nunc bello exercentes, nunc in pace miscentes ritus suos.”

This is probably true of the mountaineers included in the region, but it is too much generalized.

[19] Polyb. xxviii, 8, 9. This is the most distinct testimony which we possess, and it appears to me to contradict the opinion both of Mannert (Geogr. der Gr. und Röm. vol. vii, p. 492) and of O. Müller (On the Macedonians, sects. 28-36), that the native Macedonians were of Illyrian descent.

[20] The Macedonian military array seems to have been very like that of the Thessalians,—horsemen well-mounted and armed, and maintaining good order (Thucyd. ii, 101): of their infantry, before the time of Philip son of Amyntas, we do not hear much.

“Macedoniam, quæ tantis barbarorum gentibus attingitur, ut semper Macedonicis imperatoribus iidem fines imperii fuerint qui gladiorum atque pilorum.” (Cicero, in Pison. c. xvi.)

[21] Strabo, lib. vii, Fragm. 20, ed. Tafel.

[22] I have followed Herodotus in stating the original series of occupants on the Thermaic gulf, anterior to the Macedonian conquests. Thucydidês introduces the Pæonians between Bottiæans and Mygdonians: he says that the Pæonians possessed “a narrow strip of land on the side of the Axius, down to Pella and the sea,” (ii, 96.) If this were true, it would leave hardly any room for the Bottiæans, whom, nevertheless, Thucydidês recognizes on the coast; for the whole space between the mouths of the two rivers, Axius and Haliakmôn, is inconsiderable; moreover, I cannot but suspect that Thucydidês has been led to believe, by finding in the Iliad that the Pæonian allies of Troy came from the Axius, that there must have been old Pæonian settlements at the mouth of that river, and that he has advanced the inference as if it were a certified fact. The case is analogous to what he says about the Bœotians in his preface (upon which O. Müller has already commented); he stated the emigration of the Bœotians into Bœotia as having taken place after the Trojan war, but saves the historical credit of the Homeric catalogue by adding that there had been a fraction of them in Bœotia before, from whom the contingent which went to Troy was furnished (ἀποδασμός, Thucyd. i, 12).

On this occasion, therefore, having to choose between Herodotus and Thucydidês, I prefer the former. O. Müller (On the Macedonians, sect. 11) would strike out just so much of the assertion of Thucydidês as positively contradicts Herodotus, and retain the rest; he thinks that the Pæonians came down very near to the mouth of the river, but not quite. I confess that this does not satisfy me; the more so as the passage from Livy by which he would support his view will appear, on examination, to refer to Pæonia high up the Axius,—not to a supposed portion of Pæonia near the mouth (Livy, xlv, 29).

Again, I would remark that the original residence of the Pierians between the Peneius and the Haliakmôn rests chiefly upon the authority of Thucydidês: Herodotus knows the Pierians in their seats between Mount Pangæus and the sea, but he gives no intimation that they had before dwelt south of the Haliakmôn; the tract between the Haliakmôn and the Peneius is by him conceived as Lower Macedonia, or Macedonis, reaching to the borders of Thessaly (vii, 127-173). I make this remark in reference to sects. 7-17 of O. Müller’s Dissertation, wherein the conception of Herodotus appears incorrectly apprehended, and some erroneous inferences founded upon it. That this tract was the original Pieria, there is sufficient reason for believing (compare Strabo, vii, Frag. 22, with Tafel’s note, and ix, p. 410; Livy, xliv, 9); but Herodotus notices it only as Macedonia.

[23] Skylax, c. 67. The conquests of Philip extended the boundary beyond the Strymon to the Nestus (Strabo, lib. vii, Fragm. 33, ed. Tafel).

[24] See this contrast noticed in Grisebach, especially in reference to the wide but barren region called the plain of Mustapha, no great distance from the left bank of the Axius (Grisebach, Reisen, v, ii, p. 225; Boué, Voyage, vol. i, p. 168).

