Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/422

 404 BITHRA. Amm. Marc, xsiii. 6), a town in Aria, perhaps the same as the Bis of Isidoms (p. 8), if, indeed, there were two towns oi this name, one in Aria, and the other in Arachosia. [V.] BITHRA, [BiRTHA-] BITHYAS. [Bathynias.] BITHY'NI (Eidwoiy [Bithynia.] BITHY'NIA (BiBwla, Btevvls), a division of Asia Minor, which occupied the eastern part of the c/)ast of the Propontis, the east coast of the Thracian Bosporus, and a considerable part of the coast of the Euxine. On the west it bordered on Mysia; on the south, on Phryg:ia and Galatia; the eastern limit is less definite. The Rhyndacus is fixed by some geographers as the western boundary of Bithynia; but the following is Strabo's statement (p. 563): ''Bithynia, on the east, is bounded by the Paphlagones and Mariandyni, and some of the Kpicteti ; on the north by the Pontic Se:i from the outlets of the Sangarins to the straits at Byzan- tium and Chalcedon; on the west by the Propontis; and to the south by Phrygia named Epictetus, which is also called Hellespontiaca Phrygia." His description is correct as to the northern coast line ; and when he says that the Propontis forms the western boundary, this also is a correct description of the coast from Chalcedon to the head of the gulf of Cios. In his description of the western coast of Bithynia, he says, that after Chalcedon we come to the gulf of Astacus ; and adjoining to (and south of) the gnlf of Astacus is another gulf (the gulf of Cius), which penetrates the land nearly towards the rising sun. He then mentions Apameia Myrleia as a Bithynian city, and this Apam^ is about half way between the head of the gnlf of Cius and the mouth of the Rhyndacus. But he says nothing of the Rhyndacus being the boundary on the west. Prusa {Brusa), he observes, " is built on Mysian Olympus, on the confines of the Phrygians and the Mysians." (p. 564.) Thus we obtain a southern boundary of Bithynia in this part, which seems to extend along the north face of Olympius to the ^angarius. Strabo adds that it is difficult to fix the limits of the Bithyni, and Mysi, and Phiyges, and also of the Doliones, and of the Mygdones, and of the Trees; " and the cause is this, that the im- miirrants (into Bithynia), being soldiers and bar- barians, did not permanently keep the country that they got, but were wanderers, for the most part, driving out and being driven oat" It was a tradition, that the Bithyni were a Thracian people from the Strymon ; that they were called Strymonii while they lived on that river, but changed their name to Bithyni on passing into Asia; it was said that they were driven out of Europe by the Teucri and the Mysi (Herod, vii. 75). Strabo (p. 541) observes, " that the Bithyni, being -originally Mysi, had their name thus changed from the Thracians who settled among them, the Bithyni and Thyni, is agreed by most; and they give as proofs of this, with respect to the nation of the Bithyni, that even to the present day some in Thrace are called Bithyni; and with respect to the Thyni, they give as proof the acta called Thynias, which is at ApoUonia and Salmydessus." Thucy- dides (iv. 75) speaks of Lamachus marching from the Heracleotis along the coast, through the conn- try of the Bithyni Thraces, to Chalcedon. Xeno- phon, who bad seen the coast of Bithynia, calls the shore between the mouth of the Euxine and Hera- cleia, " Thrace in Asia f and he adds, that between BITHY'NIA. Heracleia and the coastof Asia, opposite to Byzantium, there is no city either friendly or Hellenic, but only Thraces Bithyni (Anab. vi. 4). Heracleia itself, he places in the country of the Mariandyni. The name Bith}'nia does not occur in Herodotus, Thucy- dides, or Xenophon; but Xenophon (^IJell. iii. 2. § 2) has the name Bithynis Thrace, and Bithynis. It appears, then, that the country occupied by the people called Bithyni cannot be extended further east than Heracleia, which is about half way be- tween the Sangarins and the river Parthenins. The name Bithyni does not occur in Homer. When the Bithyni passed over to Asia, they dis- placed the Mysi and other tribes. The Bithyni were subjected, with other Asiatic peoples, by Croesus, king of Lydia ; but Herodotus (i. 28) makes Thracians their generic name, and Thyni and Bithyni the names of the two divisions of them. In course of time, the name Thyni fell into disuse, and the name Bithyni prevailed over the generic name of Thracians. Pliny*s statement (v. 43) is, that the Thyni occupy (tenent) the coast of Bithynia from Cius to the entrance of the Pontus, and the Bithyni occupy the interior; a statement that cer- tainly has no value for the time when he wrote, nor probably for any other time. The Bithyni were included in the Persian empire alter the destmction of the Lydian kingdom by Cyrus and the Persians; and their country, the precise limits of which at that time we cannot ascertain, formed a satrapy, or part of a satrapy. But a Bithynian dynasty sprung up in this country under Doedalsus or Dy- dalsus, who Iiaving, as it is expressed (Memnon, Ap. PhoL Cod. 224), " the sovereignty of the Bi- thyni," got possession of the Megarian colony of Astacus [Astacus]. The accession of Doedalsus is fixed with reasonable probability between b. c. 430 and B.C. 440. Nine kings followed Doedalsus, the last of whom, Nicomedes III., bc'gan to reign B.C. 91. Doedalsus was succeeded by Boteiras; and Bas, the son of Boteiras, defeated Calantus, the general of Alexander of Macedonia, and kept the ^laoedonians out of the Bithynian territoiy. Bas had a son, Zipoetes, who became king or chief b. c. 326, and warred successfully against Lysimachus and Antiochus the son of Seleucus. Nicomedes I., the eldest son of Slipoetes, was his successor; and his is a genuine Greek name, from which we may conclude that there had been intermarriage between these Bithynian clueftains and Greeks. This Nico- medes invited the marauding Galli to cross the Bosporus into Asia soon after his accession to power (b. c. 278), and with their aid he defeated a rival brother who held part of the Bithynian country (Liv. xxxviii. 16). Nicomedes founded the city Nicomedeia, on the gulf of Astacus, and thus fixed his power securely in the country along the eastern shore of the Proponi is. The successor of Nicomedes was Zielas, who treacherously planned the massacre of the Gallic chieftains whom fab father had invited into Asia; but the Galli anticipated him, and killed the king. His son Prusias I., who became king in B. c. 228, defeated the Galli who were ravaging the Hellespontine cities, and massacred their women and children. He acquired the town of Cius, on the gulf of Cius, and also Myrleia (Strab. p. 563), by which his dominions on the west were extendeil nearly to, or perhaps quite, to the Rliyndacus. He also extended his dominions on the east by taking Cierus in the territory of Heracleia, to which he gave the name Prusias, as ho had done to Cius on