Æneia, near that cape which marks the entrance of the inner Thermaic gulf,—and Potidæa, at the narrow isthmus of Pallênê,—were both founded by Corinth. Between these two towns lay the fertile territory called Krusis, or Krossæa, forming in after-times a part of the domain of Olynthus, but in the sixth century B. C. occupied by petty Thracian townships.[42] Within Pallênê were the towns of Mendê, a colony from Eretria,—Skiônê, which, having no legitimate mother-city traced its origin to Pellenian warriors returning from Troy,—Aphytis, Neapolis, Ægê, Therambôs, and Sanê,[43] either wholly or partly colonies from Eretria. In the Sithonian peninsula were Assa, Pilôrus, Singus, Sartê, Torônê, Galêpsus, Sermylê, and Mekyberna; all or most of these seem to have been of Chalkidic origin. But at the head of the Torônaic gulf (which lies between Sithonia and Pallênê) was placed Olynthus, surrounded by an extensive and fertile plain. Originally a Bottiæan town, Olynthus will be seen at the time of the Persian invasion to pass into the hands of the Chalkidian Greeks,[44] and gradually to incorporate with itself several of the petty neighboring establishments belonging to that race; whereby the Chalkidians acquired that marked preponderance in the peninsula which they retained, even against the efforts of Athens, until the days of Philip of Macedon.
On the scanty spaces, admitted by the mountainous promontory, or ridge, ending in Athos, were planted some Thracian and some Pelasgic settlements of the same inhabitants as those who occupied Lemnos and Imbros; a few Chalkidic citizens being domiciliated with them, and the people speaking both Pelasgic and Hellenic. But near the narrow isthmus which joins this promontory to Thrace, and along the north-western coast of the Strymonic gulf, were Grecian towns of considerable importance,—Sanê, Akanthus, Stageira, and Argilus, all colonies from Andros, which had itself been colonized from Eretria.[45] Akanthus and Stageira are said to have been founded in 654 B. C.
Following the southern coast of Thrace, from the mouth of the river Strymôn towards the east, we may doubt whether, in the year 560 B. C., any considerable independent colonies of Greeks had yet been formed upon it. The Ionic colony of Abdêra, eastward of the mouth of the river Nestus, formed from Teôs in Ionia, is of more recent date, though the Klazomenians[46] had begun an unsuccessful settlement there as early as the year 651 B. C.; while Dikæa—the Chian settlement of Marôneia—and the Lesbian settlement of Ænus at the mouth of the Hebrus, are of unknown date.[47] The important and valuable territory near the mouth of the Strymôn, where, after many ruinous failures,[48] the Athenian colony of Amphipolis afterwards maintained itself, was at the date here mentioned possessed by Edonian Thracians and Pierians: the various Thracian tribes,—Satræ, Edonians, Dersæans, Sapæans, Bistones, Kikones, Pætians, etc.—were in force on the principal part of the tract between Strymôn and Hebrus, even to the sea-coast. It is to be remarked, however, that the island of Thasus, and that of Samothrace, each possessed what in Greek was called a Peræa,[49]—a strip of the adjoining mainland cultivated and defended by means of fortified posts, or small towns: probably, these occupations are of very ancient date, since they seem almost indispensable as a means of support to the islands. For the barren Thasus, especially, merits even at this day the uninviting description applied to it by the poet Archilochus, in the seventh century B. C.,—“an ass’s backbone, overspread with wild wood:”[50] so wholly is it composed of mountain, naked or wooded, and so scanty are the patches of cultivable soil left in it, nearly all close to the sea-shore. This island was originally occupied by the Phenicians, who worked the gold mines in its mountains with a degree of industry which, even in its remains, excited the admiration of Herodotus. How and when it was evacuated by them, we do not know; but the poet Archilochus[51] formed one of a body of Parian colonists who planted themselves on it in the seventh century B. C., and carried on war, not always successful, against the Thracian tribe called Saians: on one occasion, Archilochus found himself compelled to throw away his shield. By their mines and their possessions on the mainland (which contained even richer mines, at Skaptê Hylê, and elsewhere, than those in the island), the Thasian Greeks rose to considerable power and population. And as they seem to have been the only Greeks, until the settlement of the Milesian Histiæus on the Strymôn about 510 B. C., who actively concerned themselves in the mining districts of Thrace opposite to their island, we cannot be surprised to hear that their clear surplus revenue before the Persian conquest, about 493 B. C., after defraying the charges of their government without any taxation, amounted to the large sum of two hundred talents, sometimes even to three hundred talents, in each year (from forty-six thousand to sixty-six thousand pounds).
