CHAPTER XCVIII

OUTLYING HELLENIC CITIES

 

1. In Gaul and Spain

2. On the Coast of the Euxine

 

To complete the picture of the Hellenic world while yet in its period of full life, in freedom and self-action, or even during its decline into the half-life of a dependent condition—we must say a few words respecting some of its members lying apart from the general history, yet of not inconsiderable importance. The Greeks of Massalia formed its western wing; the Pontic Greeks (those on the shores of the Euxine), its eastern; both of them the outermost radiations of Hellenism, where it was always militant against foreign elements, and often adulterated by them. It is indeed little that we have the means of saying; but that little must not be left unsaid.

In my twenty-seventh chapter, I briefly noticed the foundation and first proceedings of Massalia (the modern Marseilles), on the Mediterranean coast of Gaul or Liguria. This Ionic city, founded by the enterprising Phocaeans of Asia Minor, a little before their own seaboard was subjugated by the Persians, had a life and career of its own, apart from those political events which determined the condition of its Hellenic sisters in Asia, Peloponnesus, Italy, or Sicily. The Massaliots maintained their own relations of commerce, friendship or hostility with their barbaric neighbours, the Ligurians, Gauls, and Iberians, without becoming involved in the larger political confederacies of the Hellenic world. They carried out from their mother-city established habits of adventurous coast­navigation and commercial activity. Their situation, distant from other Greeks and sustained by a force hardly sufficient even for defence, imposed upon them the necessity both of political harmony at home, and of prudence and persuasive agency in their mode of dealing with neighbours. That they were found equal to this necessity, appears sufficiently attested by the few general statements transmitted in respect to them; though their history in its details is unknown.

Their city was strong by position, situated upon a promon­tory washed on three sides by the sea, well fortified, and possessing a convenient harbour securely closed against enemies. The domain around it however appears not to have been large, nor did their population extend itself much into the interior. The land around was less adapted for com than for the vine and the olive; wine was supplied by the Massaliots throughout Gaul. It was on shipboard that their courage and skill was chiefly displayed; it was by maritime enterprise that their power, their wealth, and their colonial expansion were obtained. In an age when piracy was common, the Massaliot ships and seamen were effective in attack and defence not less than in transport and commercial interchange; while their numerous maritime successes were attested by many trophies adorning the temples. The city contained docks and arsenals admirably provided with provisions, stores, arms, and all the various muniments of naval war. Except the Phenicians and Carthaginians, these Massaliots were the only enterprising mariners in the Western Mediterranean; from the year 500 B.C. downward, after the energy of the Ionic Greeks had been crushed by inland potentates. The Iberian and Gallic tribes were essentially landsmen, not occupying permanent stations on the coast, nor having any vocation for the sea; but the Ligurians, though chiefly mountaineers, were annoying neighbours to Massalia as well by their piracies at sea as from their depredations by land.5 To all these lands­men, however, depredators as they were, the visit of the trader soon made itself felt as a want, both for import and export; and to this want the Massaliots, with their colonies, were the only ministers, along the Gulfs of Genoa and Lyons, from Luna (the frontier of Tuscany) to the Dianium (Cape della Nao) in Spain. It was not until the first century before the Christian era that they were outstripped in this career by Narbon, and a few other neighbours, exalted into Roman colonies.

Along the coast on both sides of their own city, the Massaliots planted colonies, each commended to the protection, and consecrated by the statue and peculiar rites, of their own patron goddess, the Ephesian Artemis. Towards the east were Tauroentium, Olbia, Antipolis, Nicaea, and the Portus Monoeki; towards the west, on the coast of Spain, were Rhoda, Emporiae, Alone, Hemeroskopium, and Artemisium or Dianium. These colonies were established chiefly on outlying capes or sometimes islets, at once near and safe; they were intended more as shelter and accommodation for maritime traffic, and as depots for trade with the interior,—than for the purpose of spreading inland, and including a numerous outlying population round the walls. The circumstances of Emporiae were the most remarkable. That town was built originally on a little uninhabited islet off the coast of Iberia; after a certain interval it became extended to the adjoining mainland, and a body of native Iberians were admitted to joint residence within the new-walled circuit there established. This new circuit however was divided in half by an intervening wall, on one side of which dwelt the Iberians, on the other side the Greeks. One gate alone was permitted, for intercommunication, guarded night and day by appointed magis­trates, one of whom was perpetually on the spot. Every night, one third of the Greek citizens kept guard on the walls, or at least held themselves prepared to do so. How long these strict and fatiguing precautions were found necessary, we do not know; but after a certain time they were relaxed and the intervening wall disappeared, so that Greeks and Iberians freely coalesced into one community. It is not often that we are allowed to see so much in detail the early difficulties and dangers of a Grecian colony. Massalia itself was situated under nearly similar circumstances among the rude Ligurian Salyes; we hear of these Ligurians hiring themselves as labourers to dig on the fields of Massaliot proprietors. The various tribes of Ligurians, Gauls, and Iberians extended down to the coast, so that there was no safe road along it, nor any communication except by sea, until the conquests of the Romans in the second and first century before the Christian era.

The government of Massalia was oligarchical, carried on chiefly by a Senate or Great Council of Six Hundred (called Timuchi), elected for life—and by a small council of fifteen, chosen among this larger body to take turn in executive duties. The public habits of the administrators are said to have been extremely vigilant and circumspect; the private habits of the citizens, frugal and temperate—a maximum being fixed by law for dowries and marriage-ceremonies. They were careful in their dealings with the native tribes, with whom they appear to have maintained relations generally friendly. The historian Ephorus (whose History closed about 340 B.C.) represented the Gauls as especially phil-Hellenic; an impression which he could hardly have derived from any but Massaliot informants. The Massaliots (who in the first century before Christ were trilingues, speaking Greek, Latin, and Gallic6) contributed to engraft upon these unlettered men a certain refinement and variety of wants, and to lay the foundation of that taste for letters which afterwards became largely diffused throughout the Roman Province of Gaul. At sea, and in traffic, the Phenicians and Carthaginians were their formidable rivals. This was among the causes which threw them betimes into alliance and active co operation with Rome, under whose rule they obtained favourable treatment, whenth6 blessing of freedom was no longer within their reach.

