The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War]

The Megarians had begun to establish themselves on the Propontis at about the same time with the Milesians. In 675 they founded Chalcedon at the entrance to the Thracian Bosporus, and seventeen years later, Byzantium, on the opposite European shore. Selymbria, neighbouring Byzantium on the west, and Astacus, at the most easterly point of the Propontis, not far from the site of the later Nicomedia, were Megarian colonies. The Megarians, however, penetrated into the Pontus itself, at a comparatively late date. Their first colony here was Heraclea, founded in association with Bœotian settlers in the year 550, in the land of the Mariandyni, about two hundred kilometres from the outlet of the Bosporus. From there Mesembria and Callatis were colonised on the east coast of Thrace, and Chersonesus, on the southern point of the Tauric peninsula, near the present Sebastopol.

All of these Grecian towns, however, remained with few exceptions isolated points in the midst of the original population of barbarians. An actual hellenising of the country as in Sicily and lower Italy was never accomplished. This was largely due to the configuration of the Pontine coast, which with the exception of the Crimea has no indentations, so that the Grecian colonies had no way to protect themselves against the attacks of the tribes from the interior. Besides, the winter climate of the regions north of the Pontus was very raw. The Greeks could not feel happy in a land where the vine and olive tree grew only in sheltered places, and only the bitterest necessity or the prospect of great commercial gain could cause them to leave their sunny home-land for such a country. Thus the Grecian cities on the Pontus never became very populous; there was not one among them to compare with Sybaris, Taras, Acragas, to say nothing of Syracuse. Condemned to a continual struggle for existence, the Greeks here had no leisure for the cultivation of higher interests. It is remarkable how poor the Pontine colonies have been in intellectual greatness. Their rôle in history has practically been confined to providing the mother-land with grain, salted fish, and other such raw products. Only once, when the rest of the nation had already fallen under foreign dominion, did they take an active part in great political events. The last battle for Grecian liberty was fought with their forces, but he who led the fight was a hellenised barbarian king.

Although the Hellenes had been able to expand on the Italian, Sicilian, and Pontine coasts with almost no hindrance, Grecian colonisation met an insurmountable obstacle in the old civilised lands on the southeastern shores of the Mediterranean, with their dense populations. In Syria the Hellenes did not attempt a settlement; they were not even able to drive the Phœnicians out of Cyprus. Indeed, when the Assyrian king Sargon conquered Syria at the end of the eighth century, the Greeks on Cyprus thought it advisable to recognise his supremacy, at least nominally, and this relation continued under his successors until Asshurbanapal. Later, after the fall of the Assyrian Empire, the island came under Egyptian rule. Sargon’s son Sennacherib (705-681) repulsed an attempt of the Greeks to settle on the Cilician plain. The warlike tribes of rough Cilicia and Lycia also succeeded in keeping the Greeks at a distance from their coasts, or at least prevented their further expansion. Phaselis, founded by the Rhodians on the western shore of the gulf of Pamphylia in 700, remained the last Grecian colony in the south of Asia Minor.