The Cimmerian Bosporus as a boundary between Europe and Asia according to Aeschylus. An invented tradition?

This study may be considered as a sequel of my paper about the Thracian Bosporus (Kaskal 2022), where I argued that the evidence of the real weight and role of the Bosporus, with regard to the relationships between Greeks and non-Greek people, points to the conclusion that the channel was originally perceived as a passage from one country to another, not as an actual boundary. The same conclusion does fit to the Cimmerian Bosporus, on the basis of a three steps exposition; a careful analysis of Aeschylus’ tragedies concerning the boundary between Europe and Asia (Prometheus Bound and Suppliants, where the poet mentions Io; a fragment of Prometheus Unbound and Persians); some considerations about the traditions, in Herodotus, Strabo and other writers, concerning the rivers Phasis and Tanaïs as boundaries, because our sources connect the final course of the Tanaïs and the Cimmerian Bosporus; an overview of the Greek colonization in that area and of the Persian initiatives against the Scythians in the 6th century.