this with any degree of thoroughness, it is easier to re-construct the whole history, as far as the ancient sources allow, than to keep up a running commentary on the somewhat meagre sketch of Mr. Schmitz.

1

The historical notices of the town are not many, and are often provokingly vague. The reason of this is apparent. From its early settlement down to a couple of hundred years after the beginning of authentic history, the city of Smyrna was one of the most flourishing cities of Asia Minor. Many years after, under the successors of Alexander the Great, it regained, though under a totally changed state of affairs, much of its ancient prominence, and under Augustus and Tiberius and subsequent emperors it is again spoken of as "the gem of Ionia," and "the eye of Asia." 2 But between these two periods there is a great gulf fixed; Smyrna was razed to the ground, as we shall try to show below, at or after 580, B. C.,- and lay in ruins till it was restored in Alexander's time, or shortly after. During this long interval nothing remained but the temples, and a few scattered hainlets, occupied by the descendants of the ancient inhabitants. Hence, in the great historical game played between the people of the East and the people of the West, and afterwards in the feud between Sparta and Athens, Smyrna could take no part.3 The town lay conse quently out of the range of the great historians, who probably looked on it as a place that had vanished forever from the face of the earth. Herodotus alludes to it only two or three times, and then incidentally. Thucydides never mentions the name. The most direct and authentic sources left us for the history of the old town are the scanty notices of epic and lyric poets. The deductions drawn from these notices by later Greek writers can only be used with great caution. Of the new town the notices of historians, perie

1 Boeckh, C. I. 3191 of the period of Sept. Severus, and often in inscriptions. 2 Aristid. Μor. ἐπὶ Σμ. Ι. p. 428.

3 It is nothing but a blunder when Kortüm, Hellenische Staatsverfassungen, p. 51, enumerates Smyrna among the allies of Athens in the Peloponnesian War.

gets and geographers enable us to give a somewhat more connected account. The rhetor Aelius Aristides of Smyrna, gives some incidental information. His ideas of the history are shallow and absurd, but for his own times he is a credible witness. The coins and inscriptions are all, unfortunately, of the new Smyrna.

Histories, indeed, of the town were not wanting. Those historians who treated of the Aeolic and Ionian confederations could hardly have failed to notice a town which was, in a measure, the connecting link between the two confederations; and Alexandrine industry must have occupied itself with the history of a place toward which so many unshaken evidences point as the birthplace of the Homeric songs. Of special histories of the town we have two titles, of whose existence Mr. Schmitz does not seem to be aware, The first is Ἱστορικὰ περὶ Ζμύρνης, Historical Investigations on Smyrna. The second is Πίναξ Ρωμαίων καὶ Ζμυρναίων διαδοχὴ κατὰ χρόνους, which seems to have been a chronological or annalistic catalogue of distinguished Romans and Smyrnaeans, probably public functionaries.' The loss of

these works, which are known to us only through an inscription,2 cannot be sufficiently deplored, as the author, Hermogenes, the son of Charidemus, who lived seventy-seven years, and wrote seventy-seven books, treated many interesting things connected with our subject, such as the Wisdom and the Country of Homer, and the Foundation of Colonies in Europe and Asia. A third work, mentioned by Suetonius, a Commentarius Smyrnae, by L. Crassitius, a freedman of Tarentum, is understood by some commentators to be a history of Smyrna. But Weichert and others have shown conclusively that this was a commentary on the erudite poem of Cinna.

Among modern writers on Smyrna Mr. Schmitz quotes

1 Such as the στρατηγοί, the ἄρχοντες and the πρυτάνεις ; or the στεφανηφόροι, who, as we learn from the names of females (C. I. 3150. 3173), were not civic but religious functionaries, but yet gave a name to the year; Philostr. vitt soph. 2, 26, 2 : ἡ στεφανηφόρος ἀρχὴ — ἀφ ̓ ὧν τοῖς ἐνιαυτοῖς τίθενται Σμυρναῖοι τὰ ὀνόματα. 2 C. I. 3311. 3 De gramm. 18. 4 Poett. Latt. Rel. p. 184.

-

Prokesch von Osten, whose observations on topography are useful, though his historical sketch is brief, and disfigured by some great inaccuracies; he quotes for example, under the name of Curtius, the supplements of Freinsheim. Arundell's work, Discoveries in Asia Minor, seems to have been overlooked. This book might have been used with advantage, as the second volume contains a history. A better book is the little work in Romaic, by Oeconomus, published at Malta, in 1831, which Arundell copies. The historical materials are here collected with care, though the criticism is not what it should be. How much confidence can be placed in a work which declares on the first page that Herodotus wrote the life of Homer?

