[207] This town Νικόπολις ἡ περὶ Αἷμον of Ptolem. iii. 11, 7, Νικόπολις πρὸς Ἴστρον of the coins, the modern Nikup on the Jantra, belongs to lower Moesia geographically, and, as the names of governors on the coins show, since Severus also administratively; but not merely does Ptolemy adduce it in Thrace, but the places where the Hadrianic terminal stones (C. I. L. iii. 749, comp. p. 992) are found, appear to assign it likewise to Thrace. As this Greek inland town fitted neither the Latin town–communities of lower Moesia nor the κοινόν of the Moesian Pontus, it was assigned at the first organising of the relations to the κοινόν of the Thracians. Subsequently it must, no doubt, have been attached to one or the other of those Moesian groups.
[208] The κοινὸν τῆς Πενταπόλεως is found on an inscription of Odessus, C. I. Gr. 2056 c., which may fairly belong to the earlier imperial period, the Pontic Hexapolis, on two inscriptions of Tomis probably of the second century A.D. (Marquardt, Staatsverw. i.² p. 305; Hirschfeld, Arch. epigr. Mitth. vi. 22). The Hexapolis in any case, and in accordance therewith probably also the Pentapolis, must have been brought into harmony with the Roman provincial boundaries, that is, must have included in it the Greek towns of lower Moesia. These are also found, if we follow the surest guides,—the coins of the imperial period. There were six mints (apart from Nicopolis, [p. 282], note) in lower Moesia: Istros, Tomis, Callatis, Dionysopolis, Odessus, and Marcianopolis, and, as the last town was founded by Trajan, the Pentapolis is thereby explained. Tyra and Olbia hardly belonged to it; at least the numerous and loquacious monuments of the latter town nowhere show any link of connection with this city–league. It is called κοινὸν τῶν Ἑλλήνων on an inscription of Tomis, printed in the Athenian Pandora of 1st June 1868 [and in Anc. Gr. Inscr. in the British Museum, ii. n. 175]: Ἀγαθῆ τύχη. Κατὰ τὰ δόξαντα τῆ κρατήστη βουλῆ καὶ τῶ λαμπροτάτω δήμω τῆς λαμπροτάτης μητροπόλεως καὶ αʹ τοῦ εὐωνύμου πόντου Τόμεως τὸν Ποντάρχην Αὐρ. Πρείσκιον Ἀννιανὸν ἄρξαντα τοῦ κοινοῦ τῶν Ἑλλήνων καὶ τῆς μητρ[ο]πόλεως τήν αʹ ἀρχὴν ἁγνῶς, καὶ ἀρχιερασάμενον, τῆν δι’ ὅπλων καὶ κυνηγεσίων ἐνδόξως φιλοτειμίαν μὴ διαλιπόντα, ἀλλὰ καὶ βουλευτὴν καὶ τῶν πρωτευόντων φλαβίας Νέας πόλεως, καὶ τὴν ἀρχιέρειαν σύμβιον αὐτοῦ Ἰουλίαν Ἀπολαύστην πάσης τειμῆς χάριν.
[209] This is shown by the remarkable inscription in Allard (La Bulgarie orientale, Paris, 1863, p. 263): Θεῶ μεγάλω Σαράπ[ιδι καὶ] τοῖς συννάοις θεοῖς [καὶ τῶ αὐ]τοκράτορι Τ. Αἰλίω Ἀδριαν[ῶ Ἀ]ντωνείνω Σεβαστῶ Εὐσεβ[εῖ] καὶ Μ. Αὐρηλίω Οὐήρω Καίσαρι Καρπίων Ἀνουβίωνος τῶ οἴκω τῶν Ἀλεξανδρέων τὸν βωμὸν ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων ἀνέθηκεν ἔτους κγʹ [μηνὸς] φαρμουθὶ αʹ ἐπὶ ἱερέων [Κ]ορνούτου τοῦ καὶ Σαραπίωνος [Πολύ]μνου τοῦ καὶ Λον[γείνου]. The mariner’s guild of Tomis meets us several times in the inscriptions of the town.
