Cyril Mango (Oxford)

A Journey Round the Coast of the Black Sea

in the Ninth Century

Byzantine literature is notoriously deficient in travel accounts and, by extension, in

treatises on geography, whose production seems to have ceased in late Antiquity. There
is no Byzantine pendant to the rich tradition of Arab geographers. Strabo, who lived in
the days of the emperor Augustus, remained the ultimate authority, supplemented by the
bare lists of Hierocles (sixth century) and various outdated Peripli. Ptolemy’s Geo­
graphy was pretty much unavailable until it was rediscovered by Maximus Planudes in
the 1290’s. Even guides to the Holy Land, plentiful as they are in the Latin West, are so
few in Greek before the fifteenth-sixteenth century that they can be counted on the
fingers of one hand. This negative circumstance confers a certain interest on a text
which, if not exactly a travel account, appears to embody a set of travel notes. Its author
is a certain monk Epiphanius who, in order to avoid communion with the Iconoclasts,
undertook a journey retracing the footsteps of the apostle Andrew as far as the straits of
Kerô and the Crimea (or so he claims). Along the way, he says, he made enquiries about
local saints and the existence of their relics, of which he found a considerable number.1
The date of his peregrination, as we shall see, was not long after 815. Coincidentally,
one of the very few Greek guides to the Holy Land, also of the ninth century, is ascribed
to a monk Epiphanius the Hagiopolite, who may have been the same person, although
that is far from certain.2
The text that concerns us, usually called Vita S. Andreae (BHG 102), is available only
in an old edition (Dressel’s of 1843) that is in places incomplete.3 It was later plagiarized
in a Laudatio of St. Andrew (BHG 100), published as an anonymous work,4 but now
known to be by Nicetas David the Paphlagonian, a prolific hagiographer of the first half
of the tenth century.5 Nicetas supplies some of the gaps in Epiphanius (as edited), but in
at least one important passage (and probably several others) I believe he has made a
personal addition. Pending a more reliable edition of Epiphanius,6 it is difficult to be
certain in all particulars, and I apologize for the tentative nature of what follows.

1 This shows, incidentally, that relics had not been systematically removed by the Iconoclasts.
2 See V.G. Vasil’evskij, "Povest’ Epifanija o lerusalime," Pravoslavnyj Palestinskij Sbomik 11 ( 1886),vii.
3 I am quoting from the reprint in PG 120, 216-60. Unfortunately, I have not been able to consult the
dissertation by G. Kahl, Die geographischen Angaben des Andreasbios (BHG 95b und 102) (Stuttgart,
1989).
4 By M. Bonnet, Analecta Bollandiana 13 (1894), 311-52.
5 It is correctly ascribed to Nicetas in BHG. See, most recently, S.A. Paschalides, Νικήτας- Δαβίδ ό
Παφλαγών (Thessaloniki, 1999), 157-9.
6 He is not included in the Acta Andreae, ed. J.-M. Prieur, Corpus Christianorum. Series Apocryphorum 5-
6(1989).

