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The Name of the Euxine Pontus Again

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. C. Moorhouse
A. C. Moorhouse
Affiliation:
University College, Swansea
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Extract

Etymology, especially that of an ancient language like Greek, is not as a rule a field in which one expects to get conclusive demonstration; and between rival explanations one is often provided with a choice which cannot be made with much confidence. But despite this I think that I should reply to the article by W. S. Allen on ‘The Name of the Black Sea in Greek’ (C.Q. xli (1947), pp. 86–8), which has raised again the question dealt with in my article ‘The Name of the Euxine Pontus’ (C.Q. xxxiv (1940), pp. 123–8). This is not so much because I do not feel satisfied with Allen's explanation (as I do not), as because this particular etymology has considerable historical, in addition to linguistic, interest.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 42 , Issue 1-2 , April 1948 , pp. 59 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1948

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References

1 The supporters of Vasmer seem to me obliged to take this view. For πóντ¿ς is established with the meaning ‘sea’ (both generally and for specific seas) in Homer: but we can hardly suppose that the first Aeolic traders were dealing with the Scythians (or allied people) within the Euxine much, if at all, before his time. Apollodorus, quoted by Strabo 7.3.6 and 12.3.26, took the view that Homer was ignorant of the coast of the Euxine, both of the southern (Paphlagonian) part and of the rest, adding ἄπλ¿Åν εἶναι τóτε τ⋯νθ⋯λατταν (7.3.6). This is probably too extreme a view: but it seems in any case unlikely that there was any regular trade as early as the ninth century B.C.