Miletus especially was at an early period one of the most important commercial cities of Greece; and in its turn became the parent of numerous other colonies, which extended all around the shores of the Euxine and the Propontis from Abydus and Cyzicus to Trapezus and Panticapaeum.
The position which was occupied by the Hellenic and medieval city is a sloping table of ground (whence the original name of the place, Trapezus, the "Table-land"), which falls in steep rocky precipices on the two sides, where two deep valleys, descending from the interior, run parallel at no great distance from one another down to the sea.
The city of Trapezus was a colony of Sinope, but it first comes into notice at the time of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, who found repose there.