artefacts has underscored the strong continuity of mining and smelting
technology along the entire Thracian coastline.^29
The change of perspective reflected in Pébarthe’s discussion arises
from a number of developments in the study of the area between the
lower estuaries of the Rivers Strymon and Nestos. The discovery at Neos
Skopos, south of Serres, on the eastern bank of the River Strymon, of an
inscription that refers to a grant or lease of land by the city of Berge to
one Timesikrates (the text dated by letter formsc.470/460bc), confirms
the location of Berge at Neos Skopos, rather than at Vergi, on the western
bank.^30 The presence of Thasians in this area, 12 km north of Amphi-
polis, shows that the idea ofemporiaprobably needs to be applied more
flexibly than simply to assume that Thasos operated an export trade via
its coastal harbour towns. The evidence for Thasians much farther
inland, indeed many hundreds of kilometres from the coastline, at
Adjiyska Vodenitsa, and perhaps at places such as Krastevich, or Var-
darski Rid, shows that the idea of Thasianemporiadoes need to be
understood more broadly andflexibly than traditional approaches have
allowed for.
When Thasian revenues attracted the attention of the Athenians, in
the mid 460sbc, a three-year siege resulted in the Thasians having to pay
penalties to Athens, razing their fortifications, giving up theirfleet,
paying afine and thereafter a regular tribute, and having to give up
their assets at Skapte Hyle (Thuc. 1.103.3).^31 This much is clear enough.
What is less clear from Thucydides’ own account, and from other
evidence, is how the Thasians evaded further censure and regained
their former assets, or something equivalent, on the mainland, and
reasserted their commercial interests more successfully and vigorously
than ever before, although the demise of Athenian naval and military
influence in the northern Aegean from 412bconwards did provide the
right conditions for a return to former clients. We do know that Neapolis
acted as a loyal ally of the Athenians, even when Thasian politics
underwent a series of political turnovers over the next few years. There
is little ostensible evidence to go on apart from coinage. The second,
post-archaic series of Thasian silver coins was widely imitated in the
(^29) Pikoulas 2001, 45–109, with a catalogue of 81 sites and associated epigraphic docu-
ments; Kostoglou 2008, 77–80;‘All the evidence examined supports continuity that is
evident in settlement patterns, burial practices, handmade pottery, and in iron technology’
(ibid. 80). 30
See most recently Bonias 2010, 237 andfig. 161;Inventory, no. 628, Berga; Picard
2006, 273 31 – 5; Hatzopoulos 2008a, 15, 31.
Pébarthe 1999, 136–45 with discussion; Isaac 1986, 1–51, for a full review of the
territory involved.
The lure of the northern Aegean 261