Pontusancient district, Turkey
Main
ancient district in northeastern Anatolia adjoining the Black Sea. In the 1st century bc it briefly contested Rome’s hegemony in Anatolia. An independent Pontic kingdom with its capital at Amaseia (modern Amasya) was established at the end of the 4th century bc in the wake of Alexander’s conquests. Superficially Hellenized, the kingdom retained its Persian social structure, with temple priests and Persianized feudal nobles ruling over a heterogeneous village population. In the 3rd and 2nd centuries bc Pontus gradually asserted itself among the petty Hellenistic states of Anatolia, annexing Sinope (modern Sinop) as its new capital (183 bc). The Pontic kingdom reached its zenith under Mithradates VI Eupator (c. 115–63 bc), whose program of expansion brought him into disastrous conflict with Rome, resulting in the virtual extinction of the Pontic kingdom and its incorporation into the Roman Empire (63–62 bc).
Citations
Link to this article and share the full text with the readers of your Web site or blog-post.
If you think a reference to this article on "Pontus" will enhance your Web site,
blog-post, or any other web-content, then feel free to link to this article,
and your readers will gain full access to the full article, even if they do not subscribe to our service.
You may want to use the HTML code fragment provided below.
We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.
Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.