The city of Euesperitae (east of the present Bengazi) had existed from the early 6th century on the evidence of pottery; in the late 5th it had been attacked (according to Herodotus)[134] by the Persians during the first campaign against Barka. One view, relying on the general similarity of the governing institutions of Euesperitae to those of Thera and Cyrene as revealed by an inscription,[135] holds that the town was founded from the latter. Her first coins appear in about 480, when according to the symbols they bear, Euesperitae was allied with Cyrene.[136] Teucheira (today Tocra), situated on the coast between the port of Barka and Euesperitae, on the other hand, shows pottery from the late 7th century. Herodotus calls her “a town of Barka”,[137] but the information of the scholiast on Pindar, that this was a Cyrenean foundation,[138] would seem more correct. Her coins, extant from the first half of the 5th century, nevertheless, show an alliance with Barka,[139] and this may have been the source of Herodotus’ statement.
Cyrene in this period shows signs of economic prosperity. In about 525 human figures appear on her coins,[140] which begin to elicit Athenian influence. In 500 approximately, i.e. under Battus IV, the first inscribed coins are struck. Contemporarily the façade of the Temple of Apollo was readorned with Parian marble, to judge from the Gorgon akroterion found there;[141] this figure is perhaps to be connected with the similar figure now to be seen on the city’s coins.[142] Contemporary building activity in the south-east of Cyrene may be evidenced by a similar akroterion found in the area of the Agora.[143]The country’s Greek population was certainly growing at this period, if only due to the settlement of the mercenaries imported by Arkesilaos III; the head of the god Ammon, which begins to figure on Cyrenean and Barkan coins about 500,[144] hints at the drawing closer of connections with the cult of the Oasis of Ammon (Siwa) along the desert routes. Herodotus, at all events, knew of a colony of Samians settled at the Oasis of Hargiyeh between Ammon and Egypt in the middle of the 5th century,[145] and it is hard to explain its raison d’etre except on the assumption that they were engaged in the caravan trade. In the same years Pindar dedicated to the god Ammon verses which were inscribed on stone at the Oasis, apparently in the year 442 B.C.[146]
Among the finds from the Temple of Artemis, objects dated not later than about 500 reflect trade connections with Rhodes, Crete, perhaps also with Phoenicia and Central Africa,[147] while the gold objects from the same deposit point to a sound, even a prosperous, economic situation. On the criterion of the distribution of her coin-hoards in other countries at this time, Cyrene holds eighth place after Aegina, Athens, Thasos, Chios, Corinth, Naxos and Paros, and precedes several Greek centres of no small prominence, such as Miletus, Samos and Cyprus.[148] The distribution, therefore, furnishes an indication of the importance of Cyrenean trade. Yet it is not till the second half of the 5th century (c. 450)[149] that the city began to circulate gold coins,[150] since only then, it would seem, was access obtained to a supply of this precious metal. The problem of Cyrene’s trade along the desert routes will be discussed later.
The sources for Cyrene’s history in the 5th century are not abundant; even the evidence for the existence of the two last Battiad kings is slight, though it need not be rejected. Nothing is known of Battus IV, unless to him can be ascribed the repair of the Temple of Apollo and the striking of the city’s first inscribed coins. He appears to have died round about the year 470.[151] Arkesilaos IV, by contrast, was the subject of Pindar’s verse as victor in the chariot races at Delphi in 462[152] and at Olympia in 460.[153] Some have compared his court to the magnificent courts of the Sicilian tyrants;[154] it was apparently luxurious and cultured, to judge by the royal participation in the athletics of the mainland and by the presence of the poet Pindar. The statue described by Pausanias,[155] showing Battus crowned by the nymph Cyrene, riding in a chariot driven by Libya, seems to have been set up by Arkesilaos IV, as it was the work of the sculptor Amphion of Cnossos, active between 450 and 400 approximately.[156] In the view of most scholars Arkesilaos fell out with his nobles, some of whom he exiled — this is their interpretation of Pindar’s words[157] — but the view is disputed. It is known however that the King was forced to strengthen his power with the help of mercenaries brought from without, whom he settled at Euesperitai.[158] This was not the present Bengazi, which is on the site of the hellenistic city; the original site has been identified by air photography and excavation among the salt-lagoons near the northern shore, east of the present city.[159] The circumstances of Arkesilaos’ death are wrapped in obscurity, but the scholiast on Pindar[160] tells us that his enemies put and end to his life, and his son is known to have been killed at Euesperitai.[161]
The coins of Cyrene might reveal to us at least as much as the written records, were we able to determine the relationship between those of the period between 480 and 435 and the two last Battiad sovereigns. Robinson held[162] that the last of the tetradrams datable between 480 and 450, and the first tetradrams of the period 450-435, were to be associated with the period after the end of the monarchy, and that this applied equally to the coins of Cyrene, Barka and Euesperitae. On this view, Arkesilaos IV reigned from 475 to 450, and his coins are the first tetradrams bearing the head of Ammon, which reveal a complete artistic break with the past. A remarkable tetradram published by Jenkins[163] bearing an exceptionally fine head of Ammon in the late archaic style, is dated by Jenkins to 470-460, and thought by him to mark Cyrene’s new independent orientation after the Persian defeat at Plataea. Pindar, indeed, gives the impression[164] that in 462 Arkesilaos was still a young man, yet when Herodotus wrote in the middle of the century his rule had ended, since the historian had heard the Delphic prophecy[165] made allegedly to Arkesilaos III, that the Battiads would reign unto the eighth generation. This can with difficulty be reconciled with the scholiast’s statement on the Fourth Pythiad, that the dynasty ruled two hundred years (i.e. till circa 439), but his calculation may have depended on too formal an interpretation of the prophetic words “eight generations” (ὀκτὼ γεννεάς). Jenkins’ tetradram would indeed support an earlier end of the Battiad dynasty. Archaeological authority for the date of the end of Battiad rule is nevertheless found by Chamoux[166] in a bronze head discovered near the Temple of Apollo, representing, he thinks, Arkesilaos IV himself, as it wears a diadem and adorned the temple before its rebuilding in the mid-4th century B.C. The style of the portrait dates it with considerable precision to 440 B.C.,[167] which would be difficult to reconcile with the coin-evidence.
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Theotimus (