His long voyage from the Palus Mæotis (Sea of Azof) into the interior of Asia as far as the country of the Issêdones (described in a poem, now lost, called the Arimaspian verses), implies an habitual intercourse between Scythians and Greeks which could not well have existed without Grecian establishments on the Cimmerian Bosphorus. [448] Homer, Iliad, xiii, 4.— ... Αὐτὸς δὲ πάλιν τρέπεν ὄσσε φαεινὼ, Νόσφιν ἐφ᾽ ἱπποπόλων Θρῃκῶν καθορώμενος αἶαν Μυσῶν τ᾽ ἀγχεμάχων, καὶ ἀγαυῶν Ἱππημολγῶν, Γλακτοφάγων, Ἀβίων τε, δικαιοτάτων ἀνθρώπων. Compare Strabo, xii, p. 553. [449] Hesiod, Fragm. 63-64, Marktscheffel:— Γλακτοφάγων εἰς αἶαν, ἀπήναις οἴκι᾽ ἐχόντων ... Αἰθίοπας, Δίγυάς τε, ἰδὲ Σκύθας ἱππημολγούς. Strabo, vii, pp. 300-302. [450] Raoul Rochette, Histoire des Colonies Grecques, tom. iii, ch. xiv, p. 297. The dates of these Grecian settlements near the Danube are very vague and untrustworthy. [451] Skymnus Chius, v, 730, Fragm. 2-25. [452] Alkæus, Fragm. 49, Bergk; Eustath. ad Dionys. Perieg. 306.— Ἀχιλλεῦ, ὃ τᾶς (γᾶς, Schneid.) Σκυθικᾶς μέδεις. Alkman, somewhat earlier, made mention of the Issêdones (Alkm. Frag. 129, Bergk; Steph. Byz. v. Ἰσσήδονες,—he called them Assêdones) and of the Rhipæan mountains (Fr. 80). In the old epic of Arktinus, the deceased Achilles is transported to an elysium in the λευκὴ νῆσος (see the argument of the Æthiopis in Düntzer’s Collection of Epicc. Poet. Græc. p. 15), but it may well be doubted whether λευκὴ νῆσος in his poem was anything but a fancy,—not yet localized upon the little island off the mouth of the Danube. For the early allusions to the Pontus Euxinus and its neighboring inhabitants, found in the Greek poets, see Ukert, Skythien, pp. 15-18, 78; though he puts the Ionian colonies in the Pontus nearly a century too early, in my judgment. [453] Compare Dr. Clarke’s description of the present commerce between Taganrock—not far from the ancient Greek settlement of Tanais—and the Archipelago: besides exporting salt-fish, corn, leather, etc. in exchange for wines, fruit, etc. it is the great deposit of Siberian productions: from Orenburg it receives tallow, furs, iron, etc; this is, doubtless, as old as Herodotus (Clarke’s Travels in Russia, ch. xv, p. 330).