Enough is known about Massalia to show that the city was a genuine specimen of Hellenism and Hellenic influences—acting not by force or constraint, but simply by superior intelligence and activity—by power of ministering to wants which must otherwise have remained unsupplied—and by the assimilating effect of a lettered civilisation upon ruder neighbours. This is the more to be noticed as it contrasts strikingly with the Macedonian influences which have occupied so much of the present volume; force admirably organised and wielded by Alexander, yet still nothing but force. The loss of all details respecting the history of Massalia is greatly to be lamented; and hardly less, that of the writings of Pytheas, an intelligent Massaliotic navigator, who, at this early age (330­320), with an adventurous boldness even more than Phokaean, sailed through the Pillars of Herakles, and from thence northward along the coast of Spain, Gaul, Britain, Germany—perhaps yet farther. Probably no Greek except a Massaliot could have accomplished such a voyage; which in his case deserves the greater sympathy, as there was no other reward for the difficulties and dangers braved, except the gratification of an intelligent curiosity. It seems plain that the publication of his Survey of the Earth—much consulted by Eratosthenes, though the criticisms which have reached us through Polybius and Strabo dwell chiefly upon its mistakes, real or supposed—made an epoch in ancient geographical knowledge.

From the western wing of the Hellenic world, we pass to the eastern—the Euxine Sea. Of the Pentapolis on its western coast south of the Danube (Apollonia, Mesembria, Kallatis, Odessus, and probably Istrus)—and of Tyras near the mouth of the river so called (now Dniester)—we have little to record; though Istrus and Apollonia were among the towns whose political constitutions Aristotle thought worthy of his examination. But Herakleia on the south coast, and Pantikapaeum or Bosporus between the Euxine and the Palus Maeotis (now Sea of Azof), are not thus unknown to history nor can Sinope (on the south coast) and Olbia (on the north-west) be altogether passed over. Though lying apart from the political headship of Athens or Sparta, all these cities were legitimate members of the Hellenic brotherhood. All supplied spectators and com­petitors for the Pan-Hellenic festivals—pupils to the rhetors and philosophers—purchasers, and sometimes even rivals, to the artists. All too were (like Massalia and Kyrene) adulterated partially—Olbia and Bosporus considerably—by admixture of a non-Hellenic element.

Of Sinope, and its three dependent colonies Kotydra, Kerasus, and Trapezus, I have already said something, in describing the retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks. Like Massalia with its dependencies Antipolis, Nicaea, and others—Sinope enjoyed not merely practical independence, but considerable prosperity and local dignity, at the time when Xenophon and his companions marched through those regions. The citizens were on terms of equal alliance, mutually advantageous, with Korylas prince of Paphlagonia, on the borders of whose territory they dwelt. It is probable that they figured on the tribute list of the Persian king as a portion of Paphlagonia, and paid an annual sum; but here ended their subjection. Their behaviour towards the Ten Thousand Greeks, pronounced enemies of the Persian king, was that of an independent city. Neither they, nor even the inland Paphlagonians, warlike and turbulent, were molested with Persian governors or military occupation. Alexander however numbered them among the subjects of Persia; and it is a remarkable fact, that envoys from Sinope were found remaining with Darius almost to his last hour, after he had become a conquered fugitive, and had lost his armies, his capitals, and his treasures. These Sinopian envoys fell into the hands of Alexander; who set them at liberty with the remark, that since they were not members of the Hellenic confederacy, but subjects of Persia—their presence as envoys near Darius was very excusable. The position of Sinope placed her out of the direct range of the hostilities carried on by Alexander’s successors against each other; and the ancient Cappadocian princes of the Mithridatic family (professedly descendants of the Persian Achaemenidae), who ultimately ripened into the king of Pontus, had not become sufficiently powerful to swallow up her independence until the reign of Pharnakes, in the second century before Carist. Sinope then passed under his dominion ; exchanging (like others) the condition of a free Grecian city for that of a subject of the barbaric kings of Pontus, with a citadel and mercenary garrison to keep her citizens in obedience. We know nothing however of the intermediate events.

Respecting the Pontic Herakleia, our ignorance is not so complete. That city—much nearer than Sinope to the mouth of the Thracian Bosporus, and distant by sea from Byzantium only one long day’s voyage of a rowboat—was established by Megarians and Boeotians on the coast of the Mariandyni. These natives were subdued, and reduced to a kind of serfdom; whereby they became slaves, yet with a proviso that they should never be sold out of the territory. Adjoining, on the westward, between Herakleia and Byzantium, were the Bithynian Thracians—villagers not merely independent, but warlike and fierce wreckers, who cruelly maltreated any Greeks stranded on their coast. We are told in general terms that the government of Herakleia was oligarchical; perhaps in the hands of the descendants of the principal original colonists, who partitioned among themselves the territory with its Mariandynian serfs, and who formed a small but rich minority among the total population. We hear of them as powerful at sea, and as being able to man, through their numerous serfs, a considerable fleet, with which they invaded the territory of Leukon prince of the Cimmerian Bosporus. They were also engaged in land-war with Mithridates, a prince of the ancient Persian family established as district rulers in Northern Cappadocia.

Towards 380-370 the Herakleots became disturbed by violent party-contentions within the city. As far as we can divine from a few obscure hints, these contentions began among the oligarchy themselves; some of whom opposed, and partially threw open, a close political monopoly—yet not without a struggle, in the course of which an energetic citizen named Clearchus was banished. Presently however the contest assumed larger dimensions; the plebs sought admission into the constitution, and are even said to have required abolition of debts with a redivision of the lands. A democratical con­stitution was established ; but it was speedily menaced by conspiracies of the rich, to guard against which, the classification of the citizens was altered. Instead of three tribes, and four centuries, all were distributed anew into sixty-four centuries, the tribes being discontinued. It would appear that in the original four centuries, the rich men had been so enrolled as to form separate military divisions (probably their rustic serfs being armed along with them)—while the three tribes had contained all the rest of the people; so that the effect of thus multiplying the centuries was, to divest the rich of their separate military enrolment, and to disseminate them in many different regiments along with a greater number of poor.

Still however the demands of the people were not fully granted, and dissension continued. Not merely the poorer citizens, but also the population of serfs— homogeneous, speaking the same language, and sympathising with each other, like Helots or Penestae—when once agitated by the hope of liberty, were with difficulty appeased. The government, though greatly democratised, found itself unable to maintain tranquillity, and invoked assistance from without. Application was made first, to the Athenian Timotheus—next, to the Theban Epaminondas; but neither of them would interfere—nor was there, indeed, any motive to tempt them. At length application was made to the exiled citizen Clearchus.

