Mountain of Tongues: The Languages of the Caucasus

a place of mystery and legend. They dominated the farthest recess of the Euxine Sea; to Greek mariners the voyage to the Colchi4ian city of Phasis (the modern Poti) and up the like-named river (now known by the Svan name of "Rioni") was the 'EcrXaTO, 8poJ.to" the "uttermost run." Thither the Argonauts went in quest ofthe Golden Fleece, and in the mountains behind Phasis, and behind the Greek city of Dioscurias (the modern Sukhumi) Prometheus was chained, and there, too, in the words of Herodotus, there dwelt "many and all manner of na­ tions." Again and again in the two and a half millenia since Herodotus's day, writers have commented on the ethnic and linguistic diversity of the Caucasus. Strabo, writing about four and a half centuries later, having discounted more exaggerated estimates, affirms that 70 tribes, all speaking different languages, would come down to trade in Dioscurias, and a few decades after Strabo, Pliny claimed that the Romans carried on business in the same city by means of 130 interpreters. Arab travelers in the middle ages bore continuing witness