Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/209

 TOMBS IN PAPHLAGONIA. 193 supply of water, in that the lower range of mountains run parallel to the coast line and oblige the streams to wind round their base ere they reach the sea or lose themselves in the Halys. On the coast, Sinope, a Milesian colony, had been a flourishing centre from the eighth century B.C., and in its turn had given rise to Amastris, Sesamos, Kytoros, lonopolos, or Abonoutikos. Thus she multiplied havens along the line of coast, in which her merchantmen could take shelter, whence a brisk trade could be carried on with inland tribes. Lost amidst woodlands, these tribes are little known ; neverthe- less, it would appear that they were closely related to the Cappa- docians, and spoke like these an Aramaic idiom, a fact which permits us to class them with the family of Semitic nations. 1 However that may be, we learn from Xenophon, the first man of note who visited this district before Alexander the Great, that they were less rude and savage than their neighbours, the Tibarenians and the Mosynceci. The Ten Thousand did not traverse Paphlagonia, but took ship and skirted its coast as far as Cotyora, where they encamped. Here their general received the delegates sent by the Paphlagonian chief, Corylas, whose barbarous magnificence and fine steeds drew forth admiring expressions from the Greeks. 2 The power of Corylas must have been considerable, to judge from the high estimation in which he was held by a city like Sinope, her foremost citizens styling them- selves royal guests, pensioners. 3 The Sinopian envoys, for private reasons of their own, did their utmost to prevent amicable relations being entered into between the Greek captains and Corylas ; hence to dissuade the former from crossing the Paphlagonian territory, they may have exaggerated the military force of the barbarians, 1 Herodotus, in writing of circumcision and the nations among whom it is practised, goes on to say, " The Syrians, who occupy the banks of the Thermodon and the Parthenius . . . ; " thus confounding under one denomination the Cappadocians and Paphlagonians. Strabo (XII. iii. 25), whilst stating that many local appellatives are common to Paphlagonia and Cappadocia, bears witness to the resemblance existing between the dialects current on either side of the Halys. PLUTARCH (Lucullus, 23) speaks of Sinope as situated in Syrian territory. Finally, Denys Periegetes (v. 970-972) specifies two Syrias one in Lebanon, the other stretching far away to Sinope washed by the flood, inhabited by Cappa- docians. 8 7&V/., V. vii. ii. VOL. I. U
 * XENOPHON, Anabasis, VI. i. 2.