Palaeoslavica ] 255-264 Original from

Digitize UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
256 Cyril Mango

I take it on faith that Epiphanius did travel to some (if not all) of the places he
enumerates,7 not so much because he says so himself, but because he provides here and
there local detail that appears to be genuine, mentions at least one locality (Dorapin) that
is otherwise unknown and records the presence of relics that are not documented in other
sources. Somewhat confusingly for us, his notes are presented not in a single
geographical sequence, but cut up into three tours to correspond with Andrew’s sup­
posed pereginations: each year the apostles returned to Jerusalem for Easter and then set
out again. The first tour starts, via Antioch and Tyana, at Sinope,8 but then backtracks to
Nicaea and thence proceeds to Trebizond and Iberia. The second takes us from Laodicea
in Phrygia Pacatiana to Nicaea once again, along the Black Sea coast to Trebizond, then
(on the return journey to Jerusalem?) inland to Neocaesarea and Samosata (spelt
Amousaton and absurdly described as being by the sea).9 The third is from Alania to
Cherson and thence by ship to Byzantium. In each case the order of localities is reason­
ably correct, except (in tour 1) for the sequence Amastris — Dorapin (unidentified) —
Karousia — Sinope, where Karousia or Karousa should have come after Sinope, and (in
tour 2) for the puzzling inclusion of "Odyssoupolis in Mysia," presumably Odessopolis
in Moesia (Vama) between Laodicea and Nicaea.10
Epiphanius the monk identifies his authorities, namely Clement of Rome, Evagrius of
Sicily and (pseudo-)Epiphanius of Cyprus (col. 217A). Whether he really means
Clement of Rome rather than Clement of Alexandria, he could not have drawn very
much from either author.11 By Evagrius he means the Life of St. Pancratius of Taormina,
which is relevant only for the statement (col. 229) that Sts. Peter and Paul ordained
Pancratius and Marcian bishops of Sicily. Pseudo-Epiphanius, whom he quotes once
again at col. 22IB, gave him the information that Andrew had preached to the Scythians
and other nations at Sebastopolis, at which place is the encampment (parembole) of
Apsarus, the harbour of Hyssus and the river Phasis.12 There is no doubt that our author
was acquainted with the Acts of Andrew and Matthias (see below, under Sinope). If he

7 To our disappointment, his ‘personal’ observations become quite meagre in the area beyond Sinope. The
reality of his travels has been doubted by J. Flamion, Les Actes apocryphes de l'apôtre André (Louvain,
1911), 78: "On a comme l’impression d’un voyage fait sur la carte géographique plutôt qu’en réalité, tant
se presse la file des villes énumérées". But would a map have been available in the ninth century?
8 Presumably because in the early Acta Andrew’s activity in Pontus begins by his being called to liberate
Matthias from prison in the city of the anthropophagi, identified for some reason with Sinope. This
incident has been borrowed from the Acta Andreae et Matthiae, Acta apostolorum apocrypha, ed. Lipsius
and Bonnet, II/l (1898), 93.
9 Note the Byzantine spelling Άσμοσάτον with reference, however, to the Armenian (SimSat) rather than
the Syrian Samosata: De administrando imperio, ed. Moravcsik-Jenkins, 50.112. Cf. E. Honigmann, Die
Ostgrenze des byzantinischen Reiches (Brussels, 1935), 77-8.
10 Whether by coincidence or not, Odysso(u)polis is given as the place of banishment of (pseudo-)
Dorotheus of Tyre, alleged author of works dealing with the activity of the apostles, the early bishops of
Byzantium, etc. See, e.g., Theophanes, ed. de Boor, 24, 48; Synaxarium ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae
(henceforth Synaxarion), ed. H. Delehaye (Brussels, 1902), 731-2.
11 In a lost work called Hypotyposis Clement of Alexandria is said to have dwelt on the subject of apostles
and disciples. See F. Dvomik, The Idea of Apostolicity in Byzantium and the Legend of the Apostle
Andrew (Cambridge, MA, 1958), 165f.
12 Index apostolorum, ed. Th. Schermann, Prophetarum vitae fabulosae (Leipzig, 1907), 108f; ps.-
Dorotheus, ibid., 153f. Cf. Dvomik, Apostolicity, 174f.
Original from
Digitized by
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
 A Journey Round the Coast of the Black Sea... 257

