Kallatis in 218 B.C.

Kallatis — Spring 218 BC · The Dorian Corn-City of the Euxine.

Kallatis — a Dorian Greek city on the west coast of the Pontus, planted by colonists out of Heraclea Pontica on the low Thracian shore that the Getae hold behind it. Alone among the Greek cities of this coast it keeps the broad Doric speech and the old Megarian institutions of its mother-city, and it is the most assertive of them all: it joined the great revolt of the Pontic cities against Lysimachus, and within living memory it went to war with Byzantium — with Istros as its ally — over the little emporion of Tomis that lies between them. Its wealth is wheat: the deep black soil of the Getic plain pours out grain that Kallatian ships carry down to the Aegean. A proud democracy of the Dorians on a barbarian shore, rich in corn and jealous of its standing among the cities of the Euxine.

Kallatis stands on the western shore of the Pontus, on the low coast of Thrace where the land of the Getae runs down to the sea. It is a Dorian city — a colony of Herakleia Pontike, itself a daughter of Megara — and it carries that descent with pride, keeping the Doric tongue and the old institutions among the Ionian foundations that crowd this coast. Behind it spreads the great grain-plain that makes it rich: the wheat of the Getic country, which Kallatian merchantmen ship south to feed the cities of the Aegean. Wealth has made it bold. It rose with its neighbours against Lysimachus when the Macedonian pressed too hard upon the coast, and not long ago it fought Byzantium itself, with Istros at its side, for mastery of the trading-post of Tomis. In 218 it is a self-governing democracy, the proudest of the west-Pontic Greek cities, exporting its corn and guarding its place among them.