On the long peninsula called the Thracian Chersonese there may probably have been small Grecian settlements at an early date, though we do not know at what time either the Milesian settlement of Kardia, on the western side of the isthmus of that peninsula, near the Ægean sea,—or the Æolic colony of Sestus on the Hellespont,—were founded; while the Athenian ascendency in the peninsula begins only with the migration of the first Miltiadês, during the reign of Peisistratus at Athens. The Samian colony of Perinthus, on the northern coast of the Propontis,[52] is spoken of as ancient in date, and the Megarian colonies, Selymbria and Byzantium, belong to the seventh century B. C.: the latter of these two is assigned to the 30th Olympiad (657 B. C.), and its neighbor Chalkêdôn, on the opposite coast, was a few years earlier. The site of Byzantium in the narrow strait of the Bosphorus, with its abundant thunny-fishery,[53] which both employed and nourished a large proportion of the poorer freemen, was alike convenient either for maritime traffic, or for levying contributions on the numerous corn ships which passed from the Euxine into the Ægean; and we are even told that it held a considerable number of the neighboring Bithynian Thracians as tributary Periœki. Such dominion, though probably maintained during the more vigorous period of Grecian city life, became in later times impracticable, and we even find the Byzantines not always competent to the defence of their own small surrounding territory. The place, however, will be found to possess considerable importance during all the period of this history.[54]
The Grecian settlements on the inhospitable south-western coast of the Euxine, south of the Danube, appear never to have attained any consideration: the principal traffic of Greek ships in that sea tended to more northerly ports, on the banks of the Borysthenês and in the Tauric Chersonese. Istria was founded by the Milesians near the southern embouchure of the Danube,—Apollonia and Odêssus on the same coast, more to the south,—all probably between 600-560 B. C. The Megarian or Byzantine colony of Mesambria, seems to have been later than the Ionic revolt; of Kallatis the age is not known. Tomi, north of Kallatis and south of Istria, is renowned as the place of Ovid’s banishment.[55] The picture which he gives of that uninviting spot, which enjoyed but little truce from the neighborhood of the murderous Getæ, explains to us sufficiently why these towns acquired little or no importance.
The islands of Lemnos and Imbros, in the Ægean, were at this early period occupied by Tyrrhenian Pelasgi, were conquered by the Persians about 508 B. C., and seem to have passed into the power of the Athenians at the time when Ionia revolted from the Persians. If the mythical or poetical stories respecting these Tyrrhenian Pelasgi contain any basis of truth, they must have been a race of buccaneers not less rapacious than cruel. At one time, these Pelasgi seem also to have possessed Samothrace, but how or when they were supplanted by Greeks, we find no trustworthy account; the population of Samothrace at the time of the Persian war was Ionic.[56]
CHAPTER XXVII.
KYRENE AND BARKA. — HESPERIDES.
It has been already mentioned, in a former chapter, that Psammetichus king of Egypt, about the middle of the seventh century B. C., first removed those prohibitions which had excluded Grecian commerce from his country. In his reign, Grecian mercenaries were first established in Egypt, and Grecian traders admitted, under certain regulations, into the Nile. The opening of this new market emboldened them to traverse the direct sea which separates Krête from Egypt,—a dangerous voyage with vessels which rarely ventured to lose sight of land,—and seems to have first made them acquainted with the neighboring coast of Libya, between the Nile and the gulf called the Great Syrtis. Hence arose the foundation of the important colony called Kyrênê.
As in the case of most other Grecian colonies, so in that of Kyrênê, both the foundation and the early history are very imperfectly known. The date of the event, as far as can be made out amidst much contradiction of statement, was about 630 B. C.:[57] Thêra was the mother-city, herself a colony from Lacedæmon; and the settlements formed in Libya became no inconsiderable ornaments to the Dorian name in Hellas.