For the description of the banks of the Axius (Vardar) and the Strymon, see Boué, Voyage en Turquie, vol. i, pp. 196-199. “La plaine ovale de Seres est un des diamans de la couronne de Byzance,” etc. He remarks how incorrectly the course of the Strymon is depicted on the maps (vol. iv, p. 482).

[25] The expression of Strabo or his Epitomator—τὴν Παιονίαν μέχρι Πελαγονίας καὶ Πιερίας ἐκτετάσθαι,—seems quite exact, though Tafel finds a difficulty in it. See his Note on the Vatican Fragments of the seventh book of Strabo, Fr. 37. The Fragment 40 is expressed much more loosely. Compare Herodot. v, 13-16, vii, 124; Thucyd. ii, 96; Diodor. xx, 19.

[26] Herodot. viii, 137-138.

[27] Herodot. v, 22. Argeadæ, Strabo, lib. vii, Fragm. 20, ed. Tafel, which may probably have been erroneously changed into Ægeadæ (Justin, vii, 1).

[28] Thucyd. iii, 7; Herodot. vi, 34-37: compare the story of Zalmoxis among the Thracians (iv, 94).

[29] Strabo, vii, p. 326.

[30] Herodot. viii, 139. Thucydidês agrees in the number of kings, but does not give the names (ii, 100).

For the divergent lists of the early Macedonian kings, see Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici, vol. ii, p. 221.

[31] This may be gathered, I think, from Herodot. vii, 73 and viii, 138. The alleged migration of the Briges into Asia, and the change of their name to Phryges, is a statement which I do not venture to repeat as credible.

[32] Herodot. vii, 123. Herodotus recognizes both Bottiæans between the Axius and the Haliakmôn,—and Bottiæans at Olynthus, whom the Macedonians had expelled from the Thermaic gulf,—at the time when Xerxês passed (viii, 127). These two statements seem to me compatible, and both admissible: the former Bottiæans were expelled by the Macedonians subsequently, anterior to the Peloponnesian war.

My view of these facts, therefore, differs somewhat from that of O. Müller (Macedonians, sect. 16).

[33] Herodot. i, 59, v, 94; viii, 136.

[34] Mannert assimilates the civilization of the Thracians to that of the Gauls when Julius Cæsar invaded them,—a great injustice to the latter, in my judgment (Geograph. Gr. und Röm. vol. vii, p. 23).

[35] Cicero, De Officiis, ii, 7. “Barbarum compunctum notis Threiciis.” Plutarch (De Serâ Numin. Vindict. c. 13, p. 558) speaks as if the women only were tattooed, in Thrace: he puts a singular interpretation upon it, as a continuous punishment on the sex for having slain Orpheus.

[36] For the Thracians generally, see Herodot. v, 3-9, vii, 110, viii, 116, ix, 119; Thucyd. ii, 100, vii, 29-30; Xenophon, Anabas. vii, 2, 38, and the seventh book of the Anabasis generally, which describes the relations of Xenophon and the Ten Thousand Greeks with Seuthês the Thracian prince.

[37] Xenoph. Anab. vi, 2, 17; Herodot. vii, 75.

[38] Tacit. Annal. ii, 66; iv, 46.

[39] Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. p. 293.

[40] Skylax, c. 67.

[41] For the description of Chalkidikê, see Grisebach’s Reisen, vol. ii, ch. 10, pp. 6-16, and Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, vol. iii, ch. 24, p. 152.

If we read attentively the description of Chalkidikê as given by Skylax (c. 67), we shall see that he did not conceive it as three-pronged, but as terminating only in the peninsula of Pallênê, with Potidæa at its isthmus.

[42] Herodot. vii, 123; Skymnus Chius, v, 627.

[43] Strabo, x, p. 447; Thucyd. iv, 120-123; Pompon. Mela, ii, 2; Herodot. vii, 123.

