Dioskourias in 218 B.C.

Dioskourias — Spring 218 BC · The Market of the Caucasus.

Dioskourias — a Milesian Greek emporion set in the far north-east corner of the Black Sea, on the Colchian shore beneath the wall of the Caucasus. It bears the name of the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, and is said to have been planted by their charioteers Amphitos and Telchios, from whom the wild Heniochi of the coast claim descent. It is the greatest market of the Caucasus: down from the mountains, the geographers say, come three hundred tribes speaking as many tongues to trade their wares — hides, timber, wax, honey, linen, and slaves above all — for the salt, wine, oil and worked goods the Greek ships bring up the Euxine. Here the Hellenic world reaches its edge: a single harbour-town of merchants and interpreters, looking out from the lowland of Colchis toward the snow-peaks and the endless barbarian highlands beyond.

At the easternmost reach of the Black Sea, where the Colchian lowland runs up against the great barrier of the Caucasus, the Milesians long ago set down a trading-post and called it Dioskourias, after the twin gods. It is the last and farthest of the Greek emporia of the Euxine, and the busiest market of all the Caucasus. From the mountains at its back descend tribes past counting — three hundred, the geographers say, each with its own speech — bringing down hides and furs, timber and wax and honey, linen and slaves, and carrying back the salt, the wine, the oil and the wrought metal of the Greek world. So many are the tongues that meet on its quays that the business of the place is done through a small army of interpreters. Beyond it the charts grow vague and the Greek names give out: this is the frontier of the known sea, a Hellenic island in a barbarian ocean of peoples.