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18-553: Nikopsis first appears in the anonymous periplus of the 5th century as a Black Sea locale otherwise known as Palaia Lazike ("Old Lazica "), a toponym also mentioned in the 2nd-century Periplus of the Euxine Sea by Arrian . This name suggests that the area was a scene of a considerable tribal movement or, in the view of Anthony Bryer , could have been the original homeland of the Laz people . Nikopsis, as Napsa (ნაფსაჲ), appears as

36-457: A Byzantine outpost—among the cities and places under "the sway of the servant of Christ, the king of the Ionians , who is residing in the great city of Constantinople "—in the 8th-century Georgian Vita of Abo of Tiflis by Ioane Sabanisdze. Nikopsis is called a kastron , "fortress", located on the homonymous river between Abasgia (Abkhazia) and Zichia , by Constantine Porphyrogenitus in

54-614: A god. Historian James Shotwell has called this encounter with the antiquity of Egypt an influence on Hecataeus's scepticism: he recognized that oral history is untrustworthy. Besides his written works, Hecataeus is also credited with improving the map of Anaximander , which he saw as a disc encircled by Oceanus . He was probably the first of the logographers to attempt a serious prose history and to employ critical method to distinguish myth from historical fact, though he accepts Homer and other poets as trustworthy authorities. Herodotus, though he contradicts his statements at least once,

72-407: A high position, and devoted his time to the composition of geographical and historical works. When Aristagoras , acting tyrant of Miletus, held a council of leading Ionians at Miletus to organize a revolt against Persian rule, Hecataeus tried in vain to dissuade his countrymen from the undertaking. In 494 BC, when the defeated Ionians were obliged to sue for terms, he was one of the ambassadors to

90-473: A more skeptical approach to the traditions of families who claimed to be descended from gods. One fragment that has survived is the opening "Hecataeus of Miletus thus speaks: I write what I deem true; for the stories of the Greeks are manifold and seem to me ridiculous." Herodotus (II, 143) tells a story of a visit by Hecataeus to an Egyptian temple at Thebes . It recounts how the priests showed Hecataeus

108-498: A series of statues in the temple's inner sanctum, each one supposedly set up by the high priest of each generation. Hecataeus, says Herodotus, had seen the same spectacle, after mentioning that he traced his descent, through sixteen generations, from a god. The Egyptians compared his genealogy to their own, as recorded by the statues; since the generations of their high priests had numbered three hundred and forty-five, all mortal men, they refused to believe Hecataeus's claim of descent from

126-796: The Greek word περίπλους ( periplous , contracted from περίπλοος periploos ), which is "a sailing-around." Both segments, peri- and -plous , were independently productive : the ancient Greek speaker understood the word in its literal sense; however, it developed a few specialized meanings, one of which became a standard term in the ancient navigation of Phoenicians , Greeks , and Romans . Several examples of peripli that are known to scholars: Persian sailors had long had their own sailing guide books, called Rahnāmag in Middle Persian ( Rahnāmeh رهنامه in Modern Persian ). They listed

144-495: The 10th century. The Kingdom of Georgia expanded to the vicinity of Nicopsis during its "Golden Age" in the 12th and 13th centuries. Well known in the medieval Georgian texts was the boast that their kings held sway from "Nikopsia to Daruband" . This formula determined the extent of the territory over which the Georgian monarchy claimed authority by means of its northwestern and northeastern geographic extremes, Nikopsis on

162-696: The Black Sea and Derbend on the Caspian . It first appears in the controversial testament will of David IV "the Builder" , composed (or forged) in 1125, and recurs in the chronicles of the reigns of his successors, especially, Queen Tamar (r. 1184–1213). According to the 9th-century Byzantine author Epiphanius the Monk , who toured the area, there was a tomb in Nikopsis, containing relics, inscribed "of Simon

180-587: The Canaanite ", an apostle . The tradition is also found in the 11th-century Georgian Vita of George the Hagiorite by Giorgi Mtsire, who claims that Simon the Canaanite was buried "in our land, in Abkhazia , at the place which is called Nikopsi". Nikopsis was the seat of a Byzantine bishop of Zichia, probably founded under Justinian in the 6th century. In the middle of the 10th century, the see of Nikopsis

198-593: The Greek navigators added various notes, which, if they were professional geographers, as many were, became part of their own additions to Greek geography. The form of the periplus is at least as old as the earliest Greek historian, the Ionian Hecataeus of Miletus . The works of Herodotus and Thucydides contain passages that appear to have been based on peripli . Periplus is the Latinization of

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216-643: The Persian satrap Artaphernes , whom he persuaded to restore the constitution of the Ionic cities. Hecataeus is the first known Greek historian and was one of the first classical writers to mention the Celtic and Illyrian peoples. He is known as the "Father of Geography". Two works by Hecateus are known: Περίοδος γῆς ( Periodos ges , "Journey round the Earth" or "World Survey") and Γενεαλογίαι ( Genealogiai ) or

234-509: The people and places that would be encountered on a coastal voyage between these points, as well as the inhabitants of the various Mediterranean islands , the Scythians , Persia , India , Egypt and Nubia . Over 300 fragments of this work are preserved, mostly as citations for place names in the work of Stephanus of Byzantium . Hecataeus's other work was a book on mythography in four books. Less than forty fragments remain. He applied

252-479: The ports and coastal landmarks and distances along the shores. The lost but much-cited sailing directions go back at least to the 12th century. Some described the Indian Ocean as "a hard sea to get out of" and warned of the "circumambient sea," with all return impossible. A periplus was also an ancient naval maneuver in which attacking triremes would outflank or encircle the defenders to attack them in

270-622: The rear. Hecataeus of Miletus Hecataeus of Miletus ( / ˌ h ɛ k ə ˈ t iː ə s / ; Greek : Ἑκαταῖος ὁ Μιλήσιος ; c. 550 – c. 476 BC), son of Hegesander, was an early Greek historian and geographer . Hailing from a very wealthy family, he lived in Miletus , then under Persian rule in the satrapy of Lydia . He was active during the time of the Greco-Persian Wars . After having travelled extensively, he settled in his native city, where he occupied

288-451: The ruins of an early medieval basilica . Periplus A periplus ( / ˈ p ɛr ɪ p l ʌ s / ), or periplous , is a manuscript document that lists the ports and coastal landmarks, in order and with approximate intervening distances, that the captain of a vessel could expect to find along a shore. In that sense, the periplus was a type of log and served the same purpose as the later Roman itinerarium of road stops. However,

306-601: The Ἱστορία ( Historia ). However, they only survive in fragments. Periodos ges was written in two books, the first on Europe, the second on Asia, in which he included Africa. The book is a comprehensive work on geography beginning at the Straits of Gibraltar and going clockwise ending at the Atlantic coast of Morocco following the coast of the Mediterranean and Black Sea . Hecataeaus provides information about

324-663: Was abolished or moved to Matracha . The location of Nikopsis is not known. A popular, but not universally accepted hypothesis first advanced by Frédéric Dubois de Montpéreux and followed by Fillip Brun, Boris Kuftin , Zurab Anchabadze, and Leonid Lavrov, places Nikopsis at Novomikhaylovsky at the mouth of the Nechepsukho river near Tuapse , where the early medieval imported pottery, roof tiles, and marble pieces have been unearthed. Alternatively, Nikopsis has been identified with Anakopia near present-day New Athos or placed by Yuri Voronov at Tsandripsh/Gantiadi , where there are

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