also consulted the original Acts of Andrew (assuming they are faithfully reflected in the
Latin résumé by Gregory of Tours), he might have drawn from them a number of further
localities, namely the town of Mermidona (somewhere in Pontus), Amaseia (lacking in
Epiphanius), Sinope, Nicaea, Nicomedia and Byzantium. It is an open question whether
he had access to more ‘learned’ literature, such as the Peripli of the Black Sea of the
Roman period. On the face of it that is unlikely, but there are two unexpected cases of
convergence (see below, under Amastris and Theodosia). We may now proceed to
examine the local detail that may be extracted from Epiphanius plus the Laudatio in
roughly geographical order.
Nicaea:13 The author claims to have obtained his information from the clergy of the
cathedral church and other local inhabitants. In Andrew’s time Nicaea was allegedly a
big village at some distance from its lake, which was then much smaller. That was
before it had been walled and adorned by the emperor Trajan. The population, vicious
liars all of them (as they are "until today") consisted of Jews and pagans. The Jews had a
big synagogue, while the pagans worshipped an idol of Apollo that gave oracles. At a
distance of 9 miles was a high rock called Lokous (or Lochous) where a dragon lived.
Andrew killed it with his iron staff. Eight brigands then took up residence there — the
place was wooded — but Andrew converted them to Christianity. Along the same road
was a lower rock called Katzapos, where demons lived near a statue of Artemis and did
not let anyone go by between evening and morning. Andrew destroyed the statue and
erected a cross in its place. In another wooded spot close to the village of Daukomis (or
Daukome), "to the left of Nicaea," there was a statue of Aphrodite with a dragon and
demons in attendance. Andrew preached there, with the usual beneficial results. In all,
he spent two years at Nicaea, and at night would go to the hill called Klidos, which was
to the east, and pray there. He converted the Jewish synagogue into a church of the
Mother of God and ordained a bishop called Drakontios (Celestas in the original Acta),
who was later martyred on a 12th of May.
Fantastic as it is, the above story contains enough real detail to suggest that it was,
indeed, picked up at Nicaea and constitutes that city’s imaginary past as it was
conceived in the Middle Ages. The tall rock called Lokous or Lochous may be
Karacakaya on the south shore of the lake, as already pointed out by Clive Foss.14 There
does exist a hill a short distance east of the city walls, its crest marked by an enormous
Roman sarcophagus.15 The mention of Trajan instead of Hadrian may be due to a natural
misinterpretation of the two inscriptions still to be seen on the Lefke gate, which contain
the names Traianos Hadrianos Sebastos. The existence of a Jewish community is
confirmed by other sources as well as a number of inscriptions in Hebrew. Bishop
Drakontios is otherwise unknown, but may have arisen through conflation with the
Nicene martyr Drakonas, who suffered under either Decius or Diocletian (11 November,
not May).

13 Epiphanius, 23Iff.; Nicetas, 323ff.

14 Nicaea: A Byzantine Capital and its Praises (Brookline MA, 1996), 22f.
(Berlin, 1943), 7f.
258 Cyril Mango

Original from
Digitized by
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
 A Journey Round the Coast of the Black Sea... 259

Nicomedia: Epiphanius saw there the relics of St. Panteleemon and touched with his
hands the things that are mentioned in his ‘book’. There were also relics of bishop
Anthimus and Indes and other relics.
The tomb of St. Panteleemon, situated to the west of Nicomedia, survived until the
early 20th century. P.D. Pogodin and O.F. Vul’f (Wulff) describe it as a fourth-century
sarcophagus decorated with defaced reliefs.16 E. Dalleggio d’Alessio, who saw it in
1912, thought it was the tomb of a Frankish baron.17 Anthimus, bishop of Nicomedia,
was a genuine martyr of the Great Persecution. Indes, described as a eunuch and a
companion of St. Domna, was allegedly put to death at the same time (30 December).18
Daphnusia (ancient Thynias, now Kefken adasi): Relics of Sts. Zoticus, Anicetus and
Photius. Zoticus was probably the companion of Agathonicus and others, sub
Maximiano, killed at the trading post of Kalpe/Karpin, a short distance west of Thynias
(22 August).19 Photius and Anicetus were martyred at Nicomedia under Diocletian (12
August).20
Heraclea: Unspecified ‘wonders’.
Charax: The relevant notice, which happens to be the most interesting among those
under consideration, is absent in Epiphanius and was probably composed by Nicetas to
judge by its distinctive style and abundant detail. Possibly himself a native of Amastris,
Nicetas must have known those parts from personal experience.
Sailing up the river Parthenius, which is navigable, Andrew reached the trading post
(emporion) of Charax, so called because it resembled a walled town (hence was not
walled): for it is encircled as if by palisades (χάραζι) or walls by two streams, the impe­
tuous Lycus on the south and the Lousis, which is apt to flood, on the north. The two
unite into a single channel at the west foot of the township and so form the river Parthe­
nius, which is wide and gentle and allows cargo ships to sail up to Charax. An annual
fair takes place there in the month of Loos (August), and so many people come together
that the road leading to the township looks like an ant-heap.
At Charax Andrew erected a cross in a place of prayer. A short time thereafter the
locals set up in the same locality an image of the Apostle painted on a wall, which is said
to have worked miracles "by those who had accurate knowledge of it and remembered
that old church"; for not long ago the old church was demolished because of its decrepit
condition and replaced by a fine new one, the work of a notable man called Theodosius
(του της θείας δόσεως έπωνύμου), who held the title of illustris and was both rich and
noble.
The passage we have analysed has escaped the attention even of the omniscient Louis
Robert, who has devoted an otherwise exhaustive excursus to the ‘gentle’ or ‘oily’ river