[44] Herodot. vii, 122; viii, 127. Stephanus Byz. (v. Παλλήνη) gives us some idea of the mythes of the lost Greek writers, Hegesippus and Theagenês about Pallênê.

[45] Thucyd. iv, 84, 103, 109. See Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici, ad ann. 654 B. C.

[46] Solinus, x, 10.

[47] Herodot. i, 168; vii, 58-59, 109; Skymnus Chius, v, 675.

[48] Thucyd. i, 100, iv, 102; Herodot. v, 11. Large quantities of corn are now exported from this territory to Constantinople (Leake, North. Gr. vol. iii, ch. 25, p. 172).

[49] Herodot. vii, 108-109; Thucyd. i, 101.

[50]

Archiloch. Fragm. 17-18, ed. Schneidewin.

The striking propriety of this description, even after the lapse of two thousand five hundred years, may be seen in the Travels of Grisebach, vol. i. ch. 7, pp. 210-218, and in Prokesch, Denkwürdigkeiten des Orients, Th. 3, p. 612. The view of Thasus from the sea justifies the title Ἠερίη (Œnomaus ap. Euseb. Præpar. Evang. vii, p. 256; Steph. Byz. Θάσσος).

Thasus (now Tasso) contains at present a population of about six thousand Greeks, dispersed in twelve small villages; it exports some good ship-timber, principally fir, of which there is abundance on the island, together with some olive oil and wax; but it cannot grow corn enough even for this small population. No mines either are now, or have been for a long time, in work.

[51] Archiloch. Fragm. 5, ed. Schneidewin; Aristophan. Pac. 1298, with the Scholia; Strabo, x, p. 487, xii, p. 549; Thucyd. iv, 104.

[52] Skymnus Chius, 699-715; Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. c. 57. See M. Raoul Rochette, Histoire des Colonies Grecques chs. xi-xiv, vol. iii, pp. 273-298.

[53] Aristot. Polit. iv, 4, l.

[54] Polyb. iv, 39, Phylarch. Fragm. 10, ed. Didot.

[55] Skymnus Chius, 720-740; Herodot. ii, 33, vi, 33; Strabo, vii, p. 319; Skylax, c. 68; Mannert, Geograph. Gr. Röm. vol. vii, ch. 8, pp. 126-140.

An inscription in Boeckh’s Collection proves the existence of a pentapolis, or union, of five Grecian cities on this coast. Tomi, Kallatis, Mesambria, and Apollônia, are presumed by Blaramberg to have belonged to this union. See Inscript. No. 2056 c.

Syncellus, however (p. 213), places the foundation of Istria considerably earlier, in 651 B. C.

[56] Herodot. viii, 90.

[57] See the discussion of the era of Kyrênê in Thrige, Historia Cyrênês, chs. 22, 23, 24, where the different statements are noticed and compared.

[58] Schol. ad Pindar. Pyth. iv.

[59] Herodot. iv, 150-154.

[60] Herodot. iv, 155.

[61] Herodot. iv, 158. ἐνθαῦτα γὰρ ὁ οὐρανὸς τέτρηται. Compare the jest ascribed to the Byzantian envoys, on occasion of the vaunts of Lysimachus (Plutarch, De Fortunâ Alexandr. Magn. c. 3, p. 338).

[62] Herodot. iv, 198.

[63] See, about the productive powers of Kyrênê and its surrounding region, Herodot. iv, 199; Kallimachus (himself a Kyrenæan), Hymn. ad Apoll. 65, with the note of Spanheim; Pindar, Pyth. iv, with the Scholia passim; Diodor. iii, 49; Arrian, Indica, xliii, 13. Strabo (xvii, p. 837) saw Kyrênê from the sea in sailing by, and was struck with the view: he does not appear to have landed.

