DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4324#0022
TEOS.
In the mean time, Polyxenidas, admiral of the royal fleet, had sailed from Colophon with
eighty-nine ships, and being informed of these motions of the Praetor, and that he occupied this
port conceived great hopes of attacking the Roman fleet now, in the same manner he lately did
the Rhodian at Samos, where he beset the mouth of the port Panormus, in which it lay; this
resembling that spot, the promontories approaching each other, and forming an entrance so
narrow that two ships could scarcely pass through together. His design was to seize on this strait
by night, and secure it with ten ships, to attack the adversary on either side in coming out;
and by setting an armed force ashore from the remaining fleet, to overpower him at once by sea
and land.
This plan, the historian remarks, would have succeeded; but the Teians complying with his
demand, the Praetor put round into the port before the city, which was deemed more commodious
for shipping the stores. Eudamus too, who commanded the squadron from Rhodes, was said to
have pointed out the peril of their station; two ships entangling and breaking their oars in the
strait. The Praetor had also a farther reason for bringing his fleet round, being insecure from the
continent, as Antiochus had a camp in the neighbourhood. On gaining the port, both soldiers
and sailors, quitting their vessels, were busied in dividing the wine and provisions, when a peasant
informed the Praetor that Polyxenidas approached.* The signal was instantly sounded for reim-
barking immediately. Tumult and confusion followed, each ship hastening out of port, as soon
as manned. The whole fleet proceeded in order of battle to meet the enemy; and a general
engagement ensued, in which the Romans proved victorious.
But to return. The favourite deity of the Teians was Dionysius or Bacchus. To him they
consecrated their city and territory; and, before the preceding transaction,* had solicited the
Roman and other states to distinguish both, by decreeing them sacred and an asylum. Several of
the answers then given still remain fairly cut on pieces of grey marble, but disjoined; some of
the fragments being found in the bagnio at Segigeck, some inserted in the wall, and one over a
fountain without the south gate; some also in the burying-grounds round about Sevrihissar. All
these are published by Chishull, from copies taken by Consul Sherard in 1709, and again
examined in 1716. And the learned editor has prefixed to these literary monuments of the
Teians, a delineation of their important idol; to which the reader, curious in that article, is
referred.
The spot being therefore the peculiar possession of Dionysius, the Dionysiac artificers, who
were very numerous in Asia,J and so called from their patron, the reputed inventor of theatrical
representation, when incorporated by command of the Kings of Pergamus,$ settled here, in the
city of their tutelary God; supplying from it Ionia, and the country beyond as far as the
* Liv. C. 29. X Koci tu Aiovu<r&> t^v A<tmv cXviv x,a§iepu<rav]eg /»£%/)< y%q
-f- The Roman Decree was made Ann. U. C. 559. Ante ivhytyg—Strab. p. 471.
Ch. 193. Chishull, Antiquitat. Jsiaticee. § Chishull, p. 107, 138.
In the mean time, Polyxenidas, admiral of the royal fleet, had sailed from Colophon with
eighty-nine ships, and being informed of these motions of the Praetor, and that he occupied this
port conceived great hopes of attacking the Roman fleet now, in the same manner he lately did
the Rhodian at Samos, where he beset the mouth of the port Panormus, in which it lay; this
resembling that spot, the promontories approaching each other, and forming an entrance so
narrow that two ships could scarcely pass through together. His design was to seize on this strait
by night, and secure it with ten ships, to attack the adversary on either side in coming out;
and by setting an armed force ashore from the remaining fleet, to overpower him at once by sea
and land.
This plan, the historian remarks, would have succeeded; but the Teians complying with his
demand, the Praetor put round into the port before the city, which was deemed more commodious
for shipping the stores. Eudamus too, who commanded the squadron from Rhodes, was said to
have pointed out the peril of their station; two ships entangling and breaking their oars in the
strait. The Praetor had also a farther reason for bringing his fleet round, being insecure from the
continent, as Antiochus had a camp in the neighbourhood. On gaining the port, both soldiers
and sailors, quitting their vessels, were busied in dividing the wine and provisions, when a peasant
informed the Praetor that Polyxenidas approached.* The signal was instantly sounded for reim-
barking immediately. Tumult and confusion followed, each ship hastening out of port, as soon
as manned. The whole fleet proceeded in order of battle to meet the enemy; and a general
engagement ensued, in which the Romans proved victorious.
But to return. The favourite deity of the Teians was Dionysius or Bacchus. To him they
consecrated their city and territory; and, before the preceding transaction,* had solicited the
Roman and other states to distinguish both, by decreeing them sacred and an asylum. Several of
the answers then given still remain fairly cut on pieces of grey marble, but disjoined; some of
the fragments being found in the bagnio at Segigeck, some inserted in the wall, and one over a
fountain without the south gate; some also in the burying-grounds round about Sevrihissar. All
these are published by Chishull, from copies taken by Consul Sherard in 1709, and again
examined in 1716. And the learned editor has prefixed to these literary monuments of the
Teians, a delineation of their important idol; to which the reader, curious in that article, is
referred.
The spot being therefore the peculiar possession of Dionysius, the Dionysiac artificers, who
were very numerous in Asia,J and so called from their patron, the reputed inventor of theatrical
representation, when incorporated by command of the Kings of Pergamus,$ settled here, in the
city of their tutelary God; supplying from it Ionia, and the country beyond as far as the
* Liv. C. 29. X Koci tu Aiovu<r&> t^v A<tmv cXviv x,a§iepu<rav]eg /»£%/)< y%q
-f- The Roman Decree was made Ann. U. C. 559. Ante ivhytyg—Strab. p. 471.
Ch. 193. Chishull, Antiquitat. Jsiaticee. § Chishull, p. 107, 138.