Bithynians

“ In each successive sally the same phenomena recurred, until at length all the Greeks were overpowered and slain, except fifteen of them, who charged through the Bithynians in the first sally, and marched onward to join Derkyllidas, instead of returning with their comrades to the palisade. Derkyllidas lost no time in sending a reinforcement, which, however, came too late, and found only the naked bodies of the slain. The victorious Bithynians carried away all their own captives. ”

“ The power of the Bithynians was not insignificant, since they sent into the field, in the war of Nicomedes against Mithridates, 56,000 men. [359] If the traffic was considerable on the coasts of Bithynia, thanks to the Greek colonies, the interior was not less prosperous by its agriculture, and Bithynia was still, in the time of Strabo, renowned for its herds. [360]
One of the provinces of Bithynia fell into the hands of the Gauls (A.U.C. 478) . Three peoples of Celtic origin shared it, and exercised in it a sort of feudal dominion. It was called Galatia from the name of the conquerors. ”

“ At the same time the native tribes were becoming more and more inclined to rebel. The Mysians and Pisidians had for a long time been practically independent. Now the Bithynians showed a disposition to shake off the Persian yoke, while in Paphlagonia the native monarchs boldly renounced their allegiance. Agesilaus, who carried on the war in Asia Minor for three years, knew well how to avail himself of all these advantageous circumstances ”

“ These when they had crossed over into Asia came to be called Bithynians, but formerly they were called, as they themselves report, Strymonians, since they dwelt upon the river Strymon; and they say that they were driven out of their abode by the Teucrians and Mysians. Of the Thracians who lived in Asia the commander was Bassakes the son of Artabanos. ”

“ When the Odrysians themselves returned, they fell to burying their own dead, quaffing copious draughts of wine in their honour and holding horse-races; but for the future they deemed it advisable to camp along with the Hellenes. Thus they harried and burned Bithynia the winter through.
6With the commencement of spring Dercylidas turned his back upon the Bithynians and came to Lampsacus. Whilst at this place envoys reached him from the home authorities. These were Aracus, Naubates, and Antisthenes. ”

“ The hostile Bithynians, however, watching their opportunity when the Odrysians were out marauding, suddenly attacked at daybreak the two hundred Grecian hoplites in the camp. Shooting at them over the palisade with darts and arrows, they killed and wounded some, while the Greeks with their spears were utterly helpless, and could only reach their enemies by pulling up the palisade and charging out upon them; but the light-armed assailants, easily evading the charge of warriors with shield and spear, turned round upon them when they began to retire, and slew several before they could get back. ”

“ When, in 400 B.C., Xenophon marched with the mercenaries of Cyrus from the Tigris to the Black Sea, the authority of the king was nonexistent north of Armenia, and the tribes of the Pontic mountains, with the Greek cities on the coast, were completely independent. In Paphlagonia, the native dynasts founded a powerful though short-lived kingdom, and the chieftains of the Bithynians were absolutely their own masters. The frontier provinces of India were also lost. ”

“ Along the western shores of this peninsula, where the various bands of Greek emigrants settled, we hear of Pelasgians, Teukrians, Mysians, Bithynians, Phrygians, Lydians or Mæonians, Karians, Lelegians. Farther eastward are Lykians, Pisidians, Kilikians, Phrygians, Kapadokians, Paphlagonians, Mariandynians, etc. Speaking generally, we may say that the Phrygians, Teukrians, and Mysians appear in the north-western portion, between the river Hermus and the Propontis,—the Karians and Lelegians south of the river Mæander,—and the Lydians in the central region between the two. ”

“ But Phylarchus, in the sixth book of his History, says that the Byzantians used the Bithynians in the same manner, just as the Lacedæmonians do the Helots. But respecting those who among the Lacedæmonians are called Epeunacti, and they also are slaves, Theopompus gives a very clear account in the thirty-second book of his History, speaking as follows:—"When many of the Lacedæmonians had been slain in the war against the Messenians, those who were left being afraid lest their enemies should become aware of their desolate condition, put some of the Helots into the beds of those who were dead ”