[210] Olbia, constantly assailed in war and often destroyed, suffered, according to the statement of Dio (Borysth. p. 75, n.), about 150 years before his time, i.e. somewhat before the year 100 A.D., and so probably in the expedition of Burebista (iv. 305), its last and most severe conquest (τὴν τελευταίαν καὶ μεγίστην ἅλωσιν). Εἷλον δὲ, Dio continues, καὶ ταύτην Γέται καὶ τὰς ἄλλας τὰς ἐν τοῖς ἀριστεροῖς τοῦ Πόντου πόλεις μέχρι Ἀπολλωνίας (Sozopolis or Sizebolu, the last Greek town of note on the Pontic west coast): ὅθεν δὴ καὶ σφόδρα ταπεινὰ τὰ πράγματα κατέστη τῶν ταύτῃ Ελλήνων, τῶν μὲν οὐκέτι συνοικισθεισῶν πόλεων, τῶν δὲ φαύλως καὶ τῶν πλείστων βαρβάρων εἰς αὐτὰς συῤῥυέντων. The young citizen of rank with a marked Ionic physiognomy, with whom Dio then meets, who has slain or captured numerous Sarmatians, and though not acquainted with Phocylides, knows Homer by heart, wears mantle and trousers after the Scythian fashion, and a knife in his girdle. The townsmen all wear long hair and a long beard, and only one has shorn both, which is suspected in him as a token of servile attitude towards the Romans. Thus a century later matters there looked quite such as Ovid describes them at Tomis.
[211] Quite commonly the father has a Scythian name and the son a Greek, or conversely; e.g. an inscription of Olbia set up under or after Trajan (C. I. Gr. 2074) records six strategoi, M. Ulpius Pyrrhus son of Arseuaches, Demetrios son of Xessagaros, Zoilos son of Arsakes, Badakes son of Radanpson, Epikrates son of Koxuros, Ariston son of Vargadakes.
[212] As Asander reckoned his archonship probably from the very time of his revolt from Pharnaces, and so from the summer of 70747., and assumes the royal title already in the fourth year of his reign, this year may warrantably be put in the autumn 709–71045–44., and the confirmation have thus been the work of Caesar. Antonius cannot well have bestowed it, as he only came to Asia at the end of 71242.; still less can we think of Augustus, whom the pseudo–Lucian (Macrob. 15) names, interchanging father and son.
[213] Mithradates, whom Claudius in the year 41 made king of Bosporus, traced back his descent to Eupator (Dio, lx. 8; Tacitus, Ann. xii. 18), and he was followed by his brother Cotys (Tacitus, l.c.). Their father was called Aspurgus (C. I. Gr. ii. p. 95), but need not on that account have been an Aspurgian (Strabo, xi. 2, 19, p. 415). Of a subsequent change of dynasty there is no mention; king Eupator in the time of Pius (Lucian, Alex. 57; vita Pii, 9) points to the same house. Probably, we may add, these later Bosporan kings, as well as the immediate successors of Polemon not even known to us by name, stood in relations of affinity to the Polemonids, as indeed the first Polemon himself had as his wife a granddaughter of Eupator. The Thracian royal names, such as Cotys and Rhascuporis, which are common in the Bosporan royal house, connect themselves doubtless with the son–in–law of Polemon, the Thracian king Cotys. The appellation Sauromates, which frequently occurs after the end of the first century, has doubtless arisen through intermarriage with Sarmatian princely houses, but, of course, does not prove that those who bore it were themselves Sarmatians. If Zosimus, i. 31, blames the petty and unworthy princes who attained to government after the extinction of the old royal family, for the fact that the Goths under Valerian could carry out their piratical expeditions in Bosporan ships, this may be correct, and in the first instance Pharnaces may be meant, of whom there are coins from the years 254 and 255. But even these, too, are marked with the image of the Roman emperor, and later there are again found the old family names (all the Bosporan kings are Tiberii Julii), and the old surnames, such as Sauromates and Rhascuporis. Taken as a whole, the old traditions as well as the Roman protectorate were still at that time here retained.
[214] The last Bosporan coin is of the year 631, of the Achaemenid era, A.D. 335; this is certainly connected with the installation, which falls in this very year, of Hanniballianus, the nephew of Constantine I., as “king,” although this kingdom embraced chiefly the east of Asia Minor and had as its capital Caesarea in Cappadocia. After this king and his kingdom had perished in the bloody catastrophe after Constantine’s death, the Bosporus was placed directly under Constantinople.
[215] The Bosporus was still in Roman possession in the year 366 (Ammianus, xxvi. 10, 6); soon afterwards the Greeks on the north shore of the Black Sea must have been left to themselves, until Justinian reoccupied the peninsula (Procopius, Bell. Goth. iv. 5). In the interval Panticapaeum perished under the assaults of the Huns.
[216] The coins of the town Chersonesus from the imperial period have the legend Χερσονήσου ἐλευθέρας, once even βασιλευούσης, and neither name nor head of king or emperor (A. v. Sallet, Zeitschrift für Num. i. 27; iv. 273). The independence of the town evidences itself also in the fact that it coins in gold no less than the kings of the Bosporus. As the era of the town appears correctly fixed at the year 36 B.C. (C. I. Gr. n. 8621), in which freedom was conferred upon it presumably by Antonius, the gold coin of the “ruling city” dated from the year 109 was struck in 75 A.D.