16 "Nikomidija,” Izvestija Russkogo arxeologtfeskogo instituta v Konstantinopole 2 (1897), 118.

l7"Le tombeau de S. Pantéléémon à Nicomédie", Actes du Vie Congrès international d’Études Byzantines,
Paris 1948, II (1951), 99f.
18 Synaxarion, 357-8.

Original from
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
260 Cyril Mango

Parthenius.21 There is, however, a difficulty. The Parthenius (now Baffin suyu) has kept
its ancient name and remains navigable to a distance of about 10 km upstream to a
sizable township similarly called Baffin. It has been argued that Baffin corresponds to
the village Parthenia, recorded only by Stephanus Byzantinus (ed. Meineke, 503f.) as
being "near the Pontus," although the excellent Von Diest thought that Parthenia was a
little lower down the river at a place called Bogaz karye, where some ancient remains
came to light. Mendel, who found four inscriptions at Baffin itself disagreed with Von
Diest on the grounds that in Turkish usage a river is usually called after a settlement
rather than a settlement after a river.22 So Baffin has remained Parthenia, albeit with a
slight question mark.
It now appears that the name of Baffin was Charax, at any rate during the Byzantine
period. It cannot be argued that Charax replaced an earlier Parthenia because the Turks
could not have known its pre-Byzantine name. Besides, Stephanus (Meineke, 688)
records a Charax in "the Pontic region" (τόπος της Ποντικής), which surely cannot be
the homonymous township on the gulf of Nicomedia (Hereke).23 The names Lycus and
Lousis are new and must correspond to Koca irmak and Kocanas çayi respectively.
Lycus was a very common name for a river (14 listed in Pauly-Wissowa, to which add
the stream at Byzantium), while Lousios is recorded only in Arcadia.
The mention of an annual fair at Charax is interesting and throws light on the
existence of a kommerkiarios Partheniou recorded in a ninth-century seal,24 a customs
official who would have collected dues from the fair as well as from regular commercial
traffic. Travellers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries quoted by Louis Robert25
mention a weekly fair at Baffin and the existence there of a customs post. One is
reminded of the attestation in the eighth century of a customs collector of the gulf of
Nicomedia.261 do not know, incidentally, why some reputable scholars have supposed
that commerciarii of the ‘Dark Age’ supplied the army with equipment rather than
collecting commercial dues as they had always done.
To return to St. Andrew, it appears that his miraculous image did not survive the
rebuilding of his church. Theodosios illustris is not known to me,27 but must have been
active in the second half of the 9th century or the beginning of the 10th if at the time
Nicetas was writing some people still remembered the old church.
Amastris, incorrectly identified by Epiphanius with Cromna (240C), is said to have
been inhabited only by Jews, i.e. in apostolic times. It possessed the relics of St.
Hyacinthus. Nicetas (if it is he) describes it as a "a very big and illustrious city"28 and

