Ὁ καλλιγέφυρος ποταμὸς Στρύμων, Euripid. Rhesus, 346.
I annex a plan which will convey some idea of the hill of Amphipolis and the circumjacent territory: compare the plan in Colonel Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, vol. iii, ch. xxv, p. 191, and that from Mr. Hawkins, which is annexed to the third volume of Dr. Arnold’s Thucydidês, combined with a Dissertation which appears in the second volume of the same work, p. 450. See also the remarks in Kutzen, De Atheniensium imperio circa Strymonem, ch. ii, pp. 18-21; Weissenborn, Beiträge zur genaueren Erforschung der alt-griechischen Geschichte, pp. 152-156; Cousinéry, Voyage dans la Macédoine, vol. i, ch. iv, p. 124, seq.
Colonel Leake supposes the ancient bridge to have been at the same point of the river as the modern bridge; that is, north of Amphipolis, and a little westward of the corner of the lake. On this point I differ from him, and have placed it, with Dr. Arnold, near the southeastern end of the reach of the Strymon, which flows round Amphipolis. But there is another circumstance, in which Col. Leake’s narrative corrects a material error in Dr. Arnold’s Dissertation. Colonel Leake particularly notices the high ridge which connects the hill of Amphipolis with Mount Pangæus to the eastward (pp. 182, 183, 191-194), whereas Dr. Arnold represents them as separated by a deep ravine (p. 451): upon which latter supposition the whole account of Kleon’s march and survey appears to me unintelligible.
The epithet which Thucydidês gives to Amphipolis, “conspicuous both towards the sea and towards the land,” which occasions some perplexity to the commentators, appears to me one of obvious propriety. Amphipolis was indeed situated on a hill; so were many other towns: but its peculiarity was, that on three sides it had no wall to interrupt the eye of the spectator: one of those sides was towards the sea.
Kutzen and Cousinéry make the long wall to be the segment of a curve highly bent, touching the river at both ends. But I agree with Weissenborn that this is inadmissible; and that the words “long wall” imply something near a straight direction.
[734] Ἀπέχει δὲ τὸ πόλισμα πλέον τῆς διαβάσεως: see upon these words. This does not necessarily imply that the bridge was at any considerable distance from the extreme point where the long wall touched the river to the south: but this latter point was a good way off from the town properly so called, which occupied the higher slope of the hill. We are not to suppose that the whole space between the long wall and the river was covered by buildings.
[735] Thucyd. v. 10. Καὶ ὁ μὲν (Brasidas) κατὰ τὰς ἐπὶ τὸ σταύρωμα πύλας, καὶ τὰς πρώτας τοῦ μακροῦ τείχους τότε ὄντος ἐξελθὼν, ἔθει δρόμῳ τὴν ὁδὸν ταύτην εὐθεῖαν, ᾗπερ νῦν, etc.
The explanation which I have here given to the word σταύρωμα is not given by any one else; but it appears to me the only one calculated to impart clearness and consistency to the whole narrative.
When Brasidas surprised Amphipolis first, the bridge was completely unconnected with the Long Wall, and at a certain distance from it. But when Thucydidês wrote his history, there were a pair of connecting walls between the bridge and the fortifications of the city as they then stood—οὐ καθεῖτο τείχη ὥσπερ νῦν (iv, 103): the whole fortifications of the city had been altered during the intermediate period.
Now the question is, was the Long Wall of Amphipolis connected or unconnected with the bridge, at the time of the conflict between Brasidas and Kleon? Whoever reads the narrative of Thucydidês attentively will see, I think, that they must have been connected, though Thucydidês does not in express terms specify the fact. For if the bridge had been detached from the wall, as it was when Brasidas surprised the place first, the hill of Kerdylium on the opposite side of the river would have been an unsafe position for him to occupy. He might have been cut off from Amphipolis by an enemy attacking the bridge. But we shall find him remaining quietly on the hill of Kerdylium with the perfect certainty of entering Amphipolis at any moment that he chose. If it be urged that the bridge, though unconnected with the Long Wall, might still be under a strong separate guard, I reply, that on that supposition an enemy from Eion would naturally attack the bridge first. To have to defend a bridge completely detached from the city, simply by means of a large constant guard, would materially aggravate the difficulties of Brasidas. If it had been possible to attack the bridge separately from the city, something must have been said about it in describing the operations of Kleon, who is represented as finding nothing to meddle with except the fortifications of the town.