Mossynoeci (
Georgian: მოსინიკები, grc, Μοσσύνοικοι, , modern Greek ', "dwellers in wooden towers") is a name that the Greeks of the
Euxine Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Ro ...
(Black Sea) applied to the peoples of
Pontus
Pontus or Pontos may refer to:
* Short Latin name for the Pontus Euxinus, the Greek name for the Black Sea (aka the Euxine sea)
* Pontus (mythology), a sea god in Greek mythology
* Pontus (region), on the southern coast of the Black Sea, in modern ...
, the northern
Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
n coast west of
Trebizond. The Mossynoeci were believed to be of
proto-Georgian.
Herodotus
Writing soon after 430 BCE,
Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...
in Book 3 cites the Mossynoeci, along with the
Moschoi,
Tibareni, the
Macrones and
Marres
The Mares ( ka, მარები ) were an ancient Colchian tribe. They entered ancient history with the writings of Hecataeus of Miletus. He gives a brief description of the tribe and mentions that they lived between closely akin Colchian trib ...
as comprising the
19th
19 (nineteen) is the natural number following 18 and preceding 20. It is a prime number.
Mathematics
19 is the eighth prime number, and forms a sexy prime with 13, a twin prime with 17, and a cousin prime with 23. It is the third full re ...
satrapy established by
Darius of
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. The satrapy as a whole was to yield three hundred talents. The Mossynoeci are also mentioned in Book 7 of the Histories.
Xenophon
In his ''Anabasis'' Xenophon describes the Mossynoeci at some length (5.4). According to his account, the Greeks spent eight days (5.5.1) in their territory, probably in the summer of 400, on their way west along the Black Sea coast from Trapezus. The author reports that those who returned home used to say the Mossynoeci 'were the most barbarous people they passed through and the furthest removed from Greek customs' (5.4.27). The Mossynoeci seemed to favour outdoor sex (5.4.34) and may have practised 'whistled speech' (5.4.31), a form of communication still found in the region today together with just a handful of other places in the world.
Jason and the Argonauts
The Mossynoeci are mentioned in
Apollonius of Rhodes
Apollonius of Rhodes ( grc, Ἀπολλώνιος Ῥόδιος ''Apollṓnios Rhódios''; la, Apollonius Rhodius; fl. first half of 3rd century BC) was an ancient Greek author, best known for the '' Argonautica'', an epic poem about Jason and ...
's (third century BCE in Alexandria) epic poem
The Voyage of Argo
The ''Argonautica'' ( el, Ἀργοναυτικά , translit=Argonautika) is a Greek epic poem written by Apollonius Rhodius in the 3rd century BC. The only surviving Hellenistic epic, the ''Argonautica'' tells the myth of the voyage of Jaso ...
. In Book 2: Onward to
Colchis
In Greco-Roman geography, Colchis (; ) was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi ( ka, ეგრისი) located on the coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia.
Its population, the Colchians are generally though ...
, he writes, "These people have their own ideas of what is right and proper. What we do as a rule openly in town or market-place they do at home; and what we do in the privacy of our houses they do out of doors in the open street, and nobody thinks the worst of them. Even the sexual act puts no one to blush in this community. On the contrary, like swine in the fields, they lie down on the ground in promiscuous intercourse and are not at all disconcerted by the presence of others. Then again, their king sits in loftiest hut of all to dispense justice to his numerous subjects. But if the poor man happens to make a mistake in his findings, they lock him up and give him nothing to eat for the rest of the day."
[
Book: Rhodes, Apollonius of. The Voyage of Argo. Translated by E. V. Rieu. Penguin Classics: London, 1959. Lines 1007-1024.]
Other
It is possible that the town
Mossyna
Mossyna ( grc, Μοσσύνα) or Mosyna (Μοσύνα) was a city of the middle Maeander valley in the late Roman province Phrygia Pacatiana II. It is mentioned as a bishopric by Hierocles and other ecclesiastical writers. It may have been name ...
was named for them.
See also
*
Meskheti
Meskheti ( ka, მესხეთი) or Samtskhe ( ka, სამცხე) ( Moschia in ancient sources), is a mountainous area in southwestern Georgia.
History
Ancient tribes known as the Mushki (or Moschi) and Mosiniks (or Mossynoeci) were t ...
*
Moschi
*
Meshech
References
{{Ancient Georgians
Anabasis (Xenophon)
Tribes in Greco-Roman historiography
Ancient peoples of Anatolia
History of Pontus