“ Nicæa, so named after his wife by Lysimachus, was the real capital of Bithynia, and, for a long time, one of the most important towns of Western Asia. Pliny the Younger, as governor of the province, undertook to restore it, and, during the later Byzantine period it was constantly taken and retaken by the Greeks and Turks, respectively. Leake and other travellers show that there are abundant remains of this famous old town, now called Isnik; not that, under the Turks, it is, or ever could have become, a great city. ”

“ He received, it is true, succours from Armenia and Scythia, from the Palus Mæotis, and even from Thrace.{130}
Bithynia. XI. Bithynia, a province of Asia Minor, comprised between the Propontis, the Sangarius, and Paphlagonia, formed a kingdom, which, at the beginning of the sixth century of Rome, was adjacent to Pontus, and comprised several parts of the provinces contiguous to Mysia and Phrygia. In it were found several towns, the commerce of which rivalled that of the maritime towns of Pontus, and especially Nicæa and Nicomedia. ”

“ Bithynia, the last province of Asia Minor to which we shall have to call attention, was, as we have remarked before in the case of Mysia, in its population, largely of Thracian origin. Subsequently to Cyrus the younger, it was ruled by a series of native kings, the last of whom, Nicomedes II., bequeathed his country to the Romans. Many of these rulers were men of tried valour; thus one defeated a general of Alexander the Great ”

“ Hadrian’s love for the beautiful Bythinian youth was in itself rather Greek than Roman. Looking at the “Antinous” in the Vatican collection, and comparing it with the statue of “Nerva,” the reaction against the Roman preference for a vigorous actuality is apparent at once. The “Antinous” is not a portrait as much as the incarnation of a type. The expression of brooding melancholy, rather than the features of the man Antinous, characterizes all the statues of the Bythinian youth scattered through the galleries of Europe. This is the Greek, not the Roman method. ”

“ That monarch left his dominions by will to the Roman people, and Bithynia was accordingly declared a Roman province; but Mithridates asserted that the late king had left a legitimate son by his wife Nysa, whose pretensions he immediately prepared to support by his arms.
The forces with which Mithridates was now prepared to take the field were such as might inspire him with no unreasonable confidence of victory. He had assembled an army of 120,000 foot-soldiers, armed and disciplined in the Roman manner, and 16,000 horse, besides a hundred scythed chariots. ”

“ Nothing effective was done to put down piracy for nearly twenty years, and meanwhile the question of the government of Bithynia, whose last sovereign Nicomedes on his death (B.C. 79) left the Romans his heirs, gave rise to another war with Mithradates (B.C. 74–63) , which, however, did not much affect Hellenic Asia, except the cities on the Propontis and Euxine, and especially Cyzicus, which had to stand a long siege. ”

“ Chandler, who saw it, even in its western coast, overrun by the hideous tents of the Turcomans. Another traveller of late years [49] tells us of that ancient Bithynia, which runs along the Black Sea, a beautiful and romantic country, intersected with lofty mountains and fertile valleys, and abounding in rivers and forests. The luxuriance of the pastures, he says, and the richness of the woods, often reminded him of an English gentleman's park. Such is it as nature has furnished it for the benefit of man; but he found its forests covered with straggling Turcomans and numerous flocks of goats. ”

“ Of these, a number was left unsold; and they were ordered to settle in different places. I have seen many in Bithynia, near Mount Olympus, living apart from one another, and cultivating the hills and valleys of that region. ”

“ There are tidings to-day of a new earthquake in Bithynia, and three days’ darkness, also of outbreaks of pestilence, and incursions of the barbarians, too numerous as well as too disagreeable to mention. At this moment some revolted legion is probably forcing the purple upon some reluctant general; and the Persian king, a great equestrian, is doubtless mounting his horse by the aid of my father’s back. If I had been an old Roman, I should by this time have avenged my father, but I am a man of my age. ”

