Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/146

 Euxmus. trade, which, issuing from thence in a northero an<l easterly direction, was extended to the yerj centre of Asia. The settlements <m the south-west coast appear never to have attamed any consideration ; the principal trafSc of Greek ships in that sea tended to more northerly ports. IsTHiA was near the soaUi embouchure of the Danube; TbHi, Oaijjitis, Odbssus and Apoij- LONiA, more to the south. (C<nnp. Heeren, Man, of Anc. Hist pb 162, trans ; Grote, HitL of Greece, vol. iii. p. 316, ToL iv. p. 337.) The exchange of commodities led the trsders beyond the Pains Maeotis, through the steppe, where the horde of the central Kirghiz now pasture their herds, — and through a chain of Scythian- Soolotic tribes of the Argippaeans and Issedones, to the Arimaspae, dwelling on the northern decH- Tity of the AUai, and poesessing much gold. This tract, the locality of which has been pU^ between the 53rd and 55th degrees of latitude, and which has again become fiimous by the Siberian gold- washings, opened up by means of the Black Sea an important source of wealth and luxury to the Greeks. While in another directbn the inland traffic between the Prussian coasts and the Greek colonies, the relaticms of which are shown, by fine coins, struck probably before the eighty-fifth Olym- piad, which have been recently found in the Netz district {AhhandL der Berl Akad. 1833, pp. 181 — 224), brought the coasts of the Northern Ocean into connection with the Euxine and Adriatic The amber, of which this tzade consisted, was con- Toyed to people from people, through Germany, and by the Kelts on either dedirity of the Alps, to the Padus, and through Pannonia to the Borysthenes. (Humboldt, Cosmos, vol. iL pp. 129, 141, trans.) The Byzantines were masters of the commerce of the Euxine, and it was through them that the supply of articles for which it was celebrated, was brought into the markets of the Mediterranean. Tneiie are stated by Polybius (iv. 38) to be hides (some assert that dpififtara, and not dcp/Mxro, is the true reading), slaves of the best description, honey, wax, and salt-fish. The pickled fish of the Euxine was famous throughout antiquity ( Athen. iii. p. 1 1 6), and the figure of a fish on the coins of the Greek cities on this sea, as well as of a fish-hook on those of Byzantium, shows what a value was set upon this tnule. The carrying trade of Central and Northern Asia, which even as early as the times of the Seleucidae had taken the route of the Black Sea, became tor the Greeks under the Romans, and during the earlier portion of the Lower Empre, a most important branch of commerce. The inroads of the Goths and Huns upon the provinces of the Black Sea diverted in great mea- sore the Indian trade into other channels. When the route from Europe to India by the Bed Sea was cut off in consequence of A^ypt being under the dominion of the Arabs, commerce sought and ob- tained an outlet in another direction, and Constan- tinople became Uie depdt of Eastern trade. In the twelfth century Genoa owed her com- mercial prosperity to the overland trade with India, which she carried on by means of her mercantile establishments on the Euxine. 3. Shape and AdmeasuremenU. — The ancients compared this sea to a Scythian bow ; of which the north coast between the Thracian Bosporus and the Fbasis constituted the bow, and the south coast the EUXINUS, 887 string. (Herat JV. 163 ; Strab. u. p. 186 : Dionys. 146; PUn. iv. 12.) ^ In respect of dimensions as fiir as regards the cireumference, and some transverse lines across it, they seem to have been sufficiently informed. But though Strabo knew its general dimensions, be has totally failed in point of form, for he imagined the west side from the Bosporus to the Borysthenes was a straight line, while at Dioscurias it formed a narrow deep gulf. (i. p. 125.) On the other hand, the form as given by Ptolemy (iii. 10) is very tolerable. He places the Phasis and Gulf of Varna opposite to each other, as they nearly are, and the widest part between the Bosporus and the Borysthenes. He also approaches the truth in the space between Canunbis and Criumetopon, as weU as their relative bearings. But his Maeotis is disproportionably Urge. (Rennell, Compar. Geog. voL ii. p. 276.) Strabo (pb 124) places the narrowest distance be- tween Carambis and Criumetopon. [Carambis.] The entire circuit of the Euxine, according to Bennell Q. c), measured through the different points mentioned in the Periplus, and in the line that an ancient ship would have sailed to coast it, is 1,914 geqg. miles, and which turned into Roman miles in the proportion of 60 to 72 are equal to 2,392 M. P. It appears an extraordinary coincidence that 2,360 M.P. should be the estimate of Agrippa, as reported by Phny (iv. 12) for the circuit of the Euxhie. Other estimates in Pliny (/. c.) are Varro 2,150 ; Mutianus 2,865 ; Artemidorus 2,619. Strabo (ii. p. 125) makes it out at 25,000 stadia, while Polybius (iv. 5) has 22,000 stadia. It is a remark- able fact that Polybius, quoted by Pliny (iv. 12) states that the distance between the Thracian and Cimmerian Bosporus on a straight line was 500 M. P., which agrees so well with the actual distaiice, that it proves the exact knowledge of the ancients on this point ; and that they had a more accurate method of determining a ship's way than has been believed. The Periplus of Arrian addressed to Hadrian contains, according to Gibbon's epigram- matic expression in his 42nd chapter, "whatever the governor of Pontus had seen from Trebizond to Dioscurias ; whatever he had heard, from Dioscurias to the Danube; and whatever he knew, from the Danube to Trebizond." Thus, while Arrian gives much information upon the south and east side of the Euxine, in going round the north shore his intervals become greater, and his measurements less attended to. Bennell, in the second volume of the work already quoted, has identified most of the cities, promontories, and embouchures of riv^, that ap- pear in the Periplus. The area of the BhMsk Sea diffen but little from that of the Caspian. The Euxine and Maeotis, taken together, are about ^ larger than the Caspian. 4. Physical Geography. — Polybius (iv.39^3) has hazarded a prediction that the Euxine was doomed to become, if not absolutely dry land, at any rate unfit for navigation. The reasoning by which he arrived at this conclusion is curious. Whenever, he says, an infinite cause operates upon a finite object, however small may be the action of the cause, it must at last prevail Now, the basin of thei Euxine is finite, while the tune during which the rivera flow into it, either directly or through the Pains Maeotis, bringing with them their alluvial deposit, is infinite, and should it, therefore, be only a little that they bring, the result described must dL4