Odessos in 218 B.C.

Odessos — Spring 218 BC · A Greek City of the West Pontic Shore.

Odessos — a Greek city the Milesians planted on the west coast of the Pontus, in the land of the Thracians, one of a chain of trading colonies strung along that shore among the Getae. It lives by the commerce of the interior: the corn and wine of the Thracian plains flow down to its harbour and out across the sea, and the goods of the Greek world come in by the same road. Its people are Greek and Thracian both, mingled in blood and in worship, and the city honours above all the Great God, Theos Megas — Darzalas — whose cult it shares with the Thracian Rider revered throughout this country. It keeps the wary friendship of its neighbours: the Odrysians of the Thracian interior, the Greek sister-city of Mesambria down the coast, and the Gauls of Tylis who lord it over the hinterland to the south.

Where the Pontic coast runs north toward the mouths of the Ister, Odessos sits upon a fine bay, a Milesian colony grown prosperous on the trade of Thrace. Behind it stretch the rich plains of the Getae, whose corn and wine, hides and honey come down to the sea here to be carried off to the Aegean and the cities of Greece; in return the goods of the Greek world pass inland through its market. The city is no great power and holds no wide territory — it lives by exchange and by the goodwill of the Thracian chiefs at its back, as do its sister-colonies along this shore. Its people are of two stocks grown into one, Greek settler and Thracian native, and the gods they keep are of both: the Great God Darzalas and the Rider of the Thracians stand beside the Olympians in its sanctuaries.