Note 1116 — Chapter XCVIII · OUTLYING HELLENIC CITIES.

This Inscription—No. 2058—in Boeckh’s Inscr. Græc. part xi. p. 121 seq.—is among the most interesting in that noble collection. It records a vote of public gratitude and honor to a citizen of Olbia named Protogenes, and recites the valuable services which he as well as his father had rendered to the city. It thus describes the numerous situations of difficulty and danger from which he had contributed to extricate them. A vivid picture is presented to us of the distress of the city. The introduction prefixed by Boeckh (p. 86-89) is also very instructive.

Olbia is often spoken of by the name of Borysthenes, which name was given to it by foreigners, but not recognized by the citizens. Nor was it even situated on the Borysthenes river; but on the right or western bank of the Hypanis (Bug) river; not far from the modern Oczakoff.

The date of the above Inscription is not specified, and has been differently determined by various critics. Niebuhr assigns it (Untersuchungen über die Skythen, etc. in his Kleine Schriften, p. 387) to a time near the close of the second Punic war. Boeckh also believes that it is not much after that epoch. The terror inspired by the Gauls, even to other barbarians, appears to suit the second century B. C. better than it suits a later period.

The Inscription No. 2059 attests the great number of strangers resident at Olbia; strangers from eighteen different cities, of which the most remote is Miletus, the mother-city of Olbia.