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The Black Sea

The Pontus, the sea north of Asia Minor, crossed by Darius's army and its grain ships, 513-480 BCE

The Black Sea, the Greeks' Pontus or Euxine, lies between Asia Minor, Thrace and the Scythian steppe. Milesian and other Greek colonies ringed its shores, and its grain fed Greece. Darius gazed on it from the Bosporus before his Scythian campaign, and the Ionians sailed up it to bridge the Ister.

In the game: The Black Sea is named in the Ister level's intro, where the Ionians sail up it to the river, and in the Thermopylae level's grain ships.

Darius looks on the Pontus

Ancient account

Herodotus says Darius, on reaching the Bosporus, sailed to the Cyanean rocks, sat in the temple there and gazed on the Pontus, of all seas the most marvellous. He measures it at 11,100 furlongs long and 3,300 at its widest, from a ship's run by day and by night.

Herodotus 4.85-86

The fleet to the Ister

Ancient account

For the Scythian campaign Darius sent the Ionians and the other Greeks of his fleet into the Pontus as far as the Ister, to bridge the river two days' sail up from the sea. Herodotus says they came with six hundred ships.

Herodotus 4.87, 4.89

Grain for Greece

Ancient account

At Abydos in 480 Xerxes saw ships carrying grain from the Pontus through the Hellespont to Aegina and the Peloponnese, and let them pass. Herodotus also says some Scythians north of the sea grew grain not to eat but to sell, which the Greek ports shipped out.

Herodotus 4.17, 7.147

The colonies

In the record

Excavations at Istros, Olbia, Apollonia, Sinope and other cities show Greek settlements on the coasts from the late seventh century, most of them founded from Miletus. Their pottery, coins and inscriptions record the trade between the steppe and the Aegean.

Excavations at Istros, Olbia and Apollonia Pontica