Greek Texts & Translations

built a temple, and evinced their great respect for Aristarcha by making her priestess. All the colonies [sent out from Marseilles] hold this goddess in peculiar reverence, preserving both the shape of the image [of the goddess], and also every rite observed in the metropolis. 5

The Massilians live under a well-regulated aristocracy. They have a council composed of 600 persons called timuchi, ^note who enjoy this dignity for life. Fifteen of these preside over the council, and have the management of current affairs; these fifteen are in their turn presided over by three of their number, in whom rests the principal authority; and these again by one. No one can become a timuchus who has not children, and who has not been a citizen for three generations. ^note Their laws, which are the same as those of the Ionians, they expound in public. Their country abounds in olives and vines, but on account of its ruggedness the wheat is poor. Consequently they trust more to the resources of the sea than of the land, and avail themselves in preference of their excellent position for commerce. Nevertheless they have been enabled by the power of perseverance to take in some of the surrounding plains, and also to found cities: of this number are the cities they founded in Iberia as a rampart against the Iberians, in which they introduced the worship of Diana of Ephesus, as practised in their father-land, with the Grecian mode of sacrifice. In this number too are Rhoa ^note [and] Agatha, ^note [built for defence] against the barbarians dwelling around the river Rhone; also Tauroentium, ^note Olbia, ^note Antipolis ^note and Nicaea, ^note [built as a rampart] against the nation of the Salyes and the Ligurians who inhabit the Alps. They ^note possess likewise dry docks and armouries. Formerly they had an abundance of vessels, arms, and machines, both for the purposes of navigation and for besieging towns; by means of which they defended themselves against the bar-