21 A travers l’Asie Mineure (Paris, 1980), 165ff.

22 "Inscriptions de Bithynie", Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 25 (1901), 32ff. Cf. K. Belke,
Paphlagonien und Honorias (Wien, 1996 = Tabula Imperii byzantini 9), 258f.
23 As suggested by Ruge, PW, Charax 7.
24 G. Zacos and A. Veglery, Byzantine Lead Seals, 1/2 (Basel, 1972), 1559 (two specimens).
23 Ibid., 173f.
26 Life of St. Stephen the Younger, c. 32, ed. M.-F. Auzépy (Aidershot, 1997), 131. Cf. 227.
27 He is not listed in the Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit, IV (Berlin, 2001), which,
admittedly, extends only to 867.
28 With greater exaggeration the same Nicetas describes Amastris as the ‘eye’ not only of Paphlagonia, but
of the whole universe: Laudatio Hyacinthi {PG 105, 421C).
Original from
Digitized by
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
 A Journey Round the Coast of the Black Sea... 261

adds that Andrew ordained there a bishop called Palmas, as affirmed by local inhabit­
ants. "It is said that there once existed written records of these matters, but they were de­
stroyed when, a long time ago, there was a fire in the house where they were deposited"
(p. 328f). Palmas is unknown to me, whereas Hyacinthus was the patron saint of the city.
There was an annual miracle at his tomb, which coughed up earth (18 July).29
The identification of Amastris with Cromna raises a question to which I have no
answer. For while it may be true that Cromna participated, along with other Greek
colonies, in the original synoecism of Amastris (Strabo, xii.3.10), it was, of course, a
separate town, some 15 miles to the east. Yet the equation of Cromna/Amastris is found
in Stephanus Byzantinus (Meineke, 84, 388) and is repeated by Genesius (Lesmueller-
Wemer and Thum, 41) and pseudo-Symeon (Bonn ed., 637).30 Where did Epiphanius
find this bit of erudite information? Or is it a later gloss?
Sinope, situated on an isthmus, joining a peninsula (Boztepe) to the mainland.
Andrew, accompanied by Peter, did not enter the city, but lodged at the tip of the
‘island’, which was deserted to a distance of six miles — in fact, the ‘island’ is only
about 4.5 km long. Epiphanius, along with a monk called James, visited that spot and
found a chapel of St. Andrew with two monks in residence, called Theophanes and
Symeon. The visitors were shown the seats and couches (άνακλίσ€ΐ.ς·) of the apostles, cut
in the rock, as well as an icon of Andrew, painted (ΰλογραφουμένην) in his lifetime on a
slab of marble. Theophanes, who was over seventy years old, reported that in the days of
Kabalinos (Constantine V) some iconoclasts had come to scrape the icon down, but were
unable to do so. This dates Epiphanius’ visit to the Second Iconoclasm. The visitors also
saw the prison from which Andrew liberated Matthias along with other condemned
inmates and the grove of fig trees where he hid them. In the Acts of Matthias Andrew,
after freeing Matthias and his companions, directs them to a big fig-tree on the way to
"the lower part of the city."31
Dorapin: unknown.32 Relics of St. Christina. Among several saints of that name we
may perhaps choose the companion of Eusebius, Romanus and others, burnt at Nico-
media (30 May).33
Karousia or Karosa (Gerze): St. Hypatius, perhaps the bishop of Gangra (14
November).
Zalichos or Zalekon (Alaçam), some 40 km west of the mouth of the Halys. No
details.
Amisus (Samsun): Andrew preaches in the synagogue and makes many converts. He
sets up a church of the Theotokos, which exists "even today."

29 Synaxarion, 827f.
30 See also A. Diller, "Byzantine Lists of Geographical Names," Byzantinische Zeitschrift 63 (1970), 30.
Cromna kept its identity as a separate village, seeing that George, future bishop of Amastris, was bom
there in ca. 760: Life of St. George, ed. V.G. Vasil’evskij, Trudy III (Petrograd, 1915), 5.
31 As in note 8 above.
32 Cf. Belke, Paphlagonien, 187f.
Synaxarion, 111. 1 Original from
Digitized by -gLC UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
262 Cyril Mango

