Thalatta! Thalatta!
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Thalatta! Thalatta! ("The Sea! The Sea!") was the shouting of joy when the roaming 10,000 Greeks saw Euxeinos Pontos (the Black Sea) from Mount Theches (Θήχης) in Armenia after participating in Cyrus the Younger's failed march against Persian Empire in the year 401 BC. The mountain was only a five days' march away from the friendly coastal city Trapezus. The story is told by Xenophon in his Anabasis.
Thalatta (θάλαττα) is the Attic form of the word. In the Ionic and Doric dialects (as well as Modern Greek) it is thalassa (θάλασσα).
Iris Murdoch wrote a novel called The Sea, The Sea which won the Booker Prize in 1978.
