472 HISTORY OF GREECE. spite of the advantage of an insular position, — isolated rell(!S of what had once been an Hellenic aggregate, become from hence- forward cribbed and confined by inland neighbors 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, en- gineers, 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 insinu- ated ; 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 — ApoUonia, Mesembria, Odessus, Kallatis, Tomi, and Istrus — five (seemingly without Tomi) formed a confederate Pentapolis.'^ About the year 312 b. c, we hear of them as un- der the power of Lysimachus king of Thrace, who kept a garri- son in Kallatis — probably in the rest also. They made a strug- 1 Contrast the imlepcndent and commanding position occupied by Byzan tium in 399 B. c. , acknowledging no superior except Sparta (Xenoph. Anab. vii. 1) — witii its condition in the third century b. c. — harassed and pilhiged almost to the gates of the town by the neighboring Thracians and Gauls, and only purchased immunity by continued money payments : see Polybius, iv. 45.
- Strabo, vii. p. 319. Philip of Macedon defeated the Scythian prince
Atheas or Ateas (about 340 b. c.) somewhere between Mount Haemus and the Danube (Justin, ix. 2). But the relations of Ateas with the towns of Istrus and ApoUonia, which are said to have brought Philip into the coun try, are very difficult to understand. It is most probable that these cities invited Philip as their defender. In Inscription No. 2056 c. (in Boeckh's Corp. Inscript. Graic. part xi. p. 79), the five cities constituting the Pentapolis arc not clearly named. Bo- cckh supposes them to be ApoUonia, Mesembria, Odessus, Kallatis, and To- mi ; but Istrus seems more pi'obable than Tomi. Odessus was on the site of the modern Varna, where the Inscription was found ; greatly south of the modern town of Odessa, which is on the site of another town Ordesus. An Inscription (2056) immediately preceding the above, also found at Odessus, contains a vote of thanks and honors to a certain citizen of Anti och, who resided with (name imperfect), king of the Scythians and rendered great service to the Greeks by his influence.
