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A note on Polybius 24.14.8–9

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Philip Beagon
Affiliation:
University of Manchester

Extract

In 180 B.C., in response to a treaty-breaking incursion into Galatia and a threat to Cappadocia, Eumenes of Pergamum marched against Pharnaces of Pontus. The route he took is described thus by Polybius (24.14.8–9):

παραγενμενοι δ' κ Καλπτου πεμπταῖοι πρς τν Ἅλυν ποταμν κταῖοι πλιν νζευξαν εἰς Παρνασσν. ἔνθα κα Ἀριαρθης τν Καππαδοκν βασιλεὺς συνμιξεν αὐτος μετ τς οἰκεας δυνμεως, κα (παρεισ)λθον εἰς τν Μωκισσων χώραν.

Type
Shorter Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1995

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References

1 The text is quoted from the Teubner edition of Th. Büttner-Wobst, (Leipzig, 1904), Vol. IV, p. 171.

2 Animadversionum ad Graecos Auctores (Leipzig, 1763), Vol. IV, p. 681Google Scholar.

3 Ex libris Polybii Megalopolitani selecta de legationibiu, ex bibliotheca Fulvii Ursini (Antwerp, 1582)Google Scholar.

4 On the history of the manuscripts see Moore, J. M., The Manuscript Tradition of Polybius (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 137161, esp. 152–3Google Scholar. The suggestion that Büttner-Wobst's ‘κμησην’ as the reading of U is a misprint, is made to me by Professor Walbank, who notes that the accent ought to be on the first η, not the α.

5 Schweighaeuser, J., Polybii Megalopolitani Historiarum quidquid superest, Vol. IV, (Leipzig, 1790), p. 321Google Scholar.

6 Hultsch, F., Polybii Historiae (Berlin, 1872), Vol. 4, p. 1135Google Scholar.

7 de Boor, C., Excerpta de Legationibus, Pars 1, Excerpta de Legationibus Romanorum ad Gentes (Berlin, 1903), p. 47Google Scholar.

8 Walbank, F., Historical Commentary on Polybius (Oxford, 1979), Vol. III, pp. 268–9Google Scholar suggests it is possibly Kalpinon, known from a late Christian source, near the confluence of the AladaǦ Su and the Sakarya (Sanganus).

9 Anderson, J., JHS 19 (1899), pp. 107–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar identified Parnassus as the modern Parlassan, about six miles from the Halys.

10 Hierocles, 701.1. The Cappadocian information contained in the sixth century handbook of Hierocles is most accessible in Table XXV of Jones, A. H. M., Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces 2 (Oxford, 1971), p. 539Google Scholar.

11 Scriptores Originum Constantinopolitanarum, Preger, Theodore (ed.), (Teubner, 19011907), p. 189Google Scholar.

12 Niese, B., Geschichte der Griechischen und Makedonischen Staaten seit der Schlacht bei Chaeronea (Gotha, 1903), Vol. 3, p. 76Google Scholar, n. 5, quoted by Hansen, E. V., The Attalids of Pergamum 2 (Cornell University, 1971), p. 103Google Scholar, n. 105. As Professor Walbank has suggested to me, Niese presumably felt that Eumenes was further east on account of the Romans requesting him to withdraw, κ τς χώρας (24.15.5). This might be taken most naturally to imply that Eumenes was well within Pontic territory. In that case the search for κμησον would need to be in the region of the headwaters of the Halys, which would strengthen the case of de Boor and Walbank for Camisene, although Niese himself rejects this. However I do not think 24.15.5 is sufficiently explicit to be fatal to my case.

13 The Historical Geography of Asia Minor (London, 1890), esp. p. 299Google Scholar. He is followed on the site of Mokissos by Jones, in CERP, p. 433Google Scholar, n. 23, and, implicitly, by Hansen (n. 12) who says Mokissos is in north Cappadocia. There appears to be a misprint in Walbank (n. 8). He quotes Ramsay as the authority for the position of Mokissos and then says that it lay to the south-west of Caesarea. Ramsay's identification of it with the modern Kirşehir, places it north-west. Eyice, S., Analecta Bollandiana 91 (1973), p. 363CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Cahiers archéologiques 18 (1968), pp. 137–8Google Scholar believed the identification of Mokissos-Justinianopolis-Kirşehir unfounded; cf. , J. and Robert, L., Bulletin Épigraphique 1974, 592Google Scholar in REG 87 (1974), p. 304Google Scholar. Hild and Restle (below, n. 15), pp. 143–4 identify Kirşehir with the ancient Aquae Saravenae.

14 Mansi, J. D., Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio (Florence, 17571798), Vol. IX, p. 258Google Scholar. For a convenient table, Jones, , CERP, p. 539Google Scholar.

15 Hild, F. and Restle, M., Tabula Imperii Byzantini 2: Kappadokien (Vienna, 1981), pp. 238–9Google Scholar. This is by far the most reliable account of the geography of Cappadocia and its excellent maps should be consulted for all the place-names mentioned here. For the extensive remains at Viranşehir see the photographs in Restle, M., Studien zur frühbyzantinischen Architektur Kappadokiens (Vienna, 1979)Google Scholar and also in Hild, F., Das Byzantinische Strassensystem in Kappadokien (Vienna, 1977), 50, 51Google Scholar.

16 Byzantinus, Stephanus, Ethnicorum Quae Supersunt, (ed. Meineke, A., Berlin, 1899), p. 457Google Scholar. On Capito see RE III, col. 1527. He wrote c. 500.

17 Walbank, (n. 8).

18 Professor Walbank suggests to me that the implication of his remark about a compressed text is that a number has dropped out between Parnassus and ‘κμησον’; he thinks it odd that we should not be given a duration for the third leg of the journey when we have them for the other two. Obviously it is impossible to be sure but one might argue that, as Chamanene is virtually on Parnassus' doorstep, it wasn't even a day's march.

A line of argument which might support Walbank's case for Camisene, although it is not one he uses himself, revolves around the meaning of ‘πεμπταῖοι’ and ‘κταῖοι’. When Ursinus proposed to replace Parnassus with Amasea, he clearly took κταῖοι to mean a six-day march from the Halys. (Quoted by Wesseling, n. 21, below). To translate in this way however, merely changes, rather than solves, the problem, as then one has to reject the MSS. reading Παρνασσν, which is supported on the grounds of lectio difficilior.

19 Müller, C. and Dubner, F., Strabonis Geographica (Paris, 1853), Ind. Var. Lect., p. 1020Google Scholar.

20 As suggested to me by Peter Derow.

21 Wesseling, P. (ed.), Vetera Romanorum Itineraria, sive Antonini Augusti Itinerarium, Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum et Hieroclis Grammatici Synecdemus (Amsterdam, 1735), p. 576Google Scholar. Incidentally, Wesseling adds further support to the view that the proper reading of U is κμησον (see above, n. 4).

22 I would like to thank Professor Frank Walbank, Dr Peter Derow and Dr John Briscoe for their improvements to this note. Moore (n. 4), p. 153 notes that Trinity College, Cambridge, holds a sixteenth-century manuscript of the De Legationibus, which has not been consulted by subsequent editors. Angela Heap has kindly consulted this MS. on my behalf and informs me that it reads καμνσην.