Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/143

 FROCEEDINGS OF THE TEN THOUSAND C-KEEKS. 121 CHAPTER LXXI. PEOCEEDINGS OF THE TEN THOUSAND GREEKS, FROM THE TIME THAT THEY REACHED TRAPEZUS, TO THEIK JUNCTION WITH THE LACEDEMONIAN ARMY IN ASIA MINOR. WE now commence a third act in the history of this memorable body of men. After having followed them from Sardis to Kunaxa as mercenaries to procure the throne for Cyrus, then from Ku- naxa to Trapezus as men anxious only for escape, and purchasing their safety by marvellous bravery, endurance, and organization, we shall now track their proceedings among the Greek colonies on the Euxine and at the Bosphorus of Thrace, succeeded by their struggles against the meanness of the Thracian prince Seuthes, as well as against the treachery and arbitrary harshness of the Lace- daemonian commanders Anaxibius and Aristarchus. Trapezus, now Trebizond, where the army had recently found repose, was a colony from Sinope, as were also Kerasus and Ko- ty6ra, farther westward ; each of them receiving an harmost or governor from the mother-city, and paying to her an annual trib- ute. All these three cities were planted on the narrow strip of land dividing the Euxine from the elevated mountain range which so closely borders on its southern coast. At Sinope itself, the land stretches out into a defensible peninsula, with a secure harbor, and a large breadth of adjacent fertile soil. So tempting a site invited the Milesians, even before the year 600 B. c., to plant a colony there, and enabled Sinope to attain much prosperity and power. Farther westward, not more than a long day's journey for a row- ing vessel from Byzantium, was situated the Megarian colony of Herakleia, in the territory of the Mariandyni. The native tenants of this line of coast, upon whom the Greek settlers intruded themselves (reckoning from the westward), were the Bithynian Thracians, the Mariandyni, the Paphlagonians, the Tibareni, Chalybes, Mosynoeki, Drilse, and Kolchians. Here, as elsewhere, these natives found the Greek seaports useful, in giving a new value to inland produce, and in furnishing the great men VOL. ix. 6