The admirable commercial situation of Smyrna seems to have been appreciated in the earliest times. Philostratus 1 says she was mistress of the gates of land and sea; on the seaside the gulf, says Aristides, the rhetor, in a rhetorizing strain, bears the name of one gulf, but winds into many gulfs, with thousands of harbors and stations for ships. Landward a road ran to the centre of the Lydian realm, and its capital, Sardis. Traditions and monuments alike indicate that this road was travelled from the remotest antiquity, perhaps even long before the foundation of Sardis. Herodotus3 saw there two stone figures of the Egyptian conqueror, Sesostris or Ramses, which still remain as witnesses of the great historian's fidelity. This seems to indicate pretty clearly that considerably before the occupation of the coast by the Aeolic and Ionian colonies, Smyrna was a point of connection between the interior and the sea. Tradition furthermore reports that the Lydians, who left their country during the famine under king Atys, embarked at Smyrna, probably coming down to the sea-shore from the interior of Lydia by the same road.

This great Lydian highway, travelled by Herodotus, is undoubtedly the one of which the poet Hipponax, more than

1 Vitt. Soph. 1, 21, 5.

3

2, 106.

* Σμυρ. Πολ. Ι. p. 381.

4 Her. 1, 94.

a century before Herodotus, gives a sort of Itinerarium in a passage that is somewhat corrupt, but clear enough to show it was marked by august sepulchral monuments like the great Roman roads. "Go," he says of the "journey to Smyrna," "through the Lydians, past the tomb of Attales, and the monument of Gyges, and the gravestone of Megastrys, (?) and the sepulchre of Atys and king Myrsilus, turning thy belly to the setting sun." A recent philologist has endeavored to prove that, since Hipponax was an Ephesian, and a suburb of Ephesus bore the name of Smyrna, the Ephesian Smyrna must be the one he refers to. But this assumption may be refuted by reasons that must commend themselves to every sensible man. In the first place, perspicuity would require the poet to add some qualification to the name, if he meant the Ephesian suburb; otherwise his readers would naturally understand the city of Smyrna, and not the suburb of Ephesus. In another place 3 where the suburb is mentioned, he defines it geographically. Secondly, he speaks of "the road to Smyrna, through the Lydians," and in a westerly direction. The starting point to be sure is not given. But the most natural starting point is the great city of Sardis, and the first mentioned tomb, that of Attales, shows that this city is probably meant. Attales, as we learn from Nicolaus Damascenus, was the son of Sadyattes, king of Lydia, and his monument would naturally be at the capital of the realm. From Sardis to Smyrna the traveller would go directly westward, while from Sardis to Ephesus he would go considerably to the south. Thirdly, there is no important point or town to the east of Ephesus, and a course westward to Ephesus would not be through the Lydians (dià Avdŵv), but past (wapú) the outskirts of Lydia, or indeed mostly through Caria. Fourthly, Hipponax evidently enumerates the monuments in their order from

1 Fr. 47 Schneidewin; 15 Bergk.

2 In Schneidewin's Philologus, 1851, p. 70.

4

8 Fr. 26.

Fr. 47, quoted by Bergk.; hence the emendation of Schneidewin, 'Aλváttew for 'ATTάλew, which refers it to the famous monument of Alyattes at Sardis mentioned by Herodotus, and still in existence, is unnecessary.

east to west, ending with the monument of Atys, which seems to be near the Smyrna he refers to. We have seen from Herodotus that Smyrna is concerned in the traditions of Atys's reign; and the hill, which even as late as the times of Aristides,1 bore the name of "Atys's Hill," was probably the seat of the ancient monument of this king, or of a monument that passed for his.

From these and other scanty memorials of a remote age, we learn one thing, that there was a Smyrna before Smyrna. That is, that before the establishment of the Greek colony, there was a settlement of some maritime importance near the Meles. The stretch of shore which was afterwards dotted with Greek towns was held, according to Pherecydes,2 by two tribes at the time of the Greek settlement, the Carians and Leleges, the Carians occupying Miletus, Myus, and the tracts about Mycale and Ephesus, the Leleges the rest of the shore as far as Phocaea (including the islands of Chios and Samos), and consequently the seat of the subsequent Smyrna.3 The great similarity of these two tribes is sufficiently shown by the frequent confusion of their names; and their affinity with the Mysians and the great Lydian stock is indicated by the mythical brotherhood of Lydus, Mysus, and Car. The oldest local and particular legends of Smyrna cluster round the mythical names of Tantalus and his son Pelops. Pelops reigned near Mt. Sipylus before his departure for Pelops's Island; Tantalus is named as the founder of the town. Doubtless in these myths lies a germ of historic truth. The Lelegian or Lydian town, which, according to report, was swallowed by a lake, may as well be called Tantalus's Town, as by

1 'Iep. Aoy. I. p. 499. It is but fair to say that the reading Arvos for the senseless Tos of the codd. is due to Schneidewin; it is so well confirmed by the evidence of Aristides, though the emendation was made independently of Aristides, that it may be considered established.

2 Ap. Strab. 14, p. 632.

3 Strab. 14, p. 644.

4 Her. 1, 171.

6 Aristid. Προσφ. Σμύρν. I. p. 440 ; id. Μor. ἐπὶ Σμύρν. p. 425 ; Paus. 2, 22, 4 : 5, 13, 4.

* Aristid. Mov. ¿πl Σμ. I. p. 427. Stephan. Byz. gives as the name of Tantalus's town, which was afterwards supplanted by the Amazonian settlement, Nau