The Expositor Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 29 TARSUS. XI. The Greeks In Tarsus. The events in Cilicia in 171 B.c., described in the previous chapter of this study, introduced a new period in the ... more »history of Tarsus. It was henceforth a Greek city-state, governing itself in all internal matters through its own elective magistrates, and exercising certain sovereign rights such as the striking of its own autonomous coins. In various respects, and especially in all relations to foreign states, Tarsus undoubtedly must have been subject to the Seleucid kings : that was a necessity of the Empire. The relation of a free city such as Tarsus now was, to the central government of the Seleucid Empire is, however, quite obscure ; and until some of the cities of this class are excavated and the whole subject carefully studied, it is impossible to speak about details. For our present purposes it is extremely important to determine what was the character of the constituent population of the free city of Tarsus. It would consist of the former population together with a certain body of new citizens, introduced in the manner and for the purpose already described. All that can be learned or conjectured about the older city has been already stated in the preceding chapter. It now remains to ask what evidence can be found as to the new citizens introduced in 171-170 B.c. It has been shown1 that in their colonial foundations, the Seleucid kings were obliged to trust mainly to two peoples, the Greeks and the Jews, " to manage, to lead, to train the rude Oriental peasantry in the arts on which civilized life must rest, to organize and utilize their labourand create a commercial system." This class of colonists was even more necessary than soldiers in those colonies. 1 Letters to the Seven Churthes, p. 130. The Greeks in those He...« less