Trebizond: no details, except that its inhabitants were stupid and beastly.
Alania (written Salania) and town of Phousta, which must have been the seat of a
people called Phoustoi, mentioned at col. 22IB. In 664 Anastasius, the Roman
apocrisiarius, persecuted for his opposition to the religious policy of Emperor Constans
II, was imprisoned in castro Phustas or Phustensium, situated ad partes Apsiliae et
Misimianae, apparently south-east of the river Kodor: Epist. Anastasii, ed. R. Devreesse,
Analecta Bollandiana 73 (1955), 13 (Latin trans, only) = Scripta ... Vitam Maximi
Confessons illustrantia, ed. P. Allen and B. Neil (Turnhout-Leuven, 1999 = Corpus
Christianorum, ser. graeca 39), 178 and p. XLV. Cf. also C. Zuckerman, "A propos du
Livre des cérémonies, II, 48," Travaux et mémoires 13 (2000), 554. Phousta does not
appear to be mentioned elsewhere, which suggests that Epiphanius did not gain
knowledge of it from a textual source.
Abasgia and great Sebastopolis.34
Zekchia or Zichia, whose inhabitants were, and are still only half-Christian, and town
of Nikopsis, where there was a tomb, containing relics, inscribed "of Simon the
Canaanite." Nikopsis (Nebugskaja) appears in the Anonymous Periplus35 and is called a
kastron by Constantine Porphyrogenitus.36 It was also a bishopric of Zichia.37

Upper Sougdaia, whose people were gentle.

Bosporus, a city beyond the Black Sea, "which we, too, visited" and were shown, in
the foundations of a big church of the Holy Apostles, a sarcophagus inscribed "of Simon
the Apostle," presumably the same as Simon the Canaanite. Bosporus was a bishopric.38
In the early ninth century it was governed by a toparch, i.e. a local chieftain, who must
have maintained some contact with Byzantium, because he is said to have imitated the
bad example set by the ‘adulterous’ marriage of Constantine V.39

Theudosia (Caffa), a populous and cultivated place at the time of the apostles, but
today completely deserted. Curiously, the same description (πόλις έρήμη) occurs
already in Arrian’s Periplus40 as well as the anonymous one4142and has been questioned
on archaeological grounds, at any rate as referring to the Imperial period. An epitaph

34 Near ancient Dioscurias. See. e.g., O. Lordkipanidze, "La Géorgie et le monde grec,” Bulletin de cor­
respondance hellénique 98 (1974), 899f. It was probably made into an autocephalous bishopric under
Heraclius: J. Darrouzès, Notitiae episcopatuum Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (Paris, 1981), 7.
35 Ed. by A. Diller, The Tradition of the Minor Greek Geographers (New York-Lancaster, Penn., 1952),
129.
36 De admin, imperio, c. 42.97, 109.
37 Darrouzès, Notitiae, 206.64, 218.68, etc.
38 Ibid., 206.63, 218.67, etc.
39 Vita Theodori Studitae (Vita B), PG 99, 252D.
40 Ch. 19.3. Cf. ed. by A. Silberman (Paris, 1995), note 208.
41 Ed. Diller, 133.
42 E.H. Minns, Scythians and Greeks (Cambridge, 1913), 558; V.F. Gajdukeviè, Das Bosporanische Reich
(Berlin-Amsterdam, 19W, 37If. Origina| fmm
Digitized by <jO( gLC UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
 A Journey Round the Coast of the Black Sea... 263

