[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.