Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "VARKA Ancient city LIBYA".
Barce (Barke, he polis Barkeon, Scyl., Eth. Barkaios, Barcaeus; also
in the form Barkaia, Eth. Barkaiates, Steph. B.). An inland city of Cyrenaica,
founded by a body of seceders from Cyrene, under the Battiadae, Perseus, Zacyn-thus,
Aristomedon, and Lycus, who were driven, by the treatment they received from their
brother Arcesilaus II., king of Cyrene, to renounce their allegiance, and to establish
this new city (about B.C. 554). At the same time they induced the Libyans of the
interior (tous Libuas) to join in their revolt, and from this cause, as well as
from being founded in the midst of the Libyans, the city had from the first a
Greco-Libyan character, which it always retained. (Herod. iv. 160.) An indication
of this Libyan element seems to be furnished by the name of the king Alazir (Herod.
iv. 164); and it is an interesting fact that nearly the same name, Aladdeir, occurs
in an ancient genealogical table found at Cyrene. (Bockh, Corp. Inscr. No. 5147,
vol. iii. p. 523.)
Arcesilaus II. attempted to chastise his revolted Libyan subjects.
They fled for refuge to the kindred tribes in the deserts on the east, towards
Egypt, and, as Arcesilaus pursued them, they turned upon him and utterly defeated
him, killing 7000 of his soldiers: soon after which he was strangled by his own
brother Learchus. The intestine troubles of Cyrene now gave the Barcaeans an opportunity
of extending their power over the whole of the W. part of Cyrenaica, including
the district on the coast (as far as Hesperides), where we find the important
port of Teuchira (aft. Arsinoe), belonging to them. If we are to trust traditions
preserved by Servius (ad Virg. Aen. iv. 42), they carried their arms on land far
W. over the region of the Syrtes towards Carthage, and acquired such a maritime
power as to defeat the Phoenicians in a naval battle. The terror inspired by the
Persian conquest of Egypt-induced the princes of Barca, as well as those of Cyrene,
to send presents to Cambyses, and to promise an annual tribute; and in the subsequent
constitution of the empire, they were reckoned as belonging to the satrapy of
Egypt. (Herod. iii. 13, 91.) But meanwhile the rising power of Barca had received
a disastrous overthrow. In the conflicts of faction at Cyrene, Arcesilaus III.
had fled to his father-in-law, Alazir, king of Barca; but certain exiles from
Cyrene, uniting with a party of the Barcaeans, attacked both kings in the marketplace,
and killed them. Upon this, Pheretima, the mother of Arcesilaus, one of those
incarnations of female revenge whom history occasionally exhibits, applied for
aid to Aryandes, who had been appointed satrap of Egypt by Cambyses, and retained
the office under Dareius. Herodotus was doubtless right in supposing that Aryandes
welcomed the opportunity which seemed to present itself, for effecting the conquest
of Libya. He collected a powerful army and fleet; but, before commencing hostilities
he sent a herald to Barca, demanding to know who had slain Arcesilaus. The Barcaeans
collectively took the act upon themselves, for that they had suffered many evils
at his hands. The desired pretext being thus gained, Aryandes despatched the expedition.
(Herod. iv. 164.) After a fruitless siege of nine months, during which the Barcaeans
displayed skill equal to their courage, they were outwitted by a perfidious stratagem;
the Persians obtained possession of the city, and gave over the inhabitants to
the brutal revenge of Pheretima. Those of the citizens who were supposed to have
had most share in her son's death she impaled all round the circuit of the walls,
on which she fixed as bosses the breasts of their wives. The members of the family
of the Baltiadae, and those who were clearly guiltless of the murder, were suffered
to remain in the city. The rest of the inhabitants were led into captivity by
the Persians into Egypt, and were afterwards sent to Dareius, who settled them
in a village of Bactria, which was still called Barca in the time of Herodotus
(iv. 200-204). These events occurred about B.C. 510.
