The Black Sea Greeks I: Ancient Colonists
Why, or precisely when, the ancient Greeks first ventured north into the Black Sea remains the subject of much conjecture. The vast, mysterious body of water, which they initially called the Axeinos , or "inhospitable", sea, lay on the very fringes of the known world, and was regarded as a treacherous and forbidding place even for experienced mariners, who were more used to island-hopping in the Aegean; Herodotus tells us that from one end to the other was a voyage of nine days, while the lands around were home to "the most uncivilized nations in the world". Heroic legends such as the tales of the Argonauts , the intrepid band of Golden-Fleece-seeking adventurers who sailed to Colchis (modern Georgia) on the far coast, and the Amazons , the wild tribeswomen whose domain lay beyond the northern shores, emphasise the awe in which the sea was held in antiquity. By the seventh century BC, however, Greeks from Asia Minor were beginning to establish a string of colonies in the region, first along the coast of northern Turkey, subsequently moving on to the shores of what is now Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine. Overpopulation and political upheaval at home obviously helped to precipitate this sudden burst of outward migration, but opportunities for trade played a part too - the lands around the sea had an almost mythical reputation for wealth, and a wide variety of goods was traded. Pioneers in colonizing the Black Sea were the Greeks of Miletus (a city-state on the Aegean coast of Turkey), although some Bulgarian historians argue that they merely followed in the footsteps of their neighbours the Carians: a race from Asia Minor (closely related to Bulgaria's Thracians) who had developed mercantile contacts in the Black Sea several generations earlier. Apollonia (now Sozopol) was Miletus' first colony on the Bulgarian coast, soon followed by Odyssos (Varna), Anchialos (Pomorie) and Krounoi (Balchik). In many cases the colonists settled on or near an existing Thracian port: this was certainly so with Mesembria (Nesebar), where the natives were ejected by newcomers from the Greek mainland city of Megara and its colony of Byzantium. Having settled down and established a network of maritime trade, the Greeks optimistically renamed the sea Euxinos , or "hospitable" - which remained its name throughout the Classical era. These colonies couldn't have survived without friendly contacts with the Thracians, and a mutually beneficial system of trade developed. The Thracians obtained wine and salt (salt-pans are still a feature of the regional economy, especially around Pomorie) in return for grain and livestock - which the Greeks then re-exported at a tidy profit. Intermarriage must have been common from the earliest days, and cities such as Odyssos developed a thriving hybrid culture where colonists and natives lived cheek-by-jowl, observing each other's customs and paying homage to each other's gods.
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