Philippians and Philemon - MR Vincent - 1906.pdf

INTRODUCTION XV
the mountains adjoining Krenides surpassed all others in richness.
Gold-mining was the principal industry of the region for a long
series of years ; and from the time that the treasures of the moun-
tains were first brought to light by the Phoenicians, they played an
important part in the history of the northern kingdoms. The
feverish greed for gain did not promote the advance of civilisa-
tion ;
agricultural and commercial interests suffered, and the rapa-
city of foreign invaders was stimulated.
The Thasians, at the instigation of CaUistratus, in the year
before the accession of Philip of Macedon, penetrated into the
interior to the plain of the Angites, and revived Kxenides as a
centre of mining operations. But the assaults of the Thracians
upon the new colony soon compelled it to seek the assistance
of Philip. He drove back the Thracians, annexed to Macedonia
all the country as far as the Nestus, and built a fortress which
became the centre of the mining district. He also gave the place
his own name, Philippi. The plural form of the name seems to
indicate that the new town, at the time when it fell into his hands,
was composed of several distinct groups of dweUings defended by
detached works for the protection of the miners, and not by a
common and continuous enceinte. A fort on the hill which commanded
the defile was a necessity. Under the protection of this
work it was sufficient to bar the defile by a temporary wall in order
to allow an important group of dwellings to be erected at the foot
of the rocks. Philip improved the region, drying up the marshes
and laying out roads, and Theophrastus {^Causae Plantarum, v. 14)
relates that by these works the climate was perceptibly modified.
The gold-mining industry yielded to Philip an annual revenue
of a thousand talents, — a treasure which furnished him with the
means of establishing and maintaining a navy, and which was quite
as potent as his army in securing the future triumphs of Macedonia.
" The gold of Krenides spread itself over Greece, preceding the
phalanx hke an advance-guard, and opening more gates than the
battering-rams and catapults" (Heuzey).
On the mines, see Curtius, Hist. Greece, v. 52; Appian, Bell. Civ., iv. 106;
Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens ; Heuzey and Daumet, Mission Archeolo-
gique. See especially their interesting description of the rock formations of
Philippi, and the comparison with the auriferous rocks of California (p. 55 fF.).
On mining under the Romans, Marquardt, Rom. Staatsverwaltung, Bd. ii.
24s, 252-258.