« La seconde fondation » d'Istros, à la lumière d'un document inédit

The Founders of Western Pontic Cities

“…Although both οἰκίζω/οἰκιστής and κτίζω/κτίστης (‘to found/founder’) may refer to the setting up of a city, in the Hellenistic and the Roman ages, the second term was used more often in the sense of building or re-building a city rather than founding one (Leschhorn 1984, 3–5; McEwan 1988; Follet 1992). Bearing in mind the calamitous destruction inflicted in the mid-first century bce on Greek cities ranging from Apollonia to Olbia by Burebista, the king of the Getae and Dacian tribes from 82 bce to 44 bce , and the ensuing shortage of population, 5 the rebuilding of them in the following century is best qualified as their ‘second foundation’ (Pippidi 1968; Nawotka 1997, 50; 2000, 33–4; Musielak 2003, 95–6; Avram 2003, 318). If this is so, an early third-century ce inscription from Olbia, which refers to the ancestors of an euergetes named Kallisthenes, son of Kallisthenes, as the person ‘whose ancestors were distinguished, known to the Emperors and founders of the city’ (προγόνων ἐπισήμων τε καὶ σεβαστογνώστων̣ καὶ κτισάντων τὴν πόλιν), may also refer to the second foundation of this city ( IPE I 2 42).…”