Strabo's Geography (1.2.10) reports that in antiquity, the Black Sea was often just called "the Sea" (ho pontos). For the most part, Graeco-Roman tradition refers to the Black Sea as the "Hospitable sea", Euxeinos Pontos (Εὔξεινος Πόντος). This is a euphemism replacing an earlier "Inhospitable Sea", Pontos Axeinos, first attested in Pindar (c.475 BC). Strabo (7.3.6) thinks that the Black Sea was called "inhospitable" before Greek colonization because it was difficult to navigate, and because its shores were inhabited by savage tribes. The name was changed to "hospitable" after the Milesians had colonized the southern shoreline, the Pontus, making it part of Greek civilization.It is also possible that the name Axeinos arose by popular etymology from a Scythian word axšaina- "unlit", "dark"; the designation "Black Sea" may thus date from Antiquity.A map of Asia dating to 1570, entitled "Asiae Nova Descriptio", from Abraham Ortelius's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, labels the sea Mar Maggior ("Great Sea", cf. Latin mare major).English-language writers of the 18th century often used the name "Euxine Sea" (/ˈjuːksɨn/ or /ˈjuːkˌsaɪn/) to refer to the Black Sea. Edward Gibbon, for instance, calls the sea by this name throughout The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