This exile, now about forty years of age, intelligent, audacious and unprincipled, had passed four years at Athens partly in hearing the lessons of Plato and Isocrates—and had watched with emulous curiosity the brilliant fortune of the despot Dionysius at Syracuse, in whom both these philosophers took interest. During his banishment, moreover, he had done what was common with Grecian exiles; he had taken service with the enemy of his native city, the neighbouring prince Mithridates, and probably enough against the city itself. As an officer, he distinguished himself much; acquiring renown with the prince and influence over the minds of soldiers. Hence his friends, and a party in Herakleia, became anxious to recall him, as moderator and protector under the grievous political discords prevailing. It was the oligarchical party who invited him to come back, at the head of a body of troops, as their auxiliary in keeping down the plebs. Clearchus accepted their invitation; but with the full purpose of making himself the Dionysius of Herakleia. Obtaining from Mithridates a powerful body of mercenaries, under secret promise to hold the city only as his prefect, he marched thither with the proclaimed purpose of maintaining order, and upholding the government. As his mercenary soldiers were soon found troublesome companions, he obtained permission to construct a separate stronghold in the city, under colour of keeping them apart in the stricter discipline of a barrack. Having thus secured a strong position, he invited Mithridates into the city, to receive the promised possession; but instead of performing this engagement, he detained the prince as prisoner, and only released him on payment of a considerable ransom. He next cheated, still more grossly, the oligarchy who had recalled him; denouncing their past misrule, declaring himself their mortal enemy, and espousing the pretensions as well as the antipathies of the plebs. The latter willingly seconded him in his measures—even extreme measures of cruelty and spoliation—against their political enemies. A large number of the rich were killed, imprisoned, or impoverished and banished; their slaves or serfs, too, were not only manumitted by order of the new despot, but also married to the wives and daughters of the exiles. The most tragical scenes arose out of these forced marriages; many of the women even killed themselves, some after having first killed their new husbands. Among the exiles, a party, driven to despair, procured assistance from without, and tried to obtain by force readmittance into the city; but they were totally defeated by Clearchus, who after this victory became more brutal and unrelenting than ever.

He was now in irresistible power; despot of the whole city, plebs as well as oligarchy. Such he continued to be for twelve years; during which he displayed great warlike energy against exterior enemies, together with unabated cruelty towards the citizens. He further indulged in the most overweening insolence of personal demeanour, adopting an Oriental costume and ornaments, and proclaiming himself the son of Zeus—as Alexander the Great did after him. Amidst all these enormities, however, his literary tastes did not forsake him; he collected a library, at that time a very rare possession. Many were the conspiracies attempted by suffering citizens against this tyrant; but his vigilance baffled and punished all. At length two young men, Chion and Leonides (they too having been among the hearers of Plato), found an opportunity to stab him at a Dionysiac festival. They, with those who seconded them, were slain by his guards, after a gallant resistance; but Clearchus himself died of the wound, in torture and mental remorse.

His death unfortunately brought no relief to the Herakleots. The two sons whom he left, Timotheus and Dionysius, were both minors; but his brother Satyrus, administering in their name, grasped the sceptre and continued the despotism, with cruelty not merely undiminished, but even aggravated and sharpened by the past assassination. Not inferior to his predecessor in energy and vigilance, Satyrus was in this respect different, that he was altogether rude and unlettered. Moreover he was rigidly scrupulous in preserving the crown for his brother’s children, as soon as they should be of age. To ensure to them an undisturbed succession, he took every precaution to avoid begetting children of his own by his wife. After a rule of seven years, Satyrus died of a lingering and painful distemper.

The government of Herakleia now devolved on Timotheus, who exhibited a contrast, alike marked and beneficent, with his father and uncle. Renouncing all their cruelty and constraint, he set at liberty every man whom he found in prison. He was strict in dispensing justice, but mild and even liberal in all his dealings towards the citizens. At the same time, he was a man of adventurous courage, carrying on successful war against foreign enemies, and making his power respected all around. With his younger brother Dionysius, he maintained perfect harmony, treating him as an equal and partner. Though thus using his power generously towards the Herakleots, he was, however, still a despot, and retained the characteristic marks of despotism—the strong citadel, fortified separately from the town, with a commanding mercenary force. After a reign of about nine years, he died, deeply mourned by every one.

Dionysius, who succeeded him, fell upon unsettled times, full both of hope and fear; opening chances of aggrandisement, yet with many new dangers and uncertainties. The sovereignty which he inherited doubtless included, not simply the city of Herakleia, but also foreign dependencies and possessions in its neighbourhood; for his three predecessors had been all enterprising chiefs, commanding a considerable aggressive force. At the commencement of his reign, indeed, the ascendency of Memnon and the Persian force in the north­western part of Asia Minor was at a higher pitch than ordinary; it appears too that Clearchus—and probably his successors also—had always taken care to keep on the best terms with the Persian court. But presently came the invasion of Alexander (334), with the battle of the Granikus, which totally extinguished the Persian power in Asia Minor, and was followed, after no long interval, by the entire conquest of the Persian empire. The Persian control being now removed from Asia Minor—while Alexander with the great Macedonian force merely passed through it to the east, leaving viceroys behind him—new hopes of independence or aggrandisement began to arise among the native princes in Bithynia, Paphlagonia, and Cappadocian. The Bithynian prince even contended successfully in the field against Kalas, who had been appointed by Alexander as satrap in Phrygia. The Herakleot Dionysius, on the other hand, enemy by position of these Bithynians, courted the new Macedonian potentates, playing his political game with much skill in every way. He kept his forces well in hand, and his dominions carefully guarded; he ruled in a mild and popular manner, so as to preserve among the Herakleots the same feelings of attachment which had been inspired by his predecessor. While the citizens of the neighbouring Sinope (as has been already related) sent their envoys to Darius, Dionysius kept his eyes upon Alexander; taking care to estab­lish a footing at Pella, and being peculiarly assiduous in attentions to Alexander’s sister, the princess Kleopatra. He was the better qualified for this courtly service, as he was a man of elegant and ostentatious tastes, and had purchased from his namesake, the fallen Syracusan Dionysius, all the rich furniture of the Dionysian family, highly available for presents.

