45.30
This
pronouncement made on the first day of the conference called forth mixed
feelings in the audience. The unhoped-for boon of political liberty and the
lightening of the annual tribute were a great relief to them, but the
prohibition of mutual intercourse between the different cantons seemed to
them like the rending asunder of their country, like an animal deprived of its
limbs, where each limb is necessary to all the rest so ignorant were they of
the size of Macedonia, how easily it lent itself to division and how
self-contained each part was in itself. The first section includes the Bisaltae,
a nation of warriors living on the other side of the Nessus and around the
Strymon and contains many special kinds of fruit and minerals and the city of
Amphipolis, which is so conveniently situated, commanding as it does all
approaches from the east. Then again, the second division comprises the
populous cities of Thessalonica and Cassandrea and also the rich
corn-growing district of Pallene. Facilities for sea-borne traffic are afforded
by numerous harbours: some at Torone under Mount Athos, and at Aenea
and Acanthus, others facing Thessaly and Euboea, and others again easily
accessible from the Hellespont. The third canton includes the famous cities
of Edessa, Beroea and Pella, the warlike tribe of the Vettii and also a large
population of Gauls and Illyrians who are devoted to husbandry. The fourth
canton is peopled by the Eordaei the Lyncestae and the Pelagones, and there
are also the three cities of Atintania, Tymphaei, and Elimiotis. The whole of
this strip of country is cold and unkindly and difficult of cultivation, and the
character of the peasants corresponds to that of their country. Their
barbarian neighbours make them still more ferocious by sometimes
familiarising them with war, and in times of peace introducing their own rites
and customs. In this division of Macedonia, therefore, each separate portion
had its own distinctive advantages
