Date: January 9th, 2019 7:53 PM Author: transparent sweet tailpipe
not "wolf" in greek, but they used an old persian loan-word for wolf. they called it Ὑρκανία θάλαττα, or Hyrcania thalatta, which means Hyrcanian ocean. Hyrcania is the Grecoized version of the old persian "verkana," or "of the wolves"/of the verka. so it literally meant Ocean of Wolves or Wolf-Ocean. it was because greeks only knew it from the southern coast and the dense forests in that region.
Date: January 9th, 2019 9:18 PM Author: transparent sweet tailpipe
some of the greeks who got captured by the persians or greek traders in persia almost certainly did.
what's interesting is how unexplored the whole region was until relatively recently. the russians didn't start pushing south from astrakhan until the late-1600's, and the whole place was considered a wild land full of raiders and warring tribes. the persians nominally controlled a lot of stuff along the coast that they didn't really in practice.
there's a famous cossack rebel named stepan "stenka" razin who rebelled against russia and became a caspian raider, and they didn't catch him for years until 1671.