Arrian's Epistle to Hadrian containing a Periplus of the Euxine Sea

Periplus Ponti Euxini or "The Periplus of the Euxine Sea" (Περίπλους του Ευξείνου Πόντου in Greek) is a periplus or guidebook detailing the destinations to be encountered when traveling about the shore of the Black Sea. It was written by Arrian of Nicomedia (Αρριανός in Greek) from 130-131 CE. [cite encyclopedia
title = Arrianus
encyclopedia = The New International Encyclopædia
volume = II
pages = 44
publisher = Dodd, Mead and Company
location = New York
date = 1902
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=nWhMAAAAMAAJ&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPA44,M1]

It is in the form of a letter, from its author to the emperor Hadrian in Rome, who was particularly attached to geographical research, and had visited in person a large portion of his extensive dominions. It contains an accurate topographical survey of the coasts of the Euxine (Black Sea), from Trapezus to Byzantium, and was written probably while Arrian held his office of prefect, a short time before the breaking out of the war against the Alani : and it was doubtless at the same time that he drew up his instructions for the march of the Roman army against the barbarians, which are found in a short but imperfect fragment annexed to the "Techne Taktika", written, as he states himself, in the twentieth year of the reign of the emperor, and containing, after a brief account of former writers on the same subject, a description of the order and arrangement of an army in general. [citation
last1 = Rose | first1 = Hugh James
author1-link = Hugh James Rose
last2 = Rose | first2 = Henry John
author2-link = Henry John Rose
last3 = Wright | first3 = Thomas
author3-link = Thomas Wright (antiquarian)
title = A New General Biographical Dictionary
publisher = B. Fellowes
location = London
date = 1848
pages = 207
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=f2AMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPA207,M1 [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/11837478 OCLC 11837478] .]

Its purpose was to inform the emperor of the "lay of the land" and provide him with necessary information such as the distances between cities and the locations that would provide safe harbor for ships in a storm in the eventuality that Hadrian should mount a military expedition to the region. [citation
last1 = Millar | first1 = Fergus
author1-link = Fergus Millar
author2 = edited by Hannah M. Cotton and Guy M. Rogers
title = Rome, the Greek World, and the East vol. 2: Studies in the history of Greece and Rome
publisher = University of North Carolina Press
location = Chapel Hill
date = 2004
pages = 183
isbn = 0807855200
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=CVz_Jvp4DGEC&pg=RA1-PA183&sig=pA98BHGi3Wag9m-zBmaR9T0g1Mc [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/46992203 OCLC 46992203] .]

The Periplus contains, according to Gibbon's epigrammatic expression in his 42nd chapter, "whatever the governor of Pontus had seen from Trebizond to Dioscurias; whatever he had heard, from Dioscurias to the Danube; and whatever he knew, from the Danube to Trebizond." [citation
last1 = Gibbon | first1 = Edward
author1-link = Edward Gibbon
title = The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
url = http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1374&chapter=90206&layout=html&Itemid=27#lf0214-07_footnote_nt_372] Thus, while Arrian gives much information upon the south and east side of the Euxine, in going round the north shore his intervals become greater, and his measurements less attended to. [citation
last1 = Smith | first1 = William
author1-link = William Smith (lexicographer)
title = A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography
publisher = Walton and Maberly
location = London
date = 1854
pages = 887
isbn = 9781845110017
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=_sYPAAAAYAAJ&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPA887,M1 [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/31406498 OCLC 31406498] .]

References

* citation
last1 = Rennell | first1 = James
author1-link = James Rennell
title = An Examination of Arrian's Periplus of the Euxine Sea
journal = A Treatise on the Comparative Geography of Western Asia, Accompanied with an Atlas of Maps
publisher = Printed for C.J.G. & F. Rivington
location = London
date = 1831
pages = 271
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=oBFefLVflU8C&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPA271,M1 [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5621482 OCLC 5621482] .

External links

* [http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/historiens/arrien/periplegr.htm Text in Greek with French translation]