By the favour of Antipater and the regency at Pella, the Herakleotic despot was enabled both to maintain and extend his dominions, until the return of Alexander to Susa and Babylon in 324. All other authority was now superseded by the personal will of the omnipotent conqueror; who, mistrusting all his delegates—Antipater, the princesses, and the satraps— listened readily to complainants from all quarters, and took particular pride in espousing the pretensions of Grecian exiles. I have already recounted how, in June 324, Alexander promulgated at the Olympic festival a sweeping edict, directing that in every Grecian city the exiles should be restored—by force, if force was required. Among the various Grecian exiles, those from Herakleia were not backward in soliciting his support, to obtain their own restoration, as well as the expulsion of the despot. As they were entitled, along with others, to the benefit of the recent edict, the position of Dionysius became one of extreme danger. He now reaped the full benefit of his antecedent prudence, in having maintained both his popularity with the Herakleots at home, and his influence with Antipater, to whom the enforcement of the edict was entrusted. He was thus enabled to ward off the danger for a time; and his good fortune rescued him from it altogether, by the death of Alexander in June 323. That event, coming as it did unexpectedly upon every one, filled Dionysius with such extravagant joy, that he fell into a swoon; and he commemorated it by erecting a statue in honour of Euthymia, or the tranquillising goddess. His position however seemed again precarious, when the Herakleotic exiles renewed their solicitations to Perdikkas; who favoured their cause, and might probably have restored them, if he had chosen to direct his march towards the Hellespont against Antipater and Craterus, instead of undertaking the ill-advised expedition against Egypt, wherein he perished.

The tide of fortune now turned more than ever in favour of Dionysius. With Antipater and Craterus, the preponderant potentates in his neighbourhood, he was on the best terms; and it happened at this juncture to suit the political views of Craterus to dismiss his Persian wife Amastris (niece of the late Persian king Darius, and conferred upon Craterus by Alexander when he himself married Statira), for the purpose of espousing Phila daughter of Anti pater. Amastris was given in marriage to Dionysius; for him, a splendid exaltation—attesting the personal influence which he had previously acquired. His new wife, herself a woman of ability and energy, brought to him a large sum from the regal treasure, as well as the means of greatly extending his dominion round Herakleia. Noway corrupted by this good fortune, he still persevered both in his conciliating rule at home, and his prudent alliances abroad, making himself especially useful to Antigonus. That great chief, preponderant throughout most parts of Asia Minor, was establishing his ascendency in Bithynia and the neighbourhood of the Propontis, by founding the city of Antigonia in the rich plain adjoining the Askanian Lake. Dionysius lent effective maritime aid to Antigonus, in that war which ended by his conquest of Cyprus from the Egyptian Ptolemy (307 B.C.). To the other Ptolemy, nephew and general of Antigonus, Dionysius gave his daughter in marriage ; and he even felt himself powerful enough to assume the title of king, after Antigonus, Lysimachus, and the Egyptian Ptolemy had done the like. He died, after reigning thirty years with consummate political skill and uninterrupted prosperity—except that during the last few years he lost his health from excessive corpulence.

Dionysius left three children under age—Clearchus, Oxathres and a daughter—by his wife Amastris; whom he constituted regent, and who, partly through the cordial support of Antigonus, maintained the Herakleotic dominion unimpaired. Presently Lysimachus, king of Thrace and of the Thracian Chersonese (on the isthmus of which he had founded the city of Lysimacheia), coveted this as a valuable alliance, paid his court to Amastris, and married her. The Herakleotic queen thus enjoyed double protection, and was enabled to avoid taking part in the formidable conflict of Ipsus (300 B.C); wherein the allies Lysimachus, Kassander, Ptolemy, and Seleucus were victorious over Antigonus. The latter being slain, and his Asiatic power crushed, Lysimachus got possession of Antigonia, the recent foundation of his rival in Bithynia, and changed its name to Nicaea. After a certain time, however, Lysimachus became desirous of marrying Arsinoe, daughter of the Egyptian Ptolemy; accordingly, Amastris divorced herself from him, and set up for herself separately as regent of Herakleia. Her two sons being now nearly of age, she founded and fortified, for her own residence, the neighbouring city of Amastris, about sixty miles eastward of Herakleia on the coast of the Euxine. These young men, Clearchus and Oxathres, assumed the government of Herakleia, and entered upon various warlike enterprises; of which we know only, that Clearchus accompanied Lysimachus in his expedition against the Getae, sharing the fate of that prince, who was defeated and taken prisoner. Both afterwards obtained their release, and Clearchus returned to Herakleia; where he ruled in a cruel and oppressive manner, and even committed the enormity (in conjunction with his brother Oxathres) of killing his mother Amastris. This crime was avenged by her former husband Lysimachus ; who, coming to Herakleia under professions of friendship (B.C. 286), caused Clearchus and Oxathres to be put to death, seized their treasure, and keeping separate possession of the citadel only, allowed the Herakleots to establish a popular government.

Lysimachus, however, was soon persuaded by his wife Arsinoe to make over Herakleia to her, as it had been formerly possessed by Amastris; and Arsinoe sent thither a Kymaean officer named Herakleides, who carried with him force sufficient to re-establish the former despotism, with its oppressions and cruelties. For other purposes too, not less mischievous, the influence of Arsinoe was all-powerful. She prevailed upon Lysimachus to kill his eldest son (by a former marriage) Agathocles, a young prince of the most estimable and eminent qualities. Such an atrocity, exciting universal abhorrence among the subjects of Lysimachus, enabled his rival Seleucus to attack him with success. In a great battle fought between these two princes, Lysimachus was defeated and slain—by the hand and javelin of a citizen of Herakleia, named Malakon.

This victory transferred the dominions of the vanquished prince to Seleucus. At Herakleia too, its effect was so powerful, that the citizens were enabled to shake off their despotism. They at first tried to make terms with the governor Herakleides, offering him money as an inducement to withdraw. From him i he v obtained only an angry refusal; yet his subordinate officers of mercenaries, and commanders of detached posts in the Herakleotic territory, mistrusting their own power of holding out, accepted an amicable compromise with the citizens, who tendered to them full liquidation of arrears of pay, together with the citizenship. The Herakleots were thus enabled to discard Herakleides, and regain their popular government. They signalised their revolution by the impressive ceremony of demolishing their Bastile—the detached fort or stronghold within the city, which had served for eighty-four years as the characteristic symbol, and indispensable engine, of the antecedent despotism. The city, now again a free commonwealth, was further reinforced by the junction of Nymphis (the historian) and other Herakleotic citizens, who had hitherto been in exile. These men were restored, and welcomed by their fellow-citizens in full friendship and harmony; yet with express proviso, that no demand should be made for the restitution of their properties, long since confiscated. To the victor Seleucus, however, and his officer Aphrodisius, the bold bearing of the newly-emancipated Herakleots proved offensive. They would probably have incurred great danger from him, had not his mind been first set upon the conquest of Macedonia, in the accomplishment of which he was murdered by Ptolemy Keraunus.

