rebuilt,^24 and in the period around 280– 278 bc, when a hoard of
Macedonian coins was concealed. This last evidence has been connected
by the excavator, Jan Bouzek, with the historically-attested Celtic incur-
sions at that time.^25 The period between the principal Celtic incursions
in the Balkans and the war between Rhodes and Byzantion in 220bc
(Plb. 4.37.8; 45–52), presents a complex and confusing picture, since we
have few precise facts on which to reconstruct a plausible understanding
of the opaque tensions between, on the one hand, the cities of the western
Black Sea coast and those near the Hellespontine Straits and, on the
other, the various communities of the interior.
Alexandru Avram has provided an ingenious argument to explain why
the invasion of Thrace staged by the Seleukid king Antiochos II during
the later 250s bcwas the ostensible sign of a larger confrontation
between the Seleukid king and Ptolemy II of Egypt. Ptolemy bestowed
a number of benefactions on the city of Byzantion, probably in the early
270sbc,and continued to provide support for the city, and for a closely
connected alliance, which included Herakleia Pontika and Kios. Anti-
ochos II besieged Byzantion, probably in 255bc, at the time of the so-
called‘Monopoly War’between Byzantion on the one hand and Istros
and Kallatis on the other, for control of theemporionat Tomis.^26 Avram
(^24) Domaradzki inPistiros I,30–1 (coins of Philip II, Alexander III and early issues of
Lysimachos show traces offire damage; examples of Lysimachos’final series do not);
Katinčarova inPistiros III,36–7, confirming this chronology on the basis of three separate
road surfaces in stone and the material between them); on tradeamphoraeat Adjiyska
Vodenitsa: Bouzek et al. 2007; Tzochev inPistiros III, 187–9; Y. Garlan inPistiros IV, 246
(addenda and corrigenda); Tušlová et al. 2010 (dating importedamphoraeat this site
between the laterfifth and end of the fourth centurybc). However, among the samples
analysed by Kuleff et al., there are examples with handles stampedÌÔP/O ̃ÙPÙand ̋ÔI/ÖI ̧OYthat belong to the‘Parmeniskos’group, formerly attributed either to Thasos
or Mende and the cluster that includes theÌ`ÔPO/BIOYstamps, identified by Stoyanov
as products of a Mesambrian workshop from the end of thefirst quarter and mainly from
the second quarter of the third centurybc(Kuleff et al. 2007; Stoyanov 2011). The stamps in
this series are typologically close to Thasian series X, dated by Tzochev 274– 59 bc.
(^25) J. Bouzek,Pistiros III, 64 and pl. 18; 286 (434 drachms of Alexander III, Lysimachos
and other early Hellenistic Successors; 115 tetradrachms of Philip II, Alexander III,
Demetrius Poliorketes, and Seleukos I; 3 gold staters of Alexander III); on the Celtic
presence in the east Balkans and western Asia Minor: Mitchell 1993, 13–20; Chaniotis
2005, 220–1, 228, 230, 235–40; see also the contributions to Vagalinski 2010.
(^26) Antiochos II and the siege of Byzantion: MemnonFGrH434 F15; Polyaen.Strat. 4.16;
Will,Histoire Politique 1, 247–8; Draganov 1993 on the coins minted at Kabyle; Avram
2003, 1184–9, 1201–2; civic inter-relations: 1193–1200; he also identifiesIGBRI^2 388 as a
decree of Mesambria, not Apollonia, though it honours an Apollonian benefactor;‘Mon-
opoly War’: MemnonFGrH434 F13, with Avram 2003, 1187–8, 1211–12, and Gabrielsen
2011, 223–6, emphasizing the city’s specialized control offish stocks.
204 Regionalism and regional economies