Ekaterina Ilyushechkina

The author analyses the data of Dionysius Periegetes concerning the tribes and peoples who inhabited the Northern coast of the Black Sea and the Caucasus. Dionysius names Pontic tribes associating them with three routes: (1) from the Danube to the Azov Sea (v. 302–310); (2) around the Azov Sea and along the North-Eastern Black Sea coast (v. 652–689) and (3) along the Caucasian Isthmus between the Black and Caspian Seas (v. 695–705). Compared with other ancient writers, Dionisius’ seems to give accounts of variable reliability. It may be inferred that Dionysius’ ethnographic nomenclature derives, on the one hand, from the early Ionian and Hellenistic geographical tradition (Hecataeus of Miletus, Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Posidonius of Rhodes), and, on the other hand, from the poetical one (Homer, Hesiod, Callimachus, Aratos of Solae, Apollonius of Rhodes).