previous next


κατά: not ‘near’ but ‘on the line of’. For H.'s rough attempt to construct geographical ‘parallels’ cf. ii. 34. 1 and App. XIII, § 4. Pteria is probably Boghaz Keui, within the bend of the Halys (lat. 40°), about 60 miles north-east of the bridge; the exploration of the ruins began by Winckler in 1906 has brought to light a mass of tablets in cuneiform script, partly in Babylonian, partly in a language as yet untranslated (cf. King and Hall, pp. 468 seq.); they include fragments of diplomatic correspondence with Egypt and the East, of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries B.C. The ‘Royal Road’ (cf. v. 52 nn.) crossed at Pteria the road running north and south from Sinope, via Mazaca and the Cilician gates, to Tarsus (Ramsay, A. M. p. 33). The early importance of Pteria probably determined the direction of both these roads, neither of which follows the easiest line for a through route. It seems to have been the capital of an Anatolian kingdom which we may call ‘Hittite’; for the history of this cf. Garstang, Hitt. pp. 315 seq.; for a description of the ruins of Pteria, ib. p. 197 seq., well illustrated with photographs.


H. emphasizes the guilt of Croesus as aggressor, to justify his later overthrow (cf. 130. 3). Garstang (pp. 33, 199) seems to think that the Hittite power survived till the capture of Pteria by Croesus, but this is very doubtful.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: