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Pontus (; Paphlagonia in the west, with varying amounts of hinterland. Several states and provinces bearing the name of Pontus or variants thereof were established in the region in Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods, culminating in the late Byzantine Empire of Trebizond. Pontus is sometimes considered as the home of the Amazons, with the name Amasia not only used for a city (Amasya) but for all of Pontus in Greek mythology.
Pontus became important as a bastion of Byzantine Greek and Greek Orthodox civilization and attracted Greeks from all backgrounds (scholars, traders, mercenaries, refugees) from all over Anatolia and the southern Balkans, from the Classical and Hellenistic periods into the Byzantine and Ottoman. These Greeks of Pontus are generally referred to as Pontic Greeks.
Pontus remained outside the reach of the Bronze Age empires, of which the closest was Great Hatti. The region went further uncontrolled by Hatti's eastern neighbours, Hurrian states like Kaška. As of 2004 little had been found of them archaeologically.[3]
In the wake of the Hittite empire's collapse, the Assyrian court noted that the "Kašku" had overrun its territory in conjunction with a hitherto unknown group whom they labeled the Muški.[4] Iron Age visitors to the region, mostly Greek, noted that the hinterlands remained disunited, and they recorded the names of tribes: Moskhians (often associated with those Muški),[5] Leucosyri,[6] Mares, Makrones, Mossynoikians, Tibareni,[7] Tzans (Armenian: Chaniuk),[8] and Chaldians (Armenian: Khaghtik).[9]
The Armenian language went unnoted by the Hittites, the Assyrians, and all the post-Hittite nations; an ancient theory is that its speakers migrated from Phrygia, past literary notice, across Pontus during the early Iron Age.[10] The Greeks, who spoke a related Indo-European tongue, followed them along the coast. The Greeks are the earliest long-term inhabitants of the region from whom written records survive. During the late 700s BCE, Pontus further became a base for the Cimmerians; however, these were defeated by the Lydians, and became a distant memory after the campaigns of Alyattes II.[11]
Since there was so little literacy in northeastern Anatolia until the Persian and Hellenistic era, one can only speculate as to the other languages spoken here. Given that Kartvelian languages remain spoken to the east of Pontus, some are suspected to have been spoken in eastern Pontus during the Iron Age: the Tzans are usually associated with today's Laz.[8]
The first travels of Greek merchants and adventurers to the Pontian region occurred probably from around 1000 BC, whereas their settlements would become steady and solidified cities only by the 8th and 7th centuries BC as archaeological findings document. This fits in well with a foundation date of 731 BC as reported by Eusebius of Caesarea for Sinope, perhaps the most ancient of the Greek Colonies in what was later to be called Pontus.[12] The epical narratives related to the travels of Jason and the Argonauts to Colchis, the tales of Heracles' navigating the Black Sea and Odysseus' wanderings into the land of the Cimmerians, as well as the myth of Zeus constraining Prometheus to the Caucasus mountains as a punishment for his outwitting the Gods, can all be seen as reflections of early contacts between early Greek colonists and the local, probably Caucasian, peoples. The earliest known written description of Pontus, however, is that of Scylax of Korianda, who in the 7th century BC described Greek settlements in the area.[13]
By the 6th century BC, Pontus had become officially a part of the Achaemenid Empire, which probably meant that the local Greek colonies were paying tribute to the Persians.[14] When the Athenian commander Xenophon passed through Pontus around a century later in 401-400 BC, in fact, he found no Persians in Pontus.[14]
The peoples of this part of northern [17]
Pontus came out from Persian domination when the Kingdom of Cappadocia separated from the Achaemenid Empire, taking Pontus with it as one of its provinces.[18] Subsequently, Pontus itself separated from the Kingdom of Cappadocia under Mithridates I Ktistes ("Ktistes", Κτίστης meaning "The Founder", Constructor in Greek) in 302 BC and became independent.[18] As the greater part of the kingdom he eventually established lay within the immense region of Cappadocia, which in early ages extended from the borders of Cilicia to the Euxine (Black Sea), the kingdom as a whole was at first called "Cappadocia towards the Pontus", but afterwards simply "Pontus", the name Cappadocia being henceforth restricted to the southern half of the region previously included under that title.
The Kingdom of Pontus extended generally to the east of the Halys River. The Persian dynasty which was to found this kingdom had during the 4th century BC ruled the Greek city of Cius (or Kios) in Mysia, with its first known member being Ariobarzanes I of Cius and the last ruler based in the city being Mithridates II of Cius. Mithridates II's son, also called Mithridates, would become Mithridates I Ktistes of Pontus.
As the [17]
During the troubled period following the death of Alexander the Great, Mithridates Ktistes was for a time in the service of Antigonus, one of Alexander's successors, and successfully maneuvering in this unsettled time managed, shortly after 302 BC, to create the Kingdom of Pontus which would be ruled by his descendants mostly bearing the same name, until 64 BC. Thus, this Persian dynasty managed to survive and prosper in the Hellenistic world while the main Persian Empire had fallen.