The results of modern observation in that country are given in the Viaggio of Della Cella and in the exploring expedition of Captain Beechey; see an interesting summary in the History of the Barbary States, by Dr. Russell (Edinburgh, 1835), ch. v, pp. 160-171. The chapter on this subject (c. 6) in Thrige’s Historia Cyrênês is defective, as the author seems never to have seen the careful and valuable observations of Captain Beechey, and proceeds chiefly on the statements of Della Cella.

I refer briefly to a few among the many interesting notices of Captain Beechey. For the site of the ancient Hesperides (Bengazi), and the “beautiful fertile plain near it, extending to the foot of a long chain of mountains about fourteen miles distant to the south-eastward,”—see Beechey, Expedition, ch. xi, pp. 287-315; “a great many datepalm-trees in the neighborhood,” (ch. xii, pp. 340-345.)

The distance between Bengazi (Hesperides) and Ptolemeta (Ptolemais, the port of Barka) is fifty-seven geographical miles, along a fertile and beautiful plain, stretching from the mountains to the sea. Between these two was situated the ancient Teucheira (ib. ch. xii, p. 347), about thirty-eight miles from Hesperides (p. 349), in a country highly productive wherever it is cultivated (pp. 350-355). Exuberant vegetation exists near the deserted Ptolemeta, or Ptolemais, after the winter rains (p. 364). The circuit of Ptolemais, as measured by the ruins of its walls, was about three and a half English miles (p. 380).

The road from Barka to Kyrênê presents continued marks of ancient chariot-wheels (ch. xiv, p. 406); after passing the plain of Mergê, it becomes hilly and woody, “but on approaching Grenna (Kyrênê) it becomes more clear of wood; the valleys produce fine crops of barley, and the hills excellent pasturage for cattle,” (p. 409.) Luxuriant vegetation after the winter rains in the vicinity of Kyrênê (ch. xv, p. 465).

[64] Theophrast. Hist. Pl. vi, 3, 3; ix, 1, 7; Skylax, c. 107.

[65] Isokratês, Or. v, ad Philipp. p. 84, (p. 107, ed. Bek.) Thêra being a colony of Lacedæmon, and Kyrênê of Thêra, Isokratês speaks of Kyrênê as a colony of Lacedæmon.

[66] Pindar, Pyth. iv, 26. Κυρήνην—ἀστέων ῥίζαν. In the time of Herodotus these three cities may possibly have been spoken of as a Tripolis; but no one before Alexander the Great would have understood the expression Pentapolis, used under the Romans to denote Kyrênê, Apollonia, Ptolemais, Teucheira, and Berenikê, or Hesperides.

Ptolemais, originally the port of Barka, had become autonomous, and of greater importance than the latter.

[67] The accounts respecting the lake called in ancient times Tritônis are, however, very uncertain: see Dr. Shaw’s Travels in Barbary, p. 127. Strabo mentions a lake so called near Hesperides (xvii, p. 836); Pherekydês talks of it as near Irasa (Pherekyd. Fragm. 33 d. ed. Didot).

[68] Eratosthenês, born at Kyrênê and resident at Alexandria, estimated the land-journey between the two at five hundred and twenty-five Roman miles (Pliny, H. N. v, 6).

[69] Sallust, Bell. Jugurth. c. 75; Valerius Maximus, v, 6. Thrige (Histor. Cyr. c. 49) places this division of the Syrtis between Kyrênê and Carthage at some period between 400-330 B. C., anterior to the loss of the independence of Kyrênê; but I cannot think that it was earlier than the Ptolemies: compare Strabo, xvii, p. 836.

[70] The Carthaginian establishment Neapolis is mentioned by Skylax (c. 109), and Strabo states that Leptis was another name for the same place (xvii, p. 835).

[71] Skylax, c. 107; Vopiscus, Vit. Prob. c. 9; Strabo, xvii, p. 838; Pliny, H. N. v, 5. From the Libyan tribe Marmaridæ was derived the name Marmarika, applied to that region.