The Herakleots thus became again a commonwealth of free citizens, without any detached citadel or mercenary garrison ; yet they lost, seemingly through the growing force and aggressions of some inland dynasts, several of their outlying dependencies—Kierus, Tium, and Amastris. The two former they recovered some time afterwards by purchase, and they wished also to purchase back Amastris; but Eumenes, who held it, hated them so much, that he repudiated their money, and handed over the place gratuitously to the Cappadocian chief Ariobarzanes. That their maritime power was  at this time very great, we may see by the astonishing account given of their immense ships,—numerously manned, and furnished with many brave combatants on the deck— which fought with eminent distinction in the naval battle between Ptolemy Keraunus (murderer and successor of Seleucus) and Antigonus Gonatas.

It is not my purpose to follow lower down the destinies of Herakleia. It maintained its internal autonomy, with consider­able maritime power, a dignified and prudent administration, and a partial, though sadly circumscribed, liberty of foreign action—until the successful war of the Romans against Mithridates (B.C. 69). In Asia Minor, the Hellenic cities on the coast were partly enabled to postpone the epoch of their subjugation, by the great division of power which prevailed in the interior; for the potentates of Bithynia, Pergamus, Cappadocian, Pontus, Syria, were in almost perpetual discord—while all of them were menaced by the intrusion of the warlike and predatory Gauls, who extorted for themselves settlements in Galatia (B.C. 276). The kings, the enemies of civic freedom, were kept partially in check by these new and formidable neighbours, who were themselves however hardly less formidable to the Grecian cities on the coast. Sinope, Herakleia, Byzantium,—and even Rhodes, in spite of the advantage of an insular position,—isolated relicts of what had once been an Hellenic aggregate, become from henceforward cribbed and confined by inland neighbours almost at their gates—dependent on the barbaric potentates, between whom they were compelled to trim, making themselves useful in turn to all. It was however frequent with these barbaric princes to derive their wives, mistresses, ministers, negotiators, officers, engineers, literati, artists, actors, and intermediate agents both for ornament and recreation—from some Greek city. Among them all, more or less of Hellenic influence became thus insinuated; along with the Greek language which spread its roots everywhere—even among the Gauls or Galatians, the rudest and latest of the foreign immigrants.

Of the Grecian maritime towns in the Euxine south of the Danube—Apollonia, Mesembria, Odessus, Kallatis, Tomi, and Istrus—five (seemingly without Tomi) formed a confederate Pentapolis. About the year 312, we hear of them as under the power of Lysimachus king of Thrace, who kept a garrison in Kallatis—probably in the rest also. They made a struggle to shake off his yoke, obtained assistance from some of the neighbouring Thracians and Scythians, as well as from Antigonus. But Lysimachus, after a contest which seems to have lasted three or four years, overpowered both their allies and them, reducing them again into subjection. Kallatis sustained a long siege, dismissing some of its ineffective residents; who were received and sheltered by Eumelus prince of Bosporus. It was in pushing his conquests yet farther northward, in the steppe between the rivers Danube and Dniester, that Lysimachus came into conflict with the powerful prince of the Getae—Dromichaetes; by whom he was defeated and captured, but generously released. I have already men­tioned that the empire of Lysimachus ended with his last defeat and death by Seleucus—(281 B.C.). By his death, the cities of the Pontic Pentapolis regained a temporary independence. But their barbaric neighbours became more and more formidable, being reinforced seemingly by immigration of fresh hordes from Asia; thus the Sarmatians, who in Herodotus’s time were on the east of the Tanais, appear, three centuries afterwards, even south of the Danube. By these tribes— Thracians, Getae, Scythians, and Sarmatians—the Greek cities of this Pentapolis were successively pillaged. Though renewed indeed afterwards, from the necessity of some place of traffic, even for the pillagers themselves—they were but poorly renewed, with a large infusion of barbaric residents. Such was the condition in which the exile Ovid found Tomi, near the begin­ning of the Christian era. The Tomitans were more than half barbaric, and their Greek not easily intelligible. The Sarmatian or Getic horse-bowmen, with their poisoned arrows, ever hovered near, galloped even up to the gates, and carried off the unwary cultivators into slavery. Even within a furlong of the town, there was no security either for person or property. The residents were clothed in skins of leather; while the women, ignorant both of spinning and weaving, were em­ployed either in grinding corn or in carrying on their heads the pitchers of water.

By these same barbarians, Olbia also (on the right bank of the Hypanis or Bug near its mouth) became robbed of that comfort and prosperity which it had enjoyed when visited by Herodotus. In his day, the Olbians lived on good terms with the Scythian tribes in their neighbourhood. They paid a stipulated tribute, giving presents besides to the prince and his immediate favourites; and on these conditions, their persons and properties were respected. The Scythian prince Skyles (son of an Hellenic mother from Istrus, who had fami­liarised him with Greek speech and letters) had built a fine house in the town, and spent in it a month, from attachment to Greek manners and religion, while his Scythian army lay near the gates without molesting any one. It is true that this proceeding cost Skyles his life; for the Scythians would not tolerate their own prince in the practice of foreign religious rites, though they did not quarrel with the same rites when observed by the Greeks. To their own customs the Scythians adhered tenaciously, and those customs were often sanguinary, ferocious, and brutish. Still they were warriors, rather than robbers—they abstained from habitual pillage, and maintained with the Greeks a reputation for honesty and fair dealing, which became proverbial with the early poets. Such were the Scythians as seen by Herodotus (probably about 440 to 430 B.C.); and the picture drawn by Ephorus a century afterwards (about 340 B.C.) appears to have been not materially different.8 But after that time it gradually altered. New tribes seem to have come in—the Sarmatians out of the East—the Gauls out of the West; from Thrace northward to the Tanais and the Palus Maeotis, the most different tribes became intermingled—Gauls, Thracians, Getae, Scythians, Sarmatians, &. Olbia was in an open plain, with no defence except its walls and the adjoining river Hypanis, frozen over in the winter. The hybrid Helleno-Scythian race, formed by intermarriages of Greeks with Scythians—and the various Scythian tribes who had become partially sedentary cultivators of corn for exportation—had probably also acquired habits less warlike than the tribes of primitive barbaric type. At any rate, even if capable of defending themselves, they could not continue their production and commerce under repeated hostile incursions.

