Listed 1 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "KIMERIOS VOSPOROS Ancient country SKYTHIA".
Bosporus Cimmerius (Bosporos Kimmerios, Herod. iv. 12,100; Kimmerikos,
Strab.; Polyb.: Strait of Yeni Kale), the narrow passage connecting the Palus
Maeotis with the Euxine. The Cimmerians, to whom it owes its name (Strab. vii.
p. 309, xi. p. 494), are described in the Odyssey (xi. 14) as dwelling beyond
the ocean-stream, immersed in darkness, and unblest by the rays of Helios. This
people, belonging partly to legend, and partly to history, seem to have been the
chief occupants of the Tauric Chersonese (Crimea), and of the territory between
that peninsula and the river Tyras (Dniester), when the Greeks settled on these
coasts in the 7th century B.C. (Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. iii. p. 313.)
The length of the strait was estimated at 60 stadia (Polyb. iv. 39),
and its breadth varied from 30 (Polyb. l. c.) to 70 stadia. (Strab. p. 310.) An
inscription discovered on a marble column states that in the year 1068, Prince
Gleb measured the sea on the ice, and that the distance from Tmsutaracan (Taman)
to Kertsch was 9,384 fathoms. (Jones, Travels, vol. ii. p. 197.) The greater part
of the channel is lined with sand-banks, and is shallow, as it was in the days
of Polybius, and as it may always be expected to remain, from the crookedness
of the passage, which prevents the fair rush of the stream from the N., and favours
the accumulation of deposit. But the soundings deepen as the passage opens into
the Euxine. (Journ. Geog. Soc. vol. i p. 106.)
The political limits of the Cimmerian Bosporus varied considerably.
In its palmiest days the territory extended as far N. as the Tanais (Strab. p.
495), while to the W. it was bounded on the inland side by the mountains of Theodosia.
This fertile but narrow region was the granary of Greece, especially of Athens,
which drew annually from it a supply of 400,000 medimni of corn.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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