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Philippians and Philemon - MR Vincent - 1906.pdf

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xiv INTRODUCTION<br />

According to Appian {Bell. Civ. iv. 105), Krenides was also<br />

known as Datos or Daton. This statement has been too hastily<br />

set down as an error, largely on the authority of Leake (iV. Greece,<br />

iii. 223. See Lightf., Philip., p. 47 ; Rawlinson, Herodotus, on<br />

ix. 75). It appears that Daton was a Thasian town near the<br />

Strymonic Gulf, <strong>and</strong> was the centre of the continental possessions<br />

of the Thasians. According to Strabo (vii. frag. 36), Neapolis<br />

was a dependency of Daton. The name of the town passed into<br />

a proverb, as a place endowed with all good things. The proba-<br />

bility is that the first Thasian colony of Daton originally extended<br />

up to the plain of Krenides, <strong>and</strong> included it in its territory, but<br />

had fallen into the h<strong>and</strong>s of the northern barbarians. About<br />

360 B.C. the Thasians, aided by the banished Athenian orator<br />

Callistratus, with some Athenian adventurers, founded a new<br />

colony at Krenides under the old name. The year 360, which<br />

followed the arrival of Callistratus at Thasos, is noted by Diod.<br />

Sic. (xvi. 3) as the date of the occupation of the mines of Krenides<br />

by the Thasians. It is an interesting fact that the coins<br />

struck by the Thasians on the occasion of reviving the mines of<br />

Krenides, <strong>and</strong> which bore the head of the Thasian Hercules,<br />

the tripod (the symbol of foundation) <strong>and</strong> the legend2<br />

,were preserved by the city of Philippi with only a<br />

change of inscription (see Heuzey <strong>and</strong> Daumet, Mission Arche-<br />

ologique de Macedoine, p. 60 ff. Comp. Curtius, Hist. Greece,<br />

Trans, v. 53).<br />

The site was between the rivers Strymon <strong>and</strong> Nestus, <strong>and</strong> an-<br />

swered, geographically, to the basin of the Angites (Hdt. vii. 113),<br />

which issued from the right bank of the Strymon, <strong>and</strong> formed, two<br />

leagues from the sea, the lake Kerkinitis. The basin might rather<br />

be described as a plain, now known as the plain of Drama, <strong>and</strong><br />

framed on every side by mountains. The vast masses of Pangseus<br />

separated it from the sea; but at one point the range was de-<br />

pressed, affording easy access to the gulf where now the Turkish<br />

harbor of Kavala, the ancient Neapolis, opens, opposite to the<br />

isl<strong>and</strong> of Thasos.<br />

Thrace contained rich deposits of gold. Golden particles from<br />

Haemus were borne down by the waters of the Hebrus, <strong>and</strong> the<br />

Pgeonian laborers, according to Strabo (vii. frag. 35), turned them<br />

up with their ploughshares. But the treasures of Pangseus <strong>and</strong> of

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