“ However, when Roman agents encouraged the King of Bithynia to raid his territory and refused him satisfaction he decided to challenge the Roman arms, seeing that Rome was now involved in the war with her Italian allies. War began late in 89 B. C.
The conquests of Mithradates in Asia, 89–88 B. C. Mithradates was well prepared; he had a trained army and a fleet of three hundred ships. He experienced no difficulty in defeating the local levies raised by the Roman governor of Asia, and speedily overran Bithynia and most of the Roman province. Meanwhile his fleet swept the Aegean Sea. ”

“ Six marches, of five parasangs each, brought them to the small river Teleboas, which I believe to have been the river of Bitlis. After crossing the low country of Kherzan, well described by Xenophon as “a plain varied by hills of an easy ascent,” the Greeks must necessarily have turned slightly to the eastward to reach the Bitlis valley, as inaccessible mountains stopped all further progress. My caravan was thirty-three hours in journeying from Bitlis to Tilleh, corresponding exactly with the six days’ march of the Greeks. ”

“ Othman's field of operation from 1281 to 1326 was the Byzantine borderland of Bithynia and Mysia. He was by no means the strongest of the Seljouk [pg 323] chiefs who made a lodgement within the borders of the empire, and it took him twenty years before he conquered one large town. His wild horsemen harried the open sea-coast plain of Bithynia again and again, till at last the wretched inhabitants emigrated, or acknowledged him as their sovereign. But the towns, within their strong Roman walls, were unassailable by the light cavalry which formed his only armed strength. ”

“ He was extremely rich, and had an army of 150,000 men; for the trade of war is unhappily one of those in which there is never any lack of hands ready to wage war, when their wages can be relied upon.
Bithynia was one of the first objects of the attack of Mithridates, who was opposed by the Consul, M. Cotta; but the place was burned to the ground, and the ashes of poor Cotta were found in the condition of terra cotta among the ruins. ”

“ After having utterly routed two armies, Mithridates overran the neighbouring countries, conquered Bithynia, placed his son again on the throne of Cappadocia, and took the whole of the Roman province, the inhabitants of which, to a man, welcomed him with enthusiasm as their liberator. The rage against the Romans was here so great, that the people in all the towns in Asia Minor, which were quite hellenized, looking upon the war as finished, slew on one and the same day, as a proof of their fidelity to Mithridates, all the Romans [Pg 364] and Italians who were among them. ”

“ This letter did not satisfy me at all. “Honest men,” I repeated, “may be deceived.” True, and Scaurus, though honest as the day, is no exception. To think that Epictetus, our Epictetus—for so Arrian and I used to call him—had been even for a time under the spell of such a superstition as this! I had always assumed—and my conversation with Arrian about what seemed exceptional experiences in Bithynia had done little to shake my assumption—that the Christians were a vile Jewish sect, morose, debased, given up to monstrous secret vices, hostile to the Empire, and hateful to Gods and men. ”

“ Of these, one may note for their later celebrity Philadelphia in Lydia and Attalia on the Pamphylian coast. The native Bithynian dynasty became Hellenized in the course of the 3rd century, and in the matter of city building Prusias (the old Cius) , Apamea (the old Myrlea) , probably Prusa, and above all Nicomedia attested its activity. While new Greek cities were rising in the interior, the older Hellenism of the western coast grew in material splendour under the munificence of Hellenistic kings. ”

“ But the Spirit suffered them not - God saw that that was not the most proper time to preach the word at Bithynia; as he willed them to go immediately to Macedonia, the people there being ripe for the word of life. Instead of το πνευμα, the Spirit merely, το πνευμα Ιησου, the Spirit of Jesus, is the reading of ABCDE, several others, with both the Syriac, the Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Vulgate, Itala, and several of the fathers. The reading is undoubtedly genuine, and should be immediately restored to the text. ”

“ The Byzantines, thus surprised and astonished, while they all hurried to the defence of their port and shipping, gave opportunity to those who favored the Athenians, securely to receive Alcibiades into the city. Yet the enterprise was not accomplished without fighting, for the Peloponnesians, Bœotians, and Megarians not only repulsed those who came out of the ships, and forced them on board again, but, hearing that the Athenians were entered on the other side, drew up in order, and went to meet them. ”