814
TROAS
TROPHIMUS
founded on the site by Antigonus, and called Antigoiiia Troas : the people oi Skepsis, Cebren, Hamaxilus, and other towns were settled there. In 300 Lysimathus refounded and renamed the city Alexandria Troas. It was for a time under the dominion of the Seleucid kings of Syria; and there are coins of Antiochus II. Tlieos (B.C. 201-246) struck at Troas. As Seleucid power waned, it gained its freedom and began to strike its own coinage. Many tetradrachms .VAErAXAPEflX with the head and name of Apollo Smintheus were coined there from about B.C. 164 to 65; they are all dated from an era whose first j-ear was probably about B.C. 300, when Alexandria was founded.* The Pergamenian rule, under which it must have passed, was not, like the Seleucid, destructive to freedom ; and the same was true of the Roman dominion, under which the city passed in B.C. 133.
The Romans cherished a peculiarly warm feeling towards Troas, on account of their Trojan origin, a legend in wiiich they had come to believe tlioroughly ; tiieir favour for Ilium on the same {ground is well iinown. Alexandria was made a Roman Colonia by Au>,'ustu8, under the name Colonia Augusta Alex- andria Troas (to wliich under Caracalla the titles Aurelia Anto- niniana were added). It possessed the jus Italicum, i.e. the Italian privileges in the tenure and ownership of land, along with immunity from poll-tax and land-tax (immunitas), and freedom from the command of the governor of the province (libertax). It had the ordinary colonial constitution, chief magistrates called duoviri, and a senate of cUcurioncs ; and it was divided into 10 vici. Its citizens belonged to the Roman tribe Aniensi8(not Sergia, as commonly stated), see Kubitschek, l7np. Rom. trilmt. lU'seript. p. 247. It became one of the greatest and largest cities of the north-west of Asia. In the coasting voyage system of ancient navigation, it waa the har- bour to and from" which the communication between Asia and Macedonia was directed (cf. Ac 168 20S, 2 Co 212). Owing to the greatness of Troas and its legendary connexion with the foundation of Rome, the idea was actually entertained by Julius Caisar of transferring thither the centre of government from Rome (Suet. Jul. 79) ; and some similar scheme was still not whoUv forgotten when Horace protested against it in Od. iii. 3. Hadrian prcjbably visited Troas,} and it was perliaps his intertst in it that led the wealthy and politic Herodes .\tticus J to build there an aqueduct (the ruins of which were imposing in very recent times) and baths.
Finally, that dream of the early empire may have had some influence on Constantine, who (as Gibbon says), ' before he gave a just preference to the situation of Byzantium, had conceived the design of erecting the seat of empire on this celebrated spot, from which the Romans derived tlieir fabulous oripin.' In view of these fanciful but really cherished schemes, it is in- teresting to obser\e that the modem name is Eski-Stamboul, 'Old Stambul,' while Constantinople is Staniboul simply.
The great sanctuary of the Alexandrian State was the temple of Apollo Smintheus^ near the coast, about twelve miles south of the city : it was originally in the territor>' of Hamaxitus, and AJexandna inherited the temple along with the people of that town. The symbol of this god was the mouse (or rat), which often appears on the coins of Troas.
The route followed by St. Paul, with Silas and Timothy, from the Bithynian frontier near Dory- laion or Kotiaion, brought the party to the coast at Troas (Ac 16"-'). There can be little doubt that this road led down the Khyndacus valley past the hot springs Artemaia, sacred to Artemis, on the river Aisepos.§ In the Acta Philclnri [Acta Sanc- torum, 19 May, p. 312 fl'.) the tratiition (which is clearly older than the Acta) is recorded that the church at a village I'oketos, between the Khyn- dacus and Cyzicus, was dedicated by Paul and Silas when they visited Troas. This tradition probably relates to this journey (though it might seem not impossible that it relates to the visit of Paul [Silas
• Another Buggcstion is that the Seleucid State era, beginning B.C. 312, was used at Troas ; but all the dated coins were struck after Troas bad been iniludtdin the I'crgamenian realm, and the use of the Seleucid era then, thou^Oi possible, seems improbable.
t The inscription, CIL iii. 460, qvioted in proof by Dorr (fl«««n d« A. Hadrian», p. 65), affords no evidence. But Hadrian certainly visited Ilium and probably Lesbos (per Asiam et iimUM, Spart.) ; and Troas lay between them.
{ Probably a.d. 132-13fi, when he was trijatua to improve the condition of the free cities of Asia (Philostr. VU. Soph. i. xxv. 13).
{ Ramsay, St. Paul the Trav. p. 197. A different theory of route was stated by Mr. Munro in the Otographical Jmtnml, Feb 1897, p. 169 f., but afterwards abandoned by him (Jounuu e/ HM. Studia, 1901, p. 235).
is not mentioned] to Troas in 2 Co 2"), and em- bodies a belief that Paul preached in Mysia on this journey, conformably to which belief the Western reading in Ac 16" has 5tt\d6yTes ttji' Mt/iriav, where NAB, etc., have irapeXflii'Tes, 'neglecting,' i.e. pass- ing through without preaching in Mysia (on account of the prohibition to evangelize the province Asia, of which Mysia was part, Ac 16^). Here the Western reading and the local tradition seem to form a later and secondary interpretation, which tended to obscure and expel the true Lukan read- ing. The ' open door ' at Troas (2 Co 2'-) implies either that great facility for mission work was found in the city, or that the city was. the entrance of a good avenue to reach the country around and behind (compare the similar door at Philadel- phia).