of the Euxine: Amastris *, now Amastreh, Cytorus, now Kitros; North East of which was the promontory of Carambis, now Cape Karampi, which we have noticed as opposite to Criu Metopon in the Tauric Chersonese; and a little after the shore has bent downwards is Sinope, a celebrated Grecian colony, founded by the Milesians, and the birth-place of the philosopher Diogenes; it was the capital of Pontus in the reign of the great Mithridates, and is still called Sinub. Under the Eastern part of Bithynia and Paphlagonia is Galatia. A colony detached from the great Gaulish emigration, under Brennus, B. C. 270, crossed the Hellespont, and settled themselves in the North of Phrygia and Cappadocia, where, mingling with some Grecian colonies, they caused the country to obtain the name of GalloGræcia, or Galatia; and what is singular, they continued to speak the Celtic language even in the days of St. Jerome, 600 years after their emigration. On the confines of Phrygia and Bithynia was the city of Pessinus, originally Phrygian, and Mount Dindymus, remarkable for the worship of Cybele, hence called Dindymene †, whose image was brought from this place to Rome, with aremarkable miracle attending it‡, in the second Punic war, Amastri Pontica et Cytore buxifer. + Non Dindymene, non adytis quatit Catull. IV. 13. Hor. Od. I. 16, 5. Claudia, a vestal, had been accused of incontinence, and the goddess was prevailed upon by her prayers to vouchsafe her testimony to her innocence, by enabling her to remove by her girdle the ship which had grounded in the Tiber. - Ov. Fast. IV. 315. A little North of Pessinus was Gordium, also originally in Phrygia, where Alexander cut to pieces the Gordian knot, respecting which there was an antient tradition that the person who could untie it should possess the empire of Asia, East of Pessinus was Ancyra, now Angora, from whence the celebrated shawls and hosiery made of goat's hair were originally brought. Near this place Bajazet was conquered and made prisoner by Timour the Great. East of this, on the confines of Paphlagonia, Gangra, now Kankiari, was the residence of Cicero's friend Deiotarus, one of the tetrarchs or princes of Galatia, in whose favour we have an oration of Cicero to the Senate. This city, however, was also sometimes considered as one of the principal in Paphlagonia. It is not necessary to enter into the detail of the other cities in Galatia; but we may observe, in proof of the Gaulish origin of the people, that the Northern part of them were called the Tectosages. East of Paphlagonia and Galatia is Pontus, extending along the coast of the Euxine, from the mouth of the Halys to the Ophis. It was originally part of Cappadocia, and was formed first into a Satrapy, and then into an independent kingdom, about B. C. 300. Leaving the mouth of the Halys, the first important city we shall notice is Amisus, now Samsun, a Greek colony, aggrandised by Mithridates. The sea here forms a gulph called Amisenus Sinus. The river Iris, called now JekilErmark, or the green river, flows into the sea here. Upon its banks, considerably inland, was Amasea, now Amasieh, the most considerable of the cities of Pontus, and the birth-place of the great Mithridates and Strabo the geographer. Above it was Magnopolis, built by Pompey the Great, and below it, in a direction nearly South, was Zele, where Cæsar overcame Pharnaces, son of the great Mithridates, with such rapidity, that he wrote his account of his victory to the senate in those three famous words, "Veni, vidi, vici." East of Zele was the city of Comana, now Almons, and called Pontica, to distinguish it from another of the same name in Cappadocia: both were celebrated for their temples, and college of priests, consecrated to Bellona, who was, however worshipped by those oriental nations rather as the Goddess of Love than of War. Above it is NeoCæsarea, now Niksar. Advancing towards the sea we find the river Thermodon, or Terme, which runs through the plains of Themiscyra, the antient residence of those warlike females the Amazons. * East of this was Polemonium, now Vatija, built by Polemon, who was established in the kingdom of Marc Antony, and East of it was Cerasus, now Keresoun, from which Lucullus introduced the first cherries into Italy in the Mithridatic war. Considerably East of it, almost on the confines of Colchis, was Trapezus, or Trebisond, so famous antiently as the first Greek colony which received the 10,000 Greeks in their immortal retreat under Xenophon, and subsequently as the seat of Grecian Emperors, so well known in romance, and so little read of in history. South East of Trapezus, above the banks of the river Ophis, was Teches, or Tesqua, now Tekeh, the mountain from which the troops of Xenophon had their first view of the sea, the account of which is so finely described by him in the latter part of the fourth book of the Cum flumina Thermodontis Pulsant, et pictis bellantur Amazones armis, Anabasis. The South Eastern part of Pontus was occupied by the tribes of Chalybes, or, as Strabo calls them, the Chaldæi. Returning to the coast of the Ægean, the first province is Mysia, bounded by Bithynia on the East, the Propontis on the North, the Ægean on the West, and Lydia on the South. The Rhyndacus, often mistaken by modern travellers for the Granicus, separates it from Bithynia. Proceeding from thence Westward, along the shore of Propontis, we come to the island of Cyzicus, now a peninsula, which preserves its name; it was antiently a very flourishing city. A little West of it is the river Granicus, the famous scene of the first great battle between Alexander and the armies of Darius, May 22, B. C. 334, Ol. 111, 3, where 30,000 Macedonians are said to have defeated 600,000 Persians; it is now a torrent called Ousvola. The city of Lampsacus, now Lamsaki, is on the Hellespont. It was famous for the worship of Priapus, hence called the Hellespontian, or Lampsacan God. * Alexander resolved to destroy this city on account of the vices of its inhabitants, but it was saved by the philosopher Anaximenes, who, knowing that Alexander had sworn to deny his request, begged him to destroy it. A little below is Percote, which was given by Artaxerxes to Themistocles, to maintain his wardrobe. Below it is Abydos, which we have already mentioned as nearly opposite to Sestos, but a little more to the South. South of it, towards the mouth of the Hellespont, is the sacred plain of Troy, immortalized by the first and * Hellespontiaci servet tutela Priapi. Virg. Georg. IV. 111. greatest of poets. The coast of Mysia, between the Hellespont and the promontory of Lectum, has received the names of Troas, from Troy, and, in its Northern part, Dardania, from the city of Dardanus, at the entrance of the Hellespont, which, though now destroyed, still gives to the Hellespont the name of the Dardanelles. Modern travellers very much differ in their accounts of this celebrated plain, and in the position they assign to the antient city of Troja, or Ilium. Mr. Gell, in his accurate and interesting survey of the Troad, accompanied with many beautiful and faithful coloured engravings, thinks he has discovered some vestiges of this most famous city near the village of Bounarbachi ; but the fact probably is, that though some great and strong outlines, such as Ida, and the promontory of Rhætæum and Sigæum, may remain, the lapse of 3000 years may have caused so great a change in the general face of the country, as to have obliterated every vestige of the antient city, and even several of those minor features which may be said to have outlived even nature herself in the immortal poem of Homer. Troy was more than once rebuilt under the names of Troja and Ilium, generally in a situation nearer the sea than the antient city is supposed to have occupied. It stood between two rivers, the Scamander, or Xanthus, and the Simois, which formed a junction before they entered the Hellespont. Both these rivers rose in Mount Ida, a very lofty range of mountains East of Troy. The summit of Ida was called Gargarus. The Northern promontory of the shore, at the entrance of the Hellespont, was called the promontory of Rhætæum, and the Southern that of Sigæum; between these the Grecian |