A valuable inscription remaining enables us to compare the Olbia (or Borysthenes) seen by Herodotus, with the same town in the second century B.C.  At this latter period, the city was diminished in population, impoverished in finances, exposed to constantly increasing exactions and menace from the passing barbaric hordes, and scarcely able to defend against them even the security of its walls. Sometimes there approached the barbaric chief Saitapharnes with his personal suite, sometimes his whole tribe or horde in mass, called Saii. Whenever they came, they required to be appeased by presents, greater than the treasury could supply, and borrowed only from the voluntary help of rich citizens; while even these presents did not always avert ill treatment or pillage. Already the citizens of Olbia had repelled various attacks, partly by taking into pay a semi-Hellenic population in their neighbourhood (Mix-Hellenes, like the Liby-Phenicians in Africa); but the inroads became more alarming, and their means of defence less, through the uncertain fidelity of these Mix-Hellenes, as well as of their own slaves—the latter probably barbaric natives purchased from the interior. In the midst of public poverty, it was necessary to enlarge and strengthen the fortifications; for they were threatened with the advent of the Gauls—who inspired such terror that the Scythians and other barbarians were likely to seek their own safety by extorting admission within the walls of Olbia. Moreover even corn was scarce, and extravagantly dear. There had been repeated failures in the produce of the lands around, famine was apprehended, and efforts were needed, greater than the treasury could sustain, to lay in a stock at the public expense. Among the many points of contrast with Herodotus, this is perhaps the most striking; for in his time, corn was the great produce and the principal export from Olbia; the growth had now been suspended, or was at least perpetually cut off, by increased devastation and insecurity.

After perpetual attacks, and even several captures, by barbaric neighbours—this unfortunate city, about fifty years before the Christian era, was at length so miserably sacked by the Getae, as to become for a time abandoned. Presently, however, the fugitives partially returned, to re-establish themselves on a reduced scale. For the very same barbarians who had persecuted and plundered them, still required an emporium with a certain amount of import and export, such as none but Greek settlers could provide; moreover it was from the coast near Olbia, and from the care of its inhabitants, that many of the neighbouring tribes derived their supply of salt. Hence arose a puny after-growth of Olbia—preserving the name, traditions, and part of the locality, of the deserted city—by the return of a portion of the colonists with an infusion of Scythian or Sarmatian residents; an infusion indeed so large, as seriously to dishellenise both the speech and the personal names in the town.

To this second edition of Olbia, the rhetor Dion Chrysostom paid a summer visit (about a century after the Christian era), of which he has left a brief but interesting account. Within the wide area once filled by the original Olbia—the former circumference of which was marked by crumbling walls and towers—the second town occupied a narrow corner ; with poor houses, low walls, and temples having no other ornament except the ancient statues mutilated by the plunderers. The citizens dwelt in perpetual insecurity, constantly under arms or on guard; for the barbaric horsemen, in spite of sentinels posted to announce their approach, often carried off prisoners, cattle, or property, from the immediate neighbourhood of the gates. The picture drawn of Olbia by Dion confirms in a remarkable way that given of Tomi by Ovid. And what imparts to it a touching interest is, that the Greeks whom Dion saw contending with the difficulties, privations, and dangers of this inhospitable outpost, still retained the activity, the elegance, and the intellectual aspirations of their Ionic breed; in this respect much superior to the Tomitans of Ovid. In particular, they were passionate admirers of Homer; a considerable proportion of the Greeks of Olbia could repeat the Iliad from memory.1 Achilles (localised under the surname of Pontarches, on numerous islands and capes in the Euxine) was among the chief divine or heroic persons to whom they addressed their prayers. Amidst Grecian life, degraded and verging towards its extinc­tion, and stripped even of the purity of living speech—the thread of imaginative and traditional sentiment thus continues without suspension or abatement.

Respecting Bosporus or Pantikapaeum (for both names denote the same city, though the former name often comprehends the whole annexed dominion), founded by Milesian settlers on the European side of the Cimmerian Bosporus (near Kertch), we first hear, about the period when Xerxes was repulsed from Greece (480-479 B.C.). It was the centre of a dominion including Phanagoria, Kepi, Hermonassa, and other Greek cities on the Asiatic side of the strait; and is said to have been governed by what seems to have been an oligarchy—called the Archaeanaktidse, for forty-two years (480-438).

After them we have a series of princes standing out individually by name, and succeeding each other in the same family. Spartokus I was succeeded by Seleucus; next comes Spartokus II; then Satyrus I (407-393); Leukon (393­353) ; Spartokus III (353-348); Parisades I. (348­310 b.c.) ; Satyrus I, Prytanis, Eumelus (310-304); Spartokus IV (304-284); Parisades II. During the reigns of these princes, a connexion of some intimacy subsisted between Athens and Bosporus; a connexion not political, since the Bosporanic princes had little interest in the contentions about Hellenic hegemony—but of private intercourse, commercial interchange, and reciprocal good offices. The eastern corner of the Tauric Chersonesus, between Pantikapaeum and Theodosia, was well suited for the production of corn; while plenty of fish, as well as salt, was to be had in or near the Palus Maeotis. Corn, salted fish and meat, hides, and barbaric slaves in considerable numbers, were in demand among all the Greeks round the Aegean, and not least at Athens, where Scythian slaves were numerous; while oil and wine, with other products of more southern regions, were acceptable in Bosporus and the other Pontic ports. This important traffic seems to have been mainly carried on in ships and by capital belonging to Athens and other Aegean maritime towns; and must have been greatly under the protection and regulation of the Athenians, so long as their maritime empire subsisted. Enterprising citizens of Athens went to Bosporus (as to Thrace and the Thracian Chersonesus) to push their fortunes; merchants from other cities found it advantageous to settle as resident strangers or metics at Athens, where they were more in contact with the protecting authority, and obtained readier access to the judicial tribunals. It was probably during the period preceding the great disaster at Syracuse in 413 B.C., that Athens first acquired her position as a mercantile centre for the trade with the Euxine; which we afterwards find her retaining, even with reduced power, in the time of Demosthenes.

