Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/34

12 Hodoi, or Nine Ways, in a situation doubly valuable, both as being close upon the bridge over the Strymon, and as a convenient centre for the ship-timber and gold and silver mines of the neighboring region, and distant about three English miles from the Athenian settlement of Eion at the mouth of the river. The previous unsuccessful attempts to form establishments at Ennea Hodoi have already been noticed, first, that of Histiæus the Milesian, followed up by his brother Aristagoras (about 497-496 B.C.), next, that of the Athenians about 465 B.C., under Leagrus and others, on both these occasions the intruding settlers had been defeated and expelled by the native Thracian tribes, though on the second occasion the number sent by Athens was not less than ten thousand. So serious a loss detereddeterred [sic] the Athenians for a long time from any repetition of the attempt: though it is highly probable that individual citizens from Eion and from Thasus connected themselves with powerful Thracian families, and became in this manner actively engaged in mining, to their own great profit, as well as to the profit of the city collectively, since the property of the kleruchs, or Athenian citizens occupying colonial lands, bore its share in case of direct taxes being imposed on Athenian property generally. Among such fortunate adventurers we may number the historian Thucydides himself; seemingly descended from Athenian parents intermarrying with Thracians, and himself married to a wife either Thracian or belonging to a family of Athenian colonists in that region, through whom he became possessed of a large property in the mines, as well as of great influence in the districts around. This was one of the various ways in which the collective power of Athens enabled her chief citizens to enrich themselves individually.