[72] ταπεινή τε καὶ ψαμμώδης (Herodot. iv, 191); Sallust, Bell. Jugurthin. c. 17.

Captain Beechey points out the mistaken conceptions which have been entertained of this region:—

“It is not only in the works of early writers that we find the nature of the Syrtis misunderstood; for the whole of the space between Mesurata (i. e. the cape which forms the western extremity of the Great Syrtis) and Alexandria is described by Leo Africanus, under the title of Barka, as a wild and desert country, where there is neither water nor land capable of cultivation. He tells us that the most powerful among the Mohammedan invaders possessed themselves of the fertile parts of the coast, leaving the others only the desert for their abode, exposed to all the miseries and privations attendant upon it; for this desert (he continues) is far removed from any habitations, and nothing is produced there whatever. So that if these poor people would have a supply of grain, or of any other articles necessary to their existence, they are obliged to pledge their children to the Sicilians who visit the coast; who, on providing them with these things, carry off the children they have received....

“It appears to be chiefly from Leo Africanus that modern historians have derived their idea of what they term the district and desert of Barka. Yet the whole of the Cyrenaica is comprehended within the limits which they assign to it; and the authority of Herodotus, without citing any other, would be amply sufficient to prove that this tract of country not only was no desert, but was at all times remarkable for its fertility.... The impression left upon our minds, after reading the account of Herodotus, would be much more consistent with the appearance and peculiarities of both, in their actual state, than that which would result from the description of any succeeding writer.... The district of Barka, including all the country between Mesurata and Alexandria, neither is, nor ever was, so destitute and barren as has been represented: the part of it which constitutes the Cyrenaica is capable of the highest degree of cultivation, and many parts of the Syrtis afford excellent pasturage, while some of it is not only adapted to cultivation, but does actually produce good crops of barley and dhurra.” (Captain Beechey, Expedition to Northern Coast of Africa, ch. x, pp. 263, 265, 267, 269: comp. ch. xi, p. 321.)

[73] Justin, xiii, 7. “Amœnitatem loci et fontium ubertatem.” Captain Beechey notices this annual migration of the Bedouin Arabs:—

“Teucheira (on the coast between Hesperides and Barka) abounds in wells of excellent water, which are reserved by the Arabs for their summer consumption, and only resorted to when the more inland supplies are exhausted: at other times it is uninhabited. Many of the excavated tombs are occupied as dwelling-houses by the Arabs during their summer visits to that part of the coast.” (Beechey, Exp. to North. Afric. ch. xii, p. 354.)

And about the wide mountain plain, or table-land of Mergê, the site of the ancient Barka, “The water from the mountains inclosing the plain settles in pools and lakes in different parts of this spacious valley; and affords a constant supply during the summer months, to the Arabs who frequent it.” (ch. xiii, p. 390.) The red earth which Captain Beechey observed in this plain is noticed by Herodotus in regard to Libya (ii, 12). Stephan. Byz. notices also the bricks used in building (v. Βάρκη). Derna, too, to the eastward of Cyrene on the sea-coast, is amply provided with water (ch. xvi, p. 471).

About Kyrênê itself, Captain Beechey states: “During the time, about a fortnight, of our absence from Kyrene, the changes which had taken place in the appearance of the country about it were remarkable. We found the hills on our return covered with Arabs, their camels, flocks, and herds; the scarcity of water in the interior at this time having driven the Bedouins to the mountains, and particularly to Kyrene, where the springs afford at all times an abundant supply. The corn was all cut, and the high grass and luxuriant vegetation, which we had found it so difficult to wade through on former occasions, had been eaten down to the roots by the cattle.” (ch. xviii, pp. 517-520.)

The winter rains are also abundant, between January and March, at Bengazi (the ancient Hesperides): sweet springs of water near the town (ch. xi, pp. 282, 315, 327). About Ptolemeta, or Ptolemais, the port of the ancient Barka, ib. ch. xii, p. 363.