The tragic history of Barca would be incomplete without a mention
of the fate of Pheretima. Returning with the Persian army to Egypt, she died there
of a loathsome disease (zosa gar euleon echezese), for thus, adds the good old
chronicler, do men provoke the jealousy of the gods by the excessive indulgence
of revenge (iv. 205) : to which the modern historian adds another reflection,
curiously illustrative of the different points of view from which the same event
may be contemplated:-It will be recollected that in the veins of this savage woman
the Libyan blood was intermixed with the Grecian. Political enmity in Greece Proper
kills, but seldom, if ever, mutilates, or sheds the blood of women. (Grote, History
of Greece, vol. iv. p. 66.)
We hear little more of Barca, till its political extinction was completed,
under the Ptolemies, by the removal of the great body of its inhabitants to the
new city of Ptolemais erected on the site of the former port of Barca. Indeed,
the new city would seem to have received the name of the old one; for after this
period the geographers speak of Barca and Ptolemais as identical. (Strab. xvii.
p. 837; Plin. v. 5; Steph. B.) Ptolemy, however, distinguishes them properly,
placing Barca among the inland cities (iv. 4. § 11); a proof that, however decayed,
the city still existed in the 2nd century of our era. In fact, it long survived
its more powerful rival, Cyrene. Under the later empire it was an episcopal see,
and under the Arabs it seems (though some dispute this) to have risen to renewed
importance, on account of its position on the route from Egypt to the western
provinces of North Africa. (Edrisi, iii. 3; Barth, Wanderungen, &c. p. 405.) Meanwhile
its name has survived to the present day in that of the district of which it was
the capital, the province of Barca, in the regency of Tripoli; and it was transferred,
under the Romans, to the turbulent Libyan people, who lived as nomads in that
district. (Barcaei: comp. Polyaen. vii. 28; Aen. Poliorc. 37.) The Barcaeans were
celebrated for their race of horses; and a Greek writer repeats a traditionary
boast that they had learnt the breeding of horses from Poseidon, and the use of
the chariot from Athena. (Steph. B. s. v.) These were the horses which gained
the last Arcesilaus of Cyrene his place in the poetry of Pindar.
The position of Barca is accurately described by Scylax (pp. 45, 46,
Hudson), who places its harbour (limen ho kata Barken) 500 stadia from Cyrene,
and 620 from Hesperides, and the city itself 100 stadia from the sea, that is,
by the most direct route, up a ravine, for the road is much longer. It stood on
the summit of the terraces which overlook the W. coast of the Greater Syrtis,
in a plain which, though surrounded by the sands of the desert table-land (Desert
of Barca), is well watered, and beautifully fertile. The plain is called El-Merjeh,
and the same name is often given to the ruins which mark the site of Barca, but
the Arabs call them El-Medinah. These ruins are very inconsiderable, which is
at once accounted for by the recorded fact that the city was built of brick (Steph.
B.), and, in all probability, unburnt brick. (Barth, p. 405.) The few ruins which
remain are supposed by Barth to belong to the Arab city, with the exception of
those of the cisterns, on which this, like the other great cities of Africa, was
entirely built, and of which three still remain. Eastward of the valley in which
the city stands the route to Cyrene lies across the desert, and through a narrow
defile, the difficulty of which may have been one cause of the ease with which
the power of Barca appears to have been established. (Beechey, De la Cella, Pacho,
Barth.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited June 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Barca (Barke). Now Merjeh. The second city of Cyrenaica, in Northern Africa, 100 stadia from the sea. It appears to have been at first a settlement of a Libyan tribe, the Barraci, but about B.C. 560 was colonized by the Greek seceders from Cyrene, and became so powerful as to make the western part of Cyrenaica virtually independent of the mother city. In B.C. 510 it was taken by the Persians, who removed most of its inhabitants to Bactria; and under the Ptolemies its ruin was completed by the erection of its port into a new city, which was named Ptolemais.
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