How strong was the position enjoyed by Athens in Bosporus, during her unimpaired empire, we may judge from the fact, that Nymphaeum (south of Pantikapaeum, between that town and Theodosia) was among her tributary towns, and paid a talent annually. Not until the misfortunes of Athens in the closing years of the Peloponnesian war, did Nymphaeum pass into the hands of the Bosporanic princes; betrayed (according to Aeschines) by the maternal grandfather of Demosthenes, the Athenian Gylon; who however probably did nothing more than obey a necessity rendered unavoidable by the fallen condition of Athens. We thus see that Nymphaeum, in the midst of the Bosporanic dominion, was not only a member of the Athenian empire, but also contained influential Athenian citizens, engaged in the corn-trade. Gylon was rewarded by a large grant of land at Kepi—probably other Athenians of Nymphaeum were rewarded also—by the Bosporanic prince; who did not grudge a good price for such an acquisition. We find also other instances,—both of Athenian citizens sent out to reside with the prince Satyrus,—and of Pontic Greeks who, already in correspondence and friendship with various individual Athenians, consign their sons to be initiated in the commerce, society, and refinements of Athens. Such facts attest the correspondence and intercourse of that city, during her imperial greatness, with Bosporus.

The Bosporanic prince Satyrus was in the best relations with Athens, and even seems to have had authorised representatives there to enforce his requests, which met with very great attention. He treated the Athenian merchants at Bosporus with equity and even favour, granting to them a preference in the export of corn when there was not enough for all. His son Leukon not only continued the preference to Athenian exporting ships, but also granted to them remission of the export duty (of one-thirtieth part), which he exacted from all other traders. Such an exemption is reckoned as equivalent to an annual present of 13,000 medimni of corn; the total quantity of corn brought from Bosporus to Athens in a full year being 400,000 medimni. It is easy to see moreover that such a premium must have thrown nearly the whole exporting trade into the hands of Athenian merchants. The Athenians requited this favour by public votes of gratitude and honour, conferring upon Leukon the citizenship, together with immunity from all the regular burthens attaching to property at Athens. There was lying in that city money belonging to Leukon; who was therefore open (under the proposition of Leptines) to that conditional summons for exchange of properties, technically termed Antidosis. In his time, moreover, the corn-trade of Bosporus appears to have been further extended; for we learn that he established an export from Theodosia as well as from Pantikapaeum. His successor Parisades I continuing to Athenian exporters of corn the same privilege of immunity from export duty, obtained from Athens still higher honours than Leukon; for we learn that his statue, together with those of two relatives, was erected in the agora, on the motion of Demosthenes. The connexion of Bosporus with Athens was durable as well as intimate; its corn-trade being of high importance to the subsistence of the people. Every Athenian exporter was bound by law to bring his cargo in the first instance to Athens. The freighting and navigating of ships for that purpose, together with the advance of money by rich capitalists (citizens and metics) upon interest and conditions enforced by the Athenian judicature, was a standing and profitable business. And we may appreciate the value of equitable treatment, not to say favour, from the kings of Bosporus—when we contrast it with the fraudulent and extortionate behaviour of Kleomenes, satrap of Egypt, in reference to the export of Egyptian corn.

The political condition of the Greeks at Bosporus was somewhat peculiar. The hereditary princes (above enumerated), who ruled them substantially as despots, assumed no other title (in respect to the Greeks) than that of Archon. They paid tribute to the powerful Scythian tribes who bounded them on the European side, and even thought it necessary to carry a ditch across the narrow isthmus, from some point near Theodosia northward to the Palus Maeotis, as a protection against incursions. Their dominion did not extend farther west than Theodosia; this ditch was their extreme western boundary; and even for the land within it, they paid tribute. But on the Asiatic side of the strait, they were lords paramount for a considerable distance, over the feebler and less warlike tribes who pass under the common name of Maeotae or Maetae—the Sindi, Toreti, Dandarii, Thates, &c. Inscriptions, yet remaining, of Parisades I, record him as King of these various barbaric tribes, but as Archon of Bosporus and Theodosia. His dominion on the Asiatic side of the Cimmerian Bosporus, sustained by Grecian and Thracian mercenaries ,was of considerable (though to us unknown) extent, reaching to somewhere near the borders of Caucasus.

Parisades I on his death left three sons—Satyrus, Prytanis, and Eumelus. Satyrus, as the eldest, succeeded; but Eumelus claimed the crown, sought aid without, and prevailed on various neighbours—among them a powerful Thracian king named Ariopharnes—to espouse his cause. At the head of an army said to consist of 20,000 horse and 22,000 foot, the two allies marched to attack the territories of Satyrus, who advanced to meet them, with 2000 Grecian mercenaries, and 2000 Thracians of his own, reinforced by a numerous body of Scythian allies—20,000 foot, and 10,000 horse, and carrying with him a plentiful supply of provisions in waggons. He gained a complete victory, compelling Eumelus and Ariopharnes to retreat and seek refuge in the regal residence of the latter, near the river Thapsis; a fortress built of timber, and surrounded with forest, river, marsh, and rock, so as to be very difficult of approach. Satyrus, having first plundered the country around, which supplied a rich booty of prisoners and cattle, proceeded to assail his enemies in their almost impracticable position. But though he, and Meniskus his general of mercenaries, made the most strenuous efforts, and even carried some of the outworks, they were repulsed from the fortress itself; and Satyrus, exposing himself forwardly to extricate Meniskus, received a wound of which he shortly died—after a reign of nine months. Meniskus, raising the siege, withdrew the army to Gargaza; from whence he conveyed back the regal corpse to Pantikapaeum.

Prytanis, the next brother, rejecting an offer of partition tendered by Eumelus, assumed the sceptre, and marched forth to continue the struggle. But the tide of fortune now turned in favour of Eumelus; who took Gargaza with several other places, worsted his brother in battle, and so blocked him up in the isthmus near the Palus Maeotis, that he was forced to capitulate and resign his pretensions. Eumelus entered Pantikapaeum as conqueror. Nevertheless, the defeated Prytanis, in spite of his recent covenant, made a renewed attempt upon the crown; wherein he was again baffled, forced to escape to Kepi, and there slain. To assure himself of the throne, Eumelus put to death the wives and children of both his two brothers, Satyrus and Prytanis—together with all their principal friends. One youth alone—Parisades, son of Satyrus—escaped and found protection with the Scythian prince Agarus.

