Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/267

 MAGNESIA SACKED BY THE CIM.MEKIAXS. 251 Sardis (its inaccessible acropolis defied them), poured with then wagons into the fertile valley of the Kai'ster, took and sacked Magnesia on the Masander, and even threatened the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. But the goddess so well protected her own town and sanctuary, 1 that Lygdamis the leader of the Cimm'e- which he cites at B. c. 635 : " Anno ante urbem conditam tricesimo, Tune etiam Amazonum gentiz ft Cimmcriorum in Asiam repentinus incursus pluri- mum diu lateque vastationem et stragem intulit." If t j S authority of Orosius is to be trusted, we ought to say that the invasion of the Amazons was a recorded fact. To treat a fact mentioned in Orosius, an author of the fourtli century after Christ, and referred to B. c. 782, as a recorded fact, con- founds the most important boundary -lines in regard to the appreciation of historical evidence. In fixing the Cimmerian invasion of Asia at 782 B. c., Mr. Clinton has the statement of Orosius, whatever it may be worth, to rest upon ; but in fixing the settlement of Ambron the Milesian (at Sinope) at 782 B. c., I know not that he had any authority at all. Eusebius does, indeed, place the- foundation of Trapczus in 75G B. c., and Trapezus is said to have been a colony from Sinope ; and Mr. Clinton, therefore, is anxious to find some date for the foundation of Sinope anterior to 756 B. c. ; but there is nothing to warrant him in selecting 782 c. c., rather than any other year. In my judgment, the establishment of any Milesian colony in the Euxine at so early a date as 756 B. c. is highly improbable : and when we find that the same Eusebius fixes the foundation of Sinope (the metropolis of Trape- zns) as low down as 629 B. c., this is an argument with me for believing that the date which he assigns to Trapezus is by far too early. Mr. Clinton treats the date which Eusebius assigns to Trapezus as certain, and infers from it, that the date which the same author assigns to Sindp& is one hundrc-J and Ihirty years later than the reality: I reverse the inference, considering the date which he assigns to Sindpc as the more trustworthy of the two, and deducing the conclusion, that the date which he gives for Trapezus is one hundred and thirty years at least earlier than the reality. On all grounds, the authority of the chronologists is greater with regard to the later of the two periods than to the earlier, and there is. besides, the additional probability arising out of what is a suitable date for Milesian settlement. To which I will add, that Herodotus places the settlement of the Cimmerians near " that spot where Sinope is now settled," in the reign of Ardys, soon after 635 B. c. Sinope was, therefore, not founded at the timi vhen the Cimmerians went there, in the belief of Herodotus. 1 Strabo I. p. 61 ; Kallimachns, Hymn, ad Dianam, 251-260 il/.aivuv ii^M.~u^ AuyJa/ifc i' t 3piaTi;c, fai "Hyaye Kififiepiuv, ^>a/ja$u laor, ol pa Trap 1 aiirbv vaiovai /Jodf tropov 'Iva^twr^r.