From: Torsten
Message: 67583
Date: 2011-05-22
>
> in antiquity... Cf. the following interesting passus from Strabo
>(1,2,1):
>
> "Indeed, the spread of the empires of the Romans and of the
> Parthians has presented to geographers of today a considerable
> addition to our empirical knowledge of geography, just as did the
> campaign of Alexander to geographers of earlier times, as
> Eratosthenes points out. For Alexander p51opened up for us
> geographers a great part of Asia and all the northern part of Europe
> as far as the IsterRiver; the Romans have made known all the western
> part of Europe as far as the River Albis (which divides Germany into
> two parts), and that regions beyond the Ister as far as the Tyras
> River; and Mithridates, surnamed Eupator, and his generals have made
> known the regions beyond the Tyras as far as Lake Maeotis and the
> line of coast that ends at Colchis; and, again, the Parthians have
> increased our knowledge in regard to Hyrcania and Bactriana, and in
> regard to the Scythians who live north of Hyrcania and Bactriana,
> all of which countries were but imperfectly known to the earlier
> geographers. I therefore may have something more to say than my
> predecessors."
>
> Information about the Bastarnae would thus have (partly) come from
> those historians who wrote about the campaigns of the Romans near
> the Danube, and from those who wrote about the exploits of
> Mithradates in the north. Posidonius, Apollodorus, and Hypsicrates
> come to mind (all of them mentioned and quoted by Strabo). I suspect
> that Hypsicrates might also have been his source for Burebista.
> Another point: Torsten has usefully pointed to a passage of Plutarch
> which identifies the time of Mithradates' campaign against the
> Bastarnae:
> "Plutarch:
> On the Fortune of the Romans, 11
>
> http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Fortuna_Romanorum*.html#T324
> 'the Sarmatian and Bastarnian wars restrained Mithridates during the
> time when the Marsian war was blazing up against Rome', ie. 91 - 88
> BCE
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_War_%2891%E2%80%9388_BC%29
> which seems to suggest that Mithridates had to wage war on the
> Sarmatians and Bastarnians at some time in 91 - 88 BCE in order to
> make them join him." (cybalist archives, message 67660)
> I would suggest that another passage from Strabo (7,4,3) with myObjection, I think that at that time Mithridates was already in the planning stages of an invasion of Italy, therefore he was leading an army against the barbarians who lived beyond the isthmus as far as the Borysthenes and the Adriatic Sea. This may or not imply that those barbarians were a homogenous unit, if so it would have been the Scythians, settled at that time in both the Crimea and in Dobrogea, but if not the clause just reveals the scope of the strategic goals of the campaign. Basically Strabo says that the incorporation of the Bosporan Kingdom was a sideshow to the real action: jockeying for position before an all-out attack on Rome. Or just securing terrain before a conflict with Rome before an attack from them he knew would come after he took over control with the biggest slave market in the ancient world (the equivalent of fossil fuel at the time, which it will be again after we run out of the latter; cheap energy has been the reason the European states and colonies could abolish slavery).
> proposed emendation, refers to that campaign:
>
> "This city [Chersonesos in the Crimea GK] was at first self-
> governing, but when it was sacked by the barbarians it was forced to
> choose Mithridates Eupator as protector. He was then leading an army
> against the barbarians who lived beyond the isthmus as far as the
> Borysthenes and the Adrias; this, however, was preparatory to a
> campaign against the Romans."
>
> 1. Read "Tyras" instead of "Adrias"
> 2. Strabo has telescoped information from a number of PonticMore like 110-108 BCE. And I would maintain that Strabo in this passage refers only to that period, not some later war with Bastarnae and Sarmatae.
> campaigns in the north. We know, for instance, that the military
> help provided to Chersonesos against the Scythians occurred much
> earlier, after the death of Skilur (Skiluros) c. 112 (who had been
> responsible for the "sack" i.e. the conquest of Chersonesos holdings
> in the northern Crimea), when his son Palak was Scythian King.
> Mithradates' general was Diophantes, and at that time Chersonesos
> retained its full political autonomy. Cf. the decree on Diophantos
> at
> http://www.chersonesos.org/?p=museum_coll_ep1&l=eng
> (interesting as a major source for political events north of theYes it is.
> Black Sea in the last decade of the 2nd c. BCE).
> 3. So it is in connection with the Bastarnian (and Sarmatian? TheseTorsten
> would have been the Iazyges) campaign that Chersonesos was more
> closely integrated into the Pontic Empire acc. to Strabo. Perhaps
> the campaign was undertaken to relieve Bastarnian and Iazygian
> pressure against Tyras and Olbia. The general in that campaign was
> perhaps Neoptolemus (cf. the reference to the "tower of Neoptolemus"
> near Tyras in Strabo). Just possibly, this Neoptolemus (well known
> in Appianus' work) would have been a junior general in Diophantos'
> army when he battled "the barbarians" near Panticapeum on two
> occasions (Strabo 7,3,18). These "barbarians" might either have been
> Scythians supporting Saumak the Scythian at the time of the original
> acquisition of Bosporus by Mithradates (cf. Diophantes decree), or
> some other tribal units of Bosporus who did not like the Peirisades
> disposition of the kingdom in favour of the Pontic ruler. But that's
> just a guess.