of one Tamgan, dated 819, found in the porch of the mosque of Caffa, may, however,
have been brought from elsewhere.43
It is not clear whether Epiphanius went to Cherson, although he says that its
inhabitants wavered in their faith, possibly a reference to their acceptance of icono­
clasm.44 He merely tells us that from Cherson Andrew returned to Bosporus, where he
took ship and sailed back to Sinope and thence to Byzantium. At Byzantium Andrew
ordained Stachys (one of the Seventy Disciples) bishop at Argyropolis. Andrew then
crossed over to the acropolis of Byzantium and set up there a chapel of the Theotokos,
still extant today. It is called των ' Αρμασίου (variant ’ Αρματίου) and is close to the
district of Eugenius. The topographical details appear to have been added by Nicetas.
The legend of Stachys and Andrew’s connection with the suburb of Argyropolis
(Tophane) is, in my opinion, considerably older than Epiphanius, but this is not the place
to discuss it. On the other hand, Epiphanius may be our first witness for the chapel of the
Theotokos at the Acropolis, which raises one of those trifling, but annoying topographic­
al puzzles that bedevil the study of Constantinople. There undoubtedly existed a district
called ta Armatiou, Armatou, Harmatiou, vel sim., presumably named after Armatus, a
prominent general who played an equivocal role in the struggle between Zeno and
Basiliscus in 475-6.45 The district in question lay along the Golden Hom, not, as Janin
would have it, at the head of the present Atatürk Bridge,46 but somewhat higher up, in
the area known as Petrion. By no stretch of the imagination could that locality be said to
have been at the Acropolis. The solution of the puzzle is quite simple: there were two
different districts, a better known one called ta Armatiou, and another called ta
(H)armasiou, probably named after Armasius, Praetorian Prefect of the East in 469-70.
Not surprisingly, the two names were confused. The second district was situated by the
Acropolis near that of Eugenius (usually placed at Yalikôçk kapisi). This agrees with the
Synaxarion, which records a liturgical commemoration of the Theotokos "en tois
Armasiou near the holy martyr Menas" (col. 834). The famous martyrium of St. Menas
was near the Acropolis point. A second church of Menas, postulated by Janin "dans la
région d’Unkapani,"47 is accordingly to be eliminated.
I have dedicated these miscellaneous notes to Igor’ Ivanovié to remind him of a trip
— a periodos rather than a periplus — the two of us took along the Black Sea coast of
Turkey nearly forty years ago. Regrettably, we did not stop at Bartin. We were looking
for inscriptions, not relics of saints, and our efforts met with some modest success.
Amongst others, we found near Euchaita (Avhat) the great inscription of the emperor

43 V.V. LatySev, Sbomik greieskix nadpisej Xristianskix vremen iz ju&ioj Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1896),
No. 75.
44 So interpreted by M.-F. Auzépy, "Gothie et Crimée de 750 à 830...," Materialy po arxeologii, istorii i
etnografii Tavrii 7 (Simferopol’, 2001), 326.
45 So Patria of Constantinople, ed. Th. Preger, Scriptores originum Constantinopolitanarum, Il (Leipzig,
1907), 238.
46 Constantinople byzantine2 (Paris, 1964), 314: "près de la porte d’Unkapan ou plutôt depuis le pont du
Gazi jusqu’à la place d’Eminônü." That would make it an unusually large district, the distance between
the two points in question being 1 km.
47 La géographie ecclésiastique de l'Empire byzantin, I/32 (Paris, 1969), 335.
Original from
Digitized by
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
264 Cyril Mango

Anastasius,48 while at Amaseia we copied a very curious one of the tenth or eleventh
century, quoting the description of Mount Olympus in Homer’s Odyssey (6.43ff).49 Alas,
we never got round to publishing the latter. At Sinope, where Andrew saved Matthias
from being eaten alive, we were mystified by the vast Byzantine ruin known as the
Palace, with its chapel of the Theotokos, painted in 1640 at the behest of an archon
called Kiriakor Eizi — or so we read the commemorative inscription.50 My most
pervasive memory of that trip, however, has to do with the complete extinction of
Christianity along that entire coast. It was as if St. Andrew had never preached there.51

Exeter College

48 See Byzantinische Zeitschrift 65 (1972), 379ff.

49 What appears to have been another piece of the same inscription (referring to a church) was published
by F. Cumont, Studia Pontica, III (Brussels, 1910), No. 102. One cannot help wondering who would have
put up such an erudite inscription in distant Amaseia. Might it have been John Mavropous, who served as
metropolitan of Euchaita from the 1050’s to the 1070’s?
50 A. Bryer and D. Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments and Topography of the Pontos (Washington, DC,
1985), I, 85, give Κηριακ[δς·] δ peffrfe).
511 should like to express my thanks to Dr. Jonathan Shepard for a number of helpful references.
Original from
Digitized by
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA