Читать книгу Around the Black Sea. Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania онлайн

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A poisonous honey made in the neighbourhood of Heraclea, according to Pliny the historian, is supposed to have been derived from yellow azaleas and purple rhododendrons, which abound on the hillsides in that neighbourhood. Even now the farmers cannot keep bees, because the honey they produce invariably makes people ill.

A little farther up the coast, the village of Bartan, known in ancient times as Parthenius, according to Greek fables was the home of Artemis, or the goddess Diana, as she is better known, who hunted deer and more harmful creatures among the forests upon the mountain sides and bathed in the waters of the river that comes bubbling down into the sea. Those who do not believe this story can find proof in nearly every picture gallery of Europe, for acres of canvas have been covered with paintings of Diana, the divine huntress, and her achievements in forest and field.

The next village, Amastris, was the birthplace of the wife of Darius, the great Persian king, and Dionysius, the Roman tyrant, and in a gossippy letter to the emperor Trajan Pliny describes Amastris as “a handsome city.” It continued to be a port of importance as late as the ninth century. The Venetians and the Genoese occupied it in turn in the Middle Ages several times. The site of the ancient city is now occupied by an insignificant village, and the only reminder of the power and prosperity associated with its past are the ruins of a citadel, an aqueduct, and fortifications.