Note 555 — Chapter LXXXVII · FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SACRED WAR TO THAT OF THE OLYNTHIAN WAR.

Plutarch, Demosth. c. 4; Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 78. c. 57; Demosth. cont. Aphob. B. p. 835. According to Æschines, Gylon was put on his trial for having betrayed Nymphæum to the enemy; but not appearing, was sentenced to death in his absence, and became an exile. He then went to Bosphorus (Pantikapæum), obtained the favor of the king (probably Satyrus—see Mr. Clinton’s Appendix on the kings of Bosphorus—Fasti Hellenic. Append. xiii, p. 282), together with the grant of a district called Kepi, and married the daughter of a rich man there; by whom he had two daughters. In after-days, he sent these two daughters to Athens, where one of them, Kleobulê, was married to the elder Demosthenes. Æschines has probably exaggerated the gravity of the sentence against Gylon, who seems only to have been fined. The guardians of Demosthenes assert no more than that Gylon was fined, and died with the fine unpaid, while Demosthenes asserts that the fine was paid.

Upon the facts here stated by Æschines, a few explanatory remarks will be useful. Demosthenes being born 382-381 B. C., this would probably throw the birth of his mother Kleobulê to some period near the close of the Peloponnesian war, 405-404 B. C. We see, therefore, that the establishment of Gylon in the kingdom of Bosphorus, and his nuptial connection there formed, must have taken place during the closing years of the Peloponnesian war; between 412 B. C. (the year after the Athenian catastrophe at Syracuse) and 405 B. C.

These were years of great misfortune to Athens. After the disaster at Syracuse, she could no longer maintain ascendency over, or grant protection to, a distant tributary like Nymphæum in the Tauric Chersonese. It was therefore natural that the Athenian citizens there settled, engaged probably in the export trade of corn to Athens, should seek security by making the best bargain they could with the neighboring kings of Bosphorus. In this transaction Gylon seems to have stood conspicuously forward, gaining both favor and profit to himself. And when, after the close of the war, the corn-trade again became comparatively unimpeded, he was in a situation to carry it on upon a large and lucrative scale. Another example of Greeks who gained favor, held office, and made fortunes, under Satyrus in the Bosphorus, is given in the Oratio (xvii.) Trapezitica of Isokrates, s. 3, 14. Compare also the case of Mantitheus the Athenian (Lysias pro Mantitheo, Or. xvi. s. 4), who was sent by his father to reside with Satyrus for some time, before the close of the Peloponnesian war; which shows that Satyrus was at that time, when Nymphæum was probably placed under his protection, in friendly relations with Athens.

I may remark that the woman whom Gylon married, though Æschines calls her a Scythian woman, may be supposed more probably to have been the daughter of some Greek (not an Athenian) resident in Bosphorus.