Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/310

 294 MASSILIA. The medals of Jlassalia are numeroTis, and some of them are in good taste. It is probable that they also coined for the Galli, for the Galli had coined money of their own long before the Cln-istian aera with Greek charactera. Tlie common types of the Massaliot medals are the lion and the bull. No gold coins of Massalia have yet been found ; but there are coins of other metal covered over with gold or silver, which are generally supposed to be base coin; and base or false coin implies true coin of the same kind and denomination. It has been also supposed that the fraud was practised by the Mas- saliot.s themselves, to cheat their customers; a sup- position which gives them uo credit for honesty and little for sense. The settlements of Massalia were all made very early: indeed some of them may have been settle- ments of the mother city Phocaea. One of the earliest of these colonies was Tauroeis or Tauroentum (a doubtful position), which Caesar (i5. C. ii. 4) calls " Castellum Massiliensium." The other set- tlements east of ^Massalia were Olbia (^Eoubes or Eoubo), Athenopolis [AxHENOrous], Antipolis {Anlibes), Nicaea {Xizza), and the islands along this coast, the Stoechades, and Lero and Lerina. West of Massalia was Agatha {Agde), on the Araiuis {Herault), doubtful whether it was a colony settled by Phocaea or Massalia. Khoda (Rosas), within the limits of Hispania, was either a Rhodian or Massaliot colony; even if it was Ehodian, it was afterwards under Massalia. Emporiae (Ampurias), in Hispania, was also Massaliot ; or even Phocaean (Liv. xxvi. 19) originally. [Emporiae]. Strabo .speaks of three small Massaliot settlements further south on the coast of Hispania, betweeu the river Sucre {.Tiicar) and Carthago Nova (iii. p. 159). The chief of them, he says, was Hemeroscopium. [Dianium]. The furthest Phocaean settlement on the south coast of Spain was Maenace (iii. p. 156), where re- mains of a Greek town existed in Strabo's time. There may have been other Massaliot settlements on the Gallic coast, such as Heraclea. [Heraclea]. Stephanus, indeed, mentions some other Massaliot cities, but nothing can be made of his fragmentary matter. There is no good reason for thinking that the Massaliots founded any inland towns. Arelate (Aries) would seem the most likely, but it was not a Greek city; and as to Avenio (Avignon) and Ca- bellio(C'awii7fo»), the evidence is too small to enable us to reckon them among Massaliot settlements. There is also the great improbability that the Mas- .saliots either wanted to make inland settlements, or were able to do it, if, contrary to the practice of their nation, they had wished it. That Massaliot merchants visited the interior of Gallia long before the Roman conquest of Gallia, may be assumed as a fact. Probably the downfal of Carthage at the end of the Third Punic War, and the alliance of Massalia with Rome, increased the commercial prosperity of this city; but the Massaliots never became a great power like Carthage, or they would not have called in the Romans to help them against two small Li- gurian tribes. The foundation of the Roman colony of Narbo (Narhmine), on the Atax (Aude), in a position which commanded the road into Spain and to the mouth of the Garonne, must have been detri- mental to the commercial interests of Massalia. Strabo (iv. p. 186) mentions Narbo in his time as the chief trading place in the Provincia. Both before MASSITHOLUS. Caesar's time and after Massalia was a place of resort for the Romans, and sometimes selected by exiles as a residence. (Tac. Ann. iv. 43, xiii. 47.) When the Roman supremacy was established in Gallia, JIassalia had no longer to protect itself against the natives. The people having wealth and leisure, applied themselves to rhetoric and philo- sophy; the place became a school for the Galli, who studied the Greek language, which came into such common use that contracts were drawn up in Greek. In Strabo's time, that is in the time of Augustus and Tiberius, some of the Romans who were fond of learning went to Massalia instead of Athens. Agri- cola, the conqueror of Britannia, and a native of Forum Julii, was sent when a boy by a careful mother to Massalia, where, as Tacitus says (Agi'ic. c. 4), " Greek civility was united and tempered with the thrifty habits of a provincial town." (See also Tac. Ann. iv. 44.) The Galli, by their ac- quaintajice with Massalia, became fond of rhetoric, which h.is remained a national taste to the present day. They had teachers of rhetoric and philosophy in their houses, and the towns also hired teachers for their youth, as they did physicians ; for a kind of inspector of health was a part of the economy of a Greek town. Circumstances brought three lan- guages into use at Massalia, the Greek, the Latin, and the Gallic (Isid. xv., on the authority of Varro). The studies of the youth at Massalia in the Roman period were both Greek and Latin. Medicine appears to have been cultivated at Massalia. Crinas, a. doctor of this town, combined physic and astrology. He left an enormous sum of money for repairing the walls of .liis native town. He made his fortune at Rome ; but a rival came from Massalia, named Channis, who entered on his career by condemning the practice of all his predecessors. Charmis in- troduced the use of cold baths even in winter, and plunged the sick into ponds. Men of rank might be seen shivering for display under the treatment of this water doctor. On which Pliny ( xxix. 2) well observes that all these men hunted after repu- tation by bringing in some novelty, while they trafficked away the lives of their patients. The history of Massalia after Caesar's time is very httle known. It is said that there ai-e no im- perial medals of Massalia. Some tombs and inscrip- tions ai-e in the Museum of Marseille. A great deal has been written about the history of Massalia, but it is not worth much. The follow- ing references will lead to other authorities : Raoul- Rochette, Bisloire des Colonies Grecques, a veiy poor work; H. Ternaux, Ilistoria Reipublicae Mas- siliensium a Pi~imordiis ad Neronis Tempora, which is useful for the references, but for nothing else; Thieiry, Histoire des Gaulois. [G. L.] COIN OF MASSILIA. MASSITHOLUS (Mao-o-iOoAos), a river of Libya, the source of which Ptolemy (iv. 6. § 8), places in the mountain called Theon Ochema, and its " em- bouchure" (§ 9) in the Hesperian bay, between llesperium Ceras and the Ilypodronms of Aethiopia,