This kingdom reached its greatest height under Mithridates VI or Mithridates Eupator, commonly called the Great, who for many years carried on war with the Romans. Under him, the realm of Pontus included not only Pontic Cappadocia but also the seaboard from the Bithynian frontier to Colchis, part of inland Paphlagonia, and Lesser Armenia. Despite ruling Lesser Armenia, King Mithridates VI was an ally of Armenian King Tigranes the Great, to whom he married his daughter Cleopatra.[19] Eventually, however, the Romans defeated both King Mithridates VI and his son-in-law, Armenian King Tigranes the Great, during the Mithridatic Wars, bringing Pontus under Roman rule.[20]
With the subjection of this kingdom by Pompey in 64 BC, in which little changed in the structuring of life, neither for the oligarchies that controlled the cities nor for the common people in city or hinterland, the meaning of the name Pontus underwent a change. Part of the kingdom was now annexed to the Roman Empire, being united with Bithynia in a double province called Pontus and Bithynia: this part included only the seaboard between Heraclea (today Ereğli) and Amisus (Samsun), the ora Pontica. The larger part of Pontus, however, was included in the province of Galatia.[20]
Hereafter the simple name Pontus without qualification was regularly employed to denote the half of this dual province, especially by Romans and people speaking from the Roman point of view; it is so used almost always in the New Testament. The eastern half of the old kingdom was administered as a client kingdom together with Colchis. Its last king was Polemon II.
In AD 62, the country was constituted by Nero a Roman province. It was divided into the three districts: Pontus Galaticus in the west, bordering on Galatia; Pontus Polemoniacus in the centre, so called from its capital Polemonium; and Pontus Cappadocicus in the east, bordering on Cappadocia (Armenia Minor). Subsequently, the Roman Emperor Trajan moved Pontus into the province of Cappadocia itself in the early 2nd century AD.[20] In response to a Gothic raid on Trebizond in 457 AD, the Roman Emperor Diocletian decided to break up the area into smaller provinces under more localized administration.[8]
With the reorganization of the provincial system under Diocletian (about AD 295), the Pontic districts were divided up between three smaller, independent provinces within the Dioecesis Pontica:[8]
The Byzantine Emperor Justinian further reorganized the area in 536:
By the time of the early Byzantine Empire, Trebizond became a center of culture and scientific learning.[21] In the 7th century, an individual named Tychicus returned from Constantinople to establish a school of learning.[21] One of his students was the early Armenian scholar Anania of Shirak.[21]
Under the Byzantine Empire, the Pontus came under the Armeniac Theme, with the westernmost parts (Paphlagonia) belonging to the Bucellarian Theme. Progressively, these large early themes were divided into smaller ones, so that by the late 10th century, the Pontus was divided into the themes of Chaldia, which was governed by the Gabrades family,[21] and Koloneia. After the 8th century, the area experienced a period of prosperity, which was brought to an end only by the Seljuk conquest of Asia Minor in the 1070s and 1080s. Restored to the Byzantine Empire by Alexios I Komnenos, the area was governed by effectively semi-autonomous rulers, like the Gabras family of Trebizond.
Following
† Italy was never constituted as a province, instead retaining a special juridical status until Diocletian's reforms.
Ancient episcopal sees of the Roman province of Pontus Polemoniacus listed in the Annuario Pontificio as titular sees:[26]
Ancient episcopal sees of the Roman province of Helenopontus listed in the Annuario Pontificio as titular sees :[26]
As early as the First Council of Nicea, Trebizond had its own bishop.[9] Subsequently, the Bishop of Trebizond was subordinated to the Metropolitan Bishop of Poti.[9] Then during the 9th century, Trebizond itself became the seat of the Metropolitan Bishop of Lazica.[9]
Mentioned thrice in the New Testament, inhabitants of Pontus were some of the very first converts to Christianity. Acts 2:9 mentions them present in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost; Acts 18:2 mentions a Jewish tentmaker from Pontus, Aquila, who was then living in Corinth with his wife Priscilla, who had both converted to Christianity, and in 1 Peter 1:1, Peter the Apostle addresses the Pontians in his letter as the "elect" and "chosen ones".
The Black Sea Region (Turkish: Karadeniz Bölgesi) is one of Turkey's seven census-defined geographical regions.
Under the subsequent Ottoman rule which began with the fall of dialect of Greek. One group of Islamicized Greeks were called the Kromli - They numbered between 12,000 and 15,000, were suspected of secretly having remained Christians, and lived in villages including Krom, Imera, Livadia, Prdi, Alitinos, Mokhora, and Ligosti.[25]
[23] In addition, the Empire of Trebizond became a renowned center of culture under its ruling Komnenos dynasty.[23]
Miletus, Ionian League, Turkey, Lydia, Caria
Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, United Kingdom, Syria
Muse, Helios, Heracles, Trojan War, Zeus
Iliad, Lydia, Trojan War, Troy, Galatia
Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, Constantinople, Empire of Trebizond, Christianity
Bosporan Kingdom, Ptolemaic Kingdom, Dayuan, Indo-Greek Kingdom, Pontus (region)