g site of Olbia can be seen clearly from the water. It is about three miles in length and lies on the Bug River estuary near the Dnepr River. It’s location is central because of the adjoining agricultural communities of the Scyths. As Greece became dependant on imported wheat, colonies such as Olbia were able to raise the supply needed. Olbia’s riches were made in wheat trade. The Bug estuary provided an ideal low laying shore location for ships to be drawn up to and a higher main ground for defense. This estuary also combines with the Dnepr liman to form a broad network where goods could be shipped down either rivers into the common estuary. Although other industries were well developed at Olbia, it is this connection which brought goods from the town to the native Scyths in return for wheat which made Olbia so successful. The access not only to the Black Sea but into the upper Euxine where the agriculture lay made a very effective transport system.Olbia was founded in the Seventh century BC as a Milesian factory site. It is one of the best examples of a colony developed from a factory trade site. The original colonizers from Miletus had established a small trade post on the island Berezan years earlier which dealt mainly in fish industries. But as grain trade developed in the area, the colony grew into a city which controlled the Euxine wheat exportation. During the fourth century, the height of Olbia’s power, the city was home to upwards of 30,000 people.The city itself is triangular in shape. At this point references to Minns’s triangular diagram points are most useful. (Figure 1, appd) The city changed size according to the time and population but in the second half of the fourth century BC, the city was at it’s largest forming the triangle ABC. Its approximate size was 80 acres, with the Bug estuary to the east and deep gullies to the west and north. The triangle represented by ADE wa...
