Bard Graduate Center
River in Scythia (modern Dnieper) flowing into the EUXINE (Black) Sea, named after a river god. Herodotus uses “Borysthenes” also to refer to a city (4.78.5) and trading‐port (4.24.1) whose inhabitants called themselves citizens of OLBIA (Olbiopolitai).
Herodotus (4.53) ranked the Borysthenes (BA 23 F2) as the third largest river in the world after the ISTER (Danube) and the NILE, and second only to the latter in its benefits for human habitation, supplying drinking‐water, pastures, farmland, salt, and abundant fisheries. It shared its estuary with the HYPANIS (Southern Bug). The river was navigable for forty days from the seashore (4.53.4), crossing the HYLAEA (Woodlands), the territory of the Scythian farmers, and a DESERT vaguely known to Herodotus (4.18). His omission of the rapids above Zaporizhia (first mentioned in the tenth century CE by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio 42) suggests that the middle Dnieper region was reached on alternative routes, probably the Ingulets (see PANTICAPES).
Herodotus used the toponym Borysthenes (4.78.5) and the city‐ethnic Borysthenitēs (4.17.1, 53.6, 78.3, 79.2–4) synonymously with Olbia and Olbiopolitēs, whereas local Greeks reserved Borysthenitai for the Scythian farmers (4.18.1), possibly to stress their Milesian origins (4.78.3). Borysthenes was most likely the original name of the seventh‐century BCE settlement on the island Berezan in the Dnieper‐Bug estuary, which was subsequently absorbed into Olbia. Borysthenes is epigraphically attested on Berezan in the sixth century BCE; from the fourth century on, Borysthenitēs is applied interchangeably with Olbiopolitēs.
SEE ALSO: Colonization; Fish; Geography; Miletus; Rivers; Scythians; Trade
FURTHER READING
Corcella in ALC, 587–92.
IACP no. 690 (936–40).
BOSPORUS, CIMMERIAN (ὁ Κιμμέριος Βόσπορος)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
The Cimmerian Bosporus (BA 84 B3) was the ancient Greek name for the Kerch Strait, the narrow channel through which Lake MAEOTIS (Sea of Azov) flows into the EUXINE (Black) Sea, separating the Tauric Chersonese (Crimea) from Sindian territory. The name, according to one theory (4.11–12), stemmed from the CIMMERIANS’ former occupation of what then became Scythian territory. The straits marked one corner of SCYTHIA in Herodotus’ geographical conception (4.100.1) and even the border between EUROPE and ASIA according to some (4.45.2). Herodotus notes the freezing over of the Cimmerian Bosporus as PROOF of the harshness of Scythian winters (4.28.1). Although there were numerous Greek settlements in the area beginning in the sixth century BCE, Herodotus mentions none of them by name. The northern end of the straits, where the crossing was easiest, was known as the Cimmerian Ferries (porthmia, 4.12.1, 45.2); the city of Porthmeion lay on the Crimean coast there.
SEE ALSO: Bosporus, Thracian; Geography; Sindians; Weather
FURTHER READING
1 Corcella in ALC, 581.
2 Noonan, T. S. 1976. “Porthmeion.” In PECS, 729–30.
3 Tsetskhladze, Gocha R. 1997. “A Survey of the Major Urban Settlements in the Kimmerian Bosporos.” In Yet More Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis, edited by Thomas Heine Nielsen, 39–81. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
BOSPORUS, THRACIAN (Βόσπορος ὁ Θρηίκιος)
MEHMET FATIH YAVUZ
Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University
The Thracian Bosporus is the narrow strait connecting the EUXINE (Black) Sea with the sea of Marmara (the PROPONTIS), and separating EUROPE from ASIA (BA 53). It is about 30 kilometers in length and 780 meters in width at its narrowest point between Rumeli Hisarı and Anadolu Hisarı (cf. 4.85; Polyb. 4.39, 43). The powerful surface current flowing out of the Euxine was famous and dangerous (Polyb. 4.43–44; cf. Hor. Carm. 2.13–144, 3.29–32). The Bosporus was on the migration route of FISH that moved seasonally between the Euxine and the MEDITERRANEAN (Hdt. 4.88.2).
The Bosporus became a strategic commercial marine passage connecting the Euxine and the Mediterranean world after the foundation of a large number of Greek colonies on the shores of the Euxine in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE. Already at the beginning of the fifth century HISTIAEUS SON OF LYSAGORAS appreciated the strategic importance of the Bosporus and blockaded it (6.5.3, 26.1). The Bosporus served also as a key transit point between Europe and Asia (7.20; 9.89.4). On his way against the SCYTHIANS in 513, DARIUS I and his Persian army crossed the Bosporus on a pontoon bridge built by the Greek architect MANDROCLES at its narrowest point (4.86–87).
There were only two poleis on the shores of the Bosporus: BYZANTIUM and CALCHEDON, both located at its southern entrance in Europe and Asia, respectively. On the other hand, several small settlements and sanctuaries dotted both shores of the Bosporus, according to the account of Dionysius of Byzantium (second century CE: Güngerich 1927). The most important and celebrated sanctuary was Hieron on the Asiatic side at the mouth of the Euxine, now Anadolu Kavağı (Hdt 4.87; Polyb. 4.39), where the Spartan general PAUSANIAS dedicated a famous krater (Hdt. 4.81.3; Nymphis BNJ 432 F9).
SEE ALSO: Bosporus, Cimmerian; Boundaries; Geography; Sea; Ships and Sailing; Trade
REFERENCE
1 Güngerich, Rudolf, ed. 1927. Dionysii Byzantii Anaplus Bospori. Berlin: Weidmann.
FURTHER READING
1 Moreno, Alfonso. 2008. “Hieron: The Ancient Sanctuary at the Mouth of the Black Sea.” Hesperia 77: 655–709.
Müller II, 792–99.
1 Rubel, Alexander. 2009. “Die ökonomische und politische Bedeutung von Bosporos und Hellespont in der Antike.” Historia 58: 336–55.
2 Russell, Thomas James. 2017. Byzantium and the Bosporus: A Historical Study, from the Seventh Century BC until the Foundation of Constantinople. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
BOTTIAEANS (Βοττιαῖοι, οἱ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Region in northern Greece (BA 50 B3), also referred to as Emathia. Herodotus places Bottiaea between the regions of MYGDONIA (7.123.3) and MACEDONIA (7.127), the AXIUS RIVER forming its boundary with the former and the mouth(s) of the HALIACMON and LYDIAS separating it from the latter. Bottiaea became part of the heartland of the Macedonian kingdom in the classical and Hellenistic periods; the Bottiaeans themselves were driven out at an earlier period (Thuc. 2.99.3, who writes Bottia) and migrated to the Chalcidice region; this latter area is thus referred to by some ancient authors as Bottikē (BA 50 D4; Flensted‐Jensen 1995), though Herodotus does not do so. Herodotus includes the Bottiaeans in the list of peoples in EUROPE who contributed
