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STRABO
Strabo was a Greek geographer and historian born around 64 BCE in Amaseia, now modern-day Amasya in Türkiye.
His most important surviving work, The Geography, brought together descriptions of the lands and peoples known to the Greek and Roman world. Across seventeen books, Strabo examined coastlines, cities, rivers, islands, borders, natural resources, customs, and political histories.
His writing combined information gathered during his own travels with the works of earlier historians, geographers, and travellers. Rather than treating geography as a simple list of places, Strabo explored how landscapes shaped settlement, trade, culture, and power.
For the history of the Sea of Marmara, his work helps us understand how the Propontis and its surrounding regions were mapped and connected in the ancient world.
PROPONTIS AS A GATEWAY
Strabo’s account carries us through the Propontis as part of a much wider maritime world connecting the Aegean, Anatolia, Thrace, and the Black Sea.
On the southern coast stood Parium, near modern-day Kemer in Çanakkale. Strabo writes that the city was founded by settlers from the Aegean island of Paros and was known for a monumental altar. Its origins reveal how people, materials, and artistic traditions travelled between the Greek islands and the shores of Marmara.
Moving eastward, the Propontis narrowed toward Byzantium and Chalcedon at the entrance to the Black Sea. Strabo describes Thracian lands on one side and Bithynian territories on the other, presenting the strait as both a geographical boundary and a gateway into the wider Pontic world.
The coastline was also divided by political power. Kingdoms such as Pontus and Bithynia controlled different stretches of shore, while later Roman authorities preserved many of the same regional boundaries. Cities, ports, and straits mattered because they governed trade, travel, and movement between Asia and Europe.
Along the eastern Marmara coast, Strabo names settlements including Chalcedon, Chrysopolis, Astacus, and Nicomedia. His writing records a landscape in constant transformation, where cities were founded, destroyed, rebuilt, renamed, and repopulated under new rulers.
Further south, near modern Gemlik, stood the city of Cius. Strabo connects the region not only with political history, but also with the voyage of the Argonauts. According to legend, Hylas, a companion of Heracles, disappeared near Mount Arganthonius after being taken by water nymphs while searching for a spring.
CYZICUS: AN ISLAND FORTRESS
In the Propontis, Cyzicus rose from fertile ground and was joined to the mainland by two bridges. Its position made it wealthy, but it also made it a target.
When Mithridates VI arrived with a vast army and hundreds of ships, the city was attacked from both land and sea. The people of Cyzicus held their ground. Beneath the city, they dug counter-tunnels through the earth and nearly reached the king inside one of his own passages.
Above ground, the siege dragged on. Supplies failed, famine spread through the attacking army, and Mithridates was eventually forced to withdraw.
Cyzicus survived because of more than courage alone. Its bridges, island geography, coastal access, and careful preparation turned the city into one of the strongest defensive centres of the Propontis.
WHY STRABO MATTERS
Strabo’s writing reveals the Propontis as a living system of coastlines, cities, islands, borders, and sea routes.
Its geography shaped nearly every part of life. Harbours encouraged trade, straits controlled movement, islands became natural strongholds, and cities rose where land and water created opportunity. The same landscape also carried myths, political boundaries, migrations, and conflicts from one shore to another.
Through places such as Parium, Chalcedon, Cius, Nicomedia, and Cyzicus, we see that the Sea of Marmara was never simply a passage between larger seas. It was a world of its own, connecting communities across Thrace, Anatolia, the Aegean, and the Black Sea.
Strabo’s account allows us to trace how people understood that world, and how deeply the history of Marmara was shaped by the water surrounding it.