Mythologists from different countries believe that Odysseus met the
one-eyed Cyclop on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus. And
the most appropriate place for this scena is the above
mentioned Akhshtyrskaya Cave because of its closeness to the
sea, the landscape, the vegetation around and the aborigines'
customs of that time which gave the Black Sea its ancient name
of the Ungracious Sea (Pontos Axeinos). According to
Aristoteles (the 4th century B.C.), Achaeans and Heniokhs -
the first tribes noticed to live here - were in the habit of
eating strangers from Greece. Strabo offered two versions: one
of them says that "Achaeans (who lived) by the Pontos were the
colonists of the Orchomens (i.e. of the Orchomen family) who
roamed in the region after the seizure of Troy"; the other one
suggest that "this Achaea was settled by the Achaeans-Phthyots
from Jason's detachment". Compare with Odysseus's words in the
poem by Homer (the 8th century B.C.) who tells the Cyclop that
they are Achaeans sailing from distant Troy and that thay have
been brough there by a storm which led them astray. Antic
Greeks chose places fro the future settlements
carefully. Articles of Hellenic origin are being found in
Sochi in different places, for example in the Bolshaya
Vorontsovskaya Cave. Thay founded a colony and the town of
Dioscuria near Sukhumi, but in Sochi they were given the could
shoulder.
Those who will read "Odyddey" carefully should know that the Greek
word for "island" also meant a land between two adjacent
rivers and that "... in the Homeric epoch the Pontos (Black)
Sea was considered something like the second Ocean... The
Pontos Sea was though to be the largest one in our part of the
inhabited world... May be that's why Homer changed the scene
(of the names) would be quite admissible in respect to the
Pontos..." (Strabo, "Geography", the 1st century B.C.)
