Around the Black Sea / Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania

by William Eleroy Curtis

The steamer stops usually from one to five hours, which is long enough to see everything that is interesting and gave us a good idea of northern Turkey, which, by the way, is very different from what I expected in many respects. Indeed it is necessary for every one who goes there to revise his preconceived ideas of Turkish life and character; but the way we had to fight with the boatmen and the hackmen, who refused in almost every case to accept the fares agreed upon before starting, shows that the successors of Castor and Pollux, Theseus, Diana, and the other demi-gods have degenerated from the classic days. It seemed almost incredible that we were actually visiting the playgrounds of the gods. The imagination of the ancient Greeks peopled that beautiful coast with supernatural beings, who were the heroes of their fables and their songs, and there was a mixture of history in them all.

The Argonauts, you will remember, sailed from Thessaly to Colchis under command of Jason, to fetch a golden fleece, which was suspended from an oak tree in a grove, guarded day and night by a ferocious dragon. Jason built a ship of fifty oars, called the Argo, after the name of the designer, who was instructed by the goddess Minerva.

Jason was accompanied upon this expedition by several of the greatest heroes of Greek fable, including Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Theseus, and others, who were called the Argonauts, after the name of the ship. They met with surprising adventures, and when they arrived at their destination the king of Colchis promised to give up the golden fleece provided Jason would yoke together two fire-breathing oxen and sow the teeth of the dragon which had not been used by Cadmus at Thebes. Meantime Medea, the daughter of the king, fell in love with the captain of the Argonauts, and, when he promised to marry her, showed him how to put to sleep the dragon that guarded the golden fleece, and how to protect himself against the flames that came from the nostrils of those terrible steers. Jason did the stunt, to use a classic phrase, married the girl, and sailed away with the treasure. After wandering about the coast of the Black Sea and threading the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, the Argonauts at length arrived at Thessaly and told the story of their adventures.

It is believed that the fable of the Argonauts was founded upon a commercial expedition which wealthy merchants of Thessaly sent out to explore the coast of the Black Sea, twelve or fifteen hundred years before the Christian era, and the remains of the colonies they founded may still be found along the shores of Asia Minor. This expedition was followed by many Greeks from Miletus and other places who built a fringe of cities and towns on every bay and island along the coast. And their fleets carried on a commerce quite as important as that of to-day. All historic interest in the Black Sea centres around those colonies, which brought with them the culture that distinguished the Greek from the barbarian of those days. Situated on carefully selected sites, which the traveller can still identify, these colonies became the profitable markets where the products of Asia and those of Europe changed hands.

But the Argonauts were not the only characters of mythology that may be met with up there. The city of Eregli, the first port at which the steamer touches after leaving the Bosphorus and entering the Black Sea, stands on the site of Heraclea, a famous town founded by Hercules in prehistoric days; and in a garden north of the town is the cavern called Acherusia, through which he is supposed to have descended to the infernal regions to encounter Cerberus, according to the story. Near this cave are the ruins of a Roman aqueduct and of two temples which have been converted into churches, and on the mountain side are coal mines that were worked by the ancient Greek colonists before the dawn of history. Fuel was obtained from them, also, for the European battleships during the Crimean war. These mines are said to contain an excellent quality of steam and gas coal, but have never been developed because the Turkish government, for some reason or another, has not permitted it.

A poisonous honey made in the neighbourhood of Heraclea, according to Pliny the historian, is supposed to have been derived from yellow azaleas and purple rhododendrons, which abound on the hillsides in that neighbourhood. Even now the farmers cannot keep bees, because the honey they produce invariably makes people ill.

A little farther up the coast, the village of Bartan, known in ancient times as Parthenius, according to Greek fables was the home of Artemis, or the goddess Diana, as she is better known, who hunted deer and more harmful creatures among the forests upon the mountain sides and bathed in the waters of the river that comes bubbling down into the sea. Those who do not believe this story can find proof in nearly every picture gallery of Europe, for acres of canvas have been covered with paintings of Diana, the divine huntress, and her achievements in forest and field.

The next village, Amastris, was the birthplace of the wife of Darius, the great Persian king, and Dionysius, the Roman tyrant, and in a gossippy letter to the emperor Trajan Pliny describes Amastris as “a handsome city.” It continued to be a port of importance as late as the ninth century. The Venetians and the Genoese occupied it in turn in the Middle Ages several times. The site of the ancient city is now occupied by an insignificant village, and the only reminder of the power and prosperity associated with its past are the ruins of a citadel, an aqueduct, and fortifications.

The port of Sinub is the ancient Sinope, the mother colony founded by Autolycus, a companion of Hercules, and the most important of all the Greek colonies on the Euxine or Black Sea. Here the cynic philosopher, Diogenes, was born. It was also the birthplace of Mithridates the Great, who ruled Asia Minor and all the country surrounding it several hundred years before Christ. During the time of Pericles, Sinope was the strongest and most important of all the colonies of Greece, having the only safe harbour on the southern coast. It was the terminus of the royal road which extended from the Persian Gulf through Mesopotamia, following the valley of the Euphrates to the shores of the Black Sea. Sinub is surrounded by high-wooded mountains which were occupied by the fabled Amazons, and upon the island called Adasi, there was a temple to Mars erected by and presided over by two Amazonian queens.

One of the stories connected with Sinub, which, however, I do not vouch for, is that Mithridates, the Greek emperor, put his wives and sisters to death with his own hands in the palace whose ruins we saw one morning to prevent their falling into the hands of Lucullus and his Roman invaders.