Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/161

Rh MACEDONIAN EMPIRE 143 native Persian chiefs became practically independent, such as Atropates in the Median district, called from him Atropatene, and elsewhere ; for the clan system was suited to these districts, and they preserved the system of Zoroaster till Artaxerxes (Ardshir) restored the Persian monarchy, 226 A.D. (see PEKSIA). But even here Greek influence lasted on ; nor when Arsaces, about 250 B.C., had set up the kingdom of Parthia and made Hecatompylus his capital, did that influence die out in Parthia. Even the new cities founded by the Parthian kings, such as Dara, were on the Greek model, and largely inhabited by Greeks ; and some of the chief cities retained Greek municipal constitutions, such as Ctesiphon, which took the place of Seleucia on the Tigris as Seleucia had taken the place of the old capital Babylon &quot; Of later fame, Built by Ematlrian or by Parthian hands, The great Seleucia, Nisibis, and there Artaxata, Teredon, Ctesiphon.&quot; So again in Asia Minor native chiefs began to rule in Armenia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, and Pontus : and some of them, such as the Cappadocian princes of the Mithridatic family, who afterwards ruled at Amasia, claimed descent from the royal Achsemenid house of Persia, or from leading Persian houses. They, as well as the princes of Pontus, intermarried with the house of Seleucus, to which their help was important. Bithynia and Pontus had an era of independence, from which they reckoned their dates just as the Syrian kings did from the return of Seleucus to Babylon. The independence of Judaea under the Maccabees was established at a later time (see ISRAEL). All these were subject to the Hellenizing influence of the Greek towns; and the Greek language spread every where,, even among the Galatians, as we see by the inscriptions. Nicomedes of Bithynia founded Nicomedea in 264 B.C., as a Greek town ; it soon rivalled Nica3a in importance, and we owe to it Arrian, the historian of Alexander. The barbaric princes often took wives, ministers, officers, en gineers, literati, artists, actors, and intermediate agents of all kinds from some neighbouring Greek city, a custom which h.id begun before the time of Alexander, as we see in the case of Mausolus of Caria. In Pergamon, about 238 B.C., Philetaerus, by the help of the royal treasure, made him self independent, and under Eumenes and Attains the little state showed much political skill in trimming the balance of power between the neighbouring dynasties. Attalus took the title of king after a victory over the Galatians on the Caicus, and this victory was commemorated by the Gigantomachia around the famous altar lately discovered at Pergamon (see Conze, Besckreibung der Pergamenischen BildwerJce ; Overbeck, Geschichte der Griechischen Plastik, 3d ed.). . He also sent commemorative statues to Athens; one of which, long celebrated as the Dying Gladiator, is now seen to be the portraiture of a dying Gaulish chief. Greek art, transplanted from Athens and the Peloponnese to Pergamon and Rhodes, though it had ac quired a somewhat florid tinge, was yet not unworthy of its descent from the schools of Phidias and Lysippus, and owing to the close alliance of these two cities with Rome, as against Macedon and Syria, this revived Greek art found its way to Italy. Pergamon also became a centre of Greek learning only second to Alexandria; and, when Ptolemy cut off the supply of papyrus from Egypt, Crates of Mallus in Cilicia (whose name was only second to that of Aristarchus) is said to have revived the old Asiatic use of &quot; parchment &quot; a name which itself preserves the memory of Pergamon. Papyrus, it is true, remained the usual material for books till about the 4th century, when the Christian Church finally adopted the new material due to the invention of Crates (see Birt, Das antike Bwhwesen], All along the coast also a number of Greek cities acquired practical independence owing to the division of power among the princes, Greek as well as native, who were further kept in check by the invading Gauls. Such were the cities of Byzantium, Cyzicus, Heraclea, Sinope, and Olbia on the north-west of the Black Sea, and Panticapaaum or Bosporus between that sea and the Palus Maaotis. The true Greek spirit survived above all in Rhodes, as it did also at Massalia in the West. All the more did the Syrian kings strive to maintain their power by founding cities under their own rule, which were made attractive to new colonists by something of municipal independence, with the right to bear arms, to coin money, and to manage their own judicial affairs. Each city had its dernus, senate, archons, and generals. There were four of these great cities in Syria itself : two inland, Antioch on the Orontes, the greatest commercial entrepot in the East, and Apamea, the military centre of the kingdom ; two on the coast, Seleucia, with its rock fortress to serve as a refuge in time of trouble, and farther south Laodicea on the sea, among its rich vineyards. They were all named after the royal family. Other towns were named from places in Greece or Macedonia, such as Achaia, Amphipolis, Apollouia, Arethusa, Astacus, Bercea, Callipolis, Chalcis, Edessa, Heraea, Larissa, Maronea, Oropus, Pella, Periuthus, Tegea ; for the oppressed Greeks of Greece itself and of Magna Grcecia here found an* outlet for their energy. Some military colonies were planted on the west and south of Galatia, to keep the Gauls in check, and guard the roads leading from Phrygia, the centre of the commerce of Asia Minor, to the towns on the coast ; such were Antioch in Fisidia, Apamea Cibotus, Synnada, and Thyatira. Even Palestine, notwithstanding the temporary success of the Maccabees, was full of Greek towns like the later Ca3sarea, and the manufacturing population used the Greek language. We have some traces of the state of things in the Economics, a work of this period, though falsely attributed to Aristotle ; and the later political literature shows that men had a clear idea of the aims and means of the politics of the day, and that diplomacy and international law had considerably developed. Thus a large influx of new Hellenic blood was poured into the lands on this side of the Tigris, into Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and Syria ; during the century after Alexander s death nearly two hundred cities were founded, and the Greek race became predominant in western Asia, though of course it was differentiated by the various peoples which it undertook to assimilate, and by which it could not but be influenced in turn, especially as the princes found it necessary to conciliate them. The historians of the time are mostly lost ; but many inscriptions survive which show what a blending of populations took place. One gives us a rescript of Antigonus on incorporating the people of Lebedus with the Teians. Another shows that Magnesia became absorbed in Smyrna, now restored after it had long lain waste. Others tell us that places like Erythne and lasus recovered something like independence owing to the needs of the Syrian kings. Amidst the feuds of the great powers the Ionian states recovered their freedom, and were able to form a kind of federal union. Similarly we hear of the community (KCLVOV) of Bithynia, of Asia, and the like. A new life of a somewhat different kind from the old Greek life in politics, religion, and science dates from the revolution effected by Alexander s conquests, though in the lower strata of the country population old beliefs still had some hold, as is evident by what Pausanias found existing even in his day in Greece itself. But old distinctions tended to vanish away, only that between poor and rich acquired still greater force, material interests became predominant. We see also that in the manu facturing towns the workmen had formed benefit societies,