CHAPTER XCVIII - Outlying Hellenic Cities.—1. In Gaul and Spain. 2. On the coast of the Euxine

Summary

To complete the picture of the Hellenic world while yet in its period of full life, in freedom and selfaction, or even during its decline into the half-life of a dependent condition—we must say a few words respecting some of its members lying apart from the general history, yet of not inconsiderable importance. The Greeks of Massalia formed its western wing; the Pontic Greeks (those on the shores of the Euxine), its eastern; both of them the outermost radiations of Hellenism, where it was always militant against foreign elements, and often adulterated by them. It is indeed little that we have the means of saying; but that little must not be left unsaid.

Massalia—its situation and circumstances

In my third volume (ch. xxii. p. 531), I briefly noticed the foundation and first proceedings of Massalia (the modern Marseilles), on the Mediter ranean coast of Gaul or Liguria. This Ionic city, founded by the enterprising Phokseans of Asia Minor, a little before their own seaboard was subjugated by the Persians, had a life and career of its own, apart from those political events which determined the condition of its Hellenic sisters in Asia, Peloponnesus, Italy, or Sicily. The Mas saliots maintained their own relations of commerce, friendship or hostility with their barbaric neighbours, the Ligurians, Gauls, and Iberians, without becoming involved in the larger political confederacies of the Hellenic world. They carried out from their mother-city established habits of adventurous coast-navigation and commercial activity.