Strabo and Tibios Huxley, George Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Summer 1963; 4, 3; ProQuest pg. 155

Straba and Tibias 
George Huxley 

S TRABO REMARKED (7.304) that the Athenians named their slaves 
after the country they came from, calling them for instance 
"Lydos" or "Syros": or they gave them names common in their 

country of origin, so that a Phrygian would be called "Manes" or 
"Midas", and a Paphlagonian "Tibios". Later the geographer states 
(12.553) that Paphlagonian names are common amongst the Cappa­
dodans, and amongst his examples gives Tibios and Manes. Manes, 
then, is not simply Phrygian but is also at home in Pontus; and Herod­
otos shows that the name is also linked with Lydia, where a king 
Manes once reigned.! Tibios, however, seems to be peculiar to 

Paphlagonia and to Cappadoda nearby. That the name was not con­
fined to slaves is shown by its having been borne by a kinsman of 
Strabo, whose family enjoyed great distinction in those parts2 • 

A variant of the name Tibios is also found in the Pontic country as a 
place name. According to Arrian, Thiba was a place in Pontus named 
after an Amazon killed by Herakles.3 The people of Thiba, who were 
called Thibeis or Thibii,4 evidently impressed Greek imaginations as 
being thoroughly disagreeable barbarians. Anyone they looked at or 
breathed upon or spoke with, fell ill; their eyes had double pupils; 
and their bodies would not sink in water even when weighted down.5 

Even allowing for exaggeration, we can see that the Thibii, Thibeis, or 
Tibioi must in their wild homeland have long resisted the advance of 
Hellenism. 

It seems, moreover, that already in the time of the Hittite empire 
the Tibians were causing trouble to their neighbours in Pontus. The 
annals of the Hittite emperor, Mudilis II, state that in the time of his 
father Suppiluliumas, a certain Pikhuniyas, the Tibyan, had plun-

1 1.94 and 4.45. Cf C. M. A. Hanfmann, HSCP 63 (1958) 71. 
2 Str. 12.557. 
3 FGrHist 156 F 84. 
, Pluto Quaest. Conv. 5.7.1 p. 680B (Phylarchos 81 F 79a) €'Jt{J,/is. Pliny NH 7.17 (Phylarchos 

81 F 79b) Thibiorum genus. _ 
6 Phylarchos, loco cit. Didymos £v {J EVJ1-7TOUtaKWv ap. Steph.Byz. S.v. €JTJfJals. 

155 



156 STRABO AND TIDIOS 

dered the Upper Land and brought his booty down to the Gasgas 
region.6 Now the Upper Land of the Hittites lay due east of their 
capital at Ijattusas in the Halys bend, while the territory of the bar­
barian Gasgas, who caused trouble throughout Hittite history and 
may have helped to overthrow the Hittite empire about 1200 B.C., 

lived to the north of HattuSas between the Hittite heartland and the 
~ 

Black Sea, in the wild country east of the Halys mouth which was 
later called Pontus. Hence Tibya, the city of the marauder Pikhuniyas, 
lay in the same general area as the later Thiba, and we can suggest 
that the two names are connected. Thus the Thibii, whose barbarity 
Phylarchos expounded, seem to be historical successors of the Gasgas 
with their city at Tibya; these enemies of the Hittites were active 
more than 1300 years before the time of the urbane Strabo, who, 
since he had a kinsman called Tibios, may well have been descended 
from them. 

THE QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY, BELFAST 

July, 1963 

8 A. Gotze, Die Annalen des MurSiliI (Leipzig 1933) 89. John Garstang and o. R. Gurney, 
The Geography of the Hittite Empire (London 1959) 32.