Eumelus had now put down all rivals ; yet his recent cruelties had occasioned wrath and disgust among the Bosporanic citizens. He convoked them in assembly, to excuse his past conduct, and promised good government for the future; at the same time guaranteeing to them their full civic constitution, with such privileges and immunities as they had before enjoyed, and freedom from direct taxation. Such assurances, combined probably with an imposing mercenary force, appeased or at least silenced the prevailing disaffection. Eumelus kept his promises so far as to govern in a mild and popular spirit. While thus rendering himself acceptable at home, he maintained an energetic foreign policy, and made several conquests among the surrounding tribes. He constituted himself a sort of protector of the Euxine, repressing the piracies of the Heniochi and Achaei (among the Caucasian mountains to the east) as well as of the Tauri in the Chersonesus (Crimea); much to the satisfaction of the Byzantines, Sinopians, and other Pontic Greeks. He received a portion of the fugitives from Kallatis, when besieged by Lysimachus, and provided for them a settlement in his dominions. Having thus acquired great reputation, Eumelus was in the full career of conquest and aggrandisement, when an accident terminated his life, after a reign of rather more than five years. In returning from Scythia to Pantikapaeum, in a four-wheeled carriage (or waggon) and four with a tent upon it, his horses took fright and ran away. Perceiving that they were carrying him towards a precipice, he tried to jump out; but his sword becoming entangled in the wheel, he was killed on the spot. He was succeeded by his son Spartokus IV, who reigned twenty years (304-284); afterwards came the son of Spartokus, Parisades II; with whose name our information breaks off.

This dynasty, the Spartokidae, though they ruled the Greeks of Bosporus as despots by means of a foreign mercenary force—yet seem to have exercised power with equity and moderation. Had Eumelus lived, he might probably have established an extensive empire over the barbaric tribes on all sides of him. But empire over such subjects was seldom permanent; nor did his successors long maintain even as much as he left. We have no means of following their fortunes in detail; but we know that about a century B.C. the then reigning prince, Parisades IV, found himself so pressed and squeezed by the Scythians, that he was forced (like Olbia and the Pentapolis) to forego his independence; and to call in, as auxiliary or master, the formidable Mithridates Eupator of Pontus; from whom a new dynasty of Bosporanic kings began—subject however, after no long interval, to the dominion and interference of Rome.

These Mithridatic princes lie beyond our period; but the cities of Bosporus under the Spartokid princes, in the fourth century B.C., deserve to be ranked among the conspicuous features of the living Hellenic world. They were not indeed purely Hellenic, but presented a considerable admixture of Scythian or Oriental manners; analogous to the mixture of the Hellenic and Libyan elements at Kyrene with its Battiad princes. Among the facts attesting the wealth and power of these Spartokid princes, and of the Bosporanic community, we may number the imposing groups of mighty sepulchral tumuli near Kertch (Pantikapaeum); some of which have been recently examined, while the greater part still remain unopened. These spacious chambers of stone—enclosed in vast hillocks (Kurgans), cyclopian works piled up with prodigious labour and cost—have been found to contain not only a profusion of ornaments of the precious metals (gold, silver, and electron, or a mixture of four parts of gold to one of silver), but also numerous vases, implements, and works of art, illustrating the life and ideas of the Bosporanic population. “The contents of the tumuli already opened are so multifarious, that from the sepulchres of Pantikapaeum alone, we might become acquainted with everything which served the Greeks either for necessary use, or for the decoration of domestic life.”1 Statues, reliefs, and frescoes on the walls, have been found, on varied subjects both of war and peace, and often of very fine execution; besides these, numerous carvings in wood, and vessels of bronze or terra cotta; with necklaces, armlets, bracelets, rings, drinking cups, &c., of precious metal—several with coloured beads attached. The costumes, equipment, and physiognomy represented, are indeed a mixture of Hellenic and barbaric; moreover, even the profusion of gold chains and other precious ornaments, indicates a tone of sentiment partially orientalised, in those for whom they were destined. But the design as well as the execution comes clearly out of the Hellenic workshop; and there is good ground for believing, that in the fourth century B.C., Pantikapaeum was the seat, not only of enterprising and wealthy citizens, but also of strenuous and well-directed artistic genius. Such manifestations of the refinements of Hellenism, in this remote and little-noticed city, form an important addition to the picture of Hellas as a whole,—prior to its days of subjection,—which it has been the purpose of this History to present.

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I have now brought down the History of Greece to the point of time marked out in the Preface to my First Volume—the close of the generation contemporary with Alexander—the epoch, from whence dates not only the extinction of Grecian political freedom and self-action, but also the decay of productive genius, and the debasement of that consummate literary and rhetorical excellence which the fourth century B.C. had seen exhibited in Plato and Demosthenes. The contents of this last Volume indicate but too clearly that Greece as a separate subject of history no longer exists; for one full half of it is employed in depicting Alexander and his conquests that non-Hellenic conqueror into whose vast possessions the Greeks are absorbed, with their intellectual brightness bedimmed, their spirit broken, and half their virtue taken away by Zeus—the melancholy emasculation inflicted (according to Homer) upon victims overtaken by the day of slavery.

One branch of intellectual energy there was, and one alone, which continued to flourish, comparatively little impaired, under the preponderance of the Macedonian sword—the spirit of speculation and philosophy. During the century which we have just gone through, this spirit was embodied in several eminent persons, whose names have been scarcely adverted to in this History. Among these names, indeed, there are two, of peculiar grandeur, whom I have brought partially before the reader, because both of them belong to general history as well as to philosophy; Plato, as citizen of Athens, companion of Sokrates at his trial, and counsellor of Dionysius in his glory—Aristotle, as the teacher of Alexander. I had at one time hoped to include in my present work a record of them as philosophers also, and an estimate of their speculative characteristics; but I find the subject far too vast to be compressed into such a space as this volume would afford. The exposition of the tenets of distinguished thinkers is not now numbered by historians, either ancient or modern, among the duties incumbent upon them, nor yet among the natural expectations of their readers; but is reserved for the special historian of philosophy. Accordingly, I have brought my History of Greece to a close, without attempting to do justice either to Plato or to Aristotle. I hope to contribute something towards supplying this defect, the magnitude of which I fully appreciate, in a separate work, devoted specially to an account of Greek speculative philosophy in the fourth century B.C.