Suppositoque gravem vertice portat aquam.”
[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.
[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.