Istros in 218 B.C.

Istros — Spring 218 BC · The Eldest City of the Ister-Mouths.

Istros — the eldest of the Greek cities of the western Euxine, planted by the Milesians long ages past on a lagoon near the mouths of the Ister, the great river whose name it bears. It is a trading polis of the Getic and Thracian frontier, living by the grain of the inland plains, the fish of the river-mouths and the lagoon, and the carrying-trade that flows down the Ister and along the Pontic shore. It strikes its own silver coin and honours above all Apollo Ietros, the Healer. Ringed on every side by stronger neighbours — the Getae and Scythians of the open plain, the Odrysians of the Thracian interior — and sharing the coast with its younger sisters Tomis and Kallatis, Istros keeps its freedom less by the spear than by tribute, treaty and the friendship of the lords at its back.

Where the Ister breaks into its many mouths and pours into the Euxine, the oldest of the Greek cities of this coast keeps its watch upon a lagoon a little south of the delta. Istros was here before Tomis, before Kallatis — a Milesian foundation grown grey with age, drawing its life from the grain of the Getic plains, the fish that crowd the river-mouths, and the goods that pass down the Ister and along the shore. But it is a Greek island in a barbarian sea. The Getae and the Scythians range the open steppe at its back, the Odrysian lords hold the Thracian interior, and the city is not strong enough to defy them: it lives by paying them off, by gifts and treaties and the careful friendship of neighbours far mightier than itself. Its strength is its harbour, its corn-trade and its own good silver coin — not its walls.