PONTUS, pŏn’ təs (Πόντος, G4510, sea). A region in northern Asia Minor occupying a considerable part of the southern coast of the Euxine, or Black Sea between the Halys River and Colchis. Inland its territory extended to Cappadocia and Lesser Armenia. It is a rugged terrain formed by a series of mountain ranges parallel with the seacoast, enclosing deep valleys. The deltas of the Halys and the Idris form two coastal plains, and the two rivers drain the country and form pathways of communication to the interior. One lateral road ran from Amastris to Sebasteia. The region has a good rainfall, considerable fertility, and a fairly mild climate apart from the highlands. The olive was a staple product, as in most other Mediterranean and associated lands. There was abundant timber. Grain could be grown near the coast.
The political structure of Pontus resembled that of Cappadocia and other border lands of the old Pers. empire. There was a primitive village population that formed the ethnic substratum of the population, and that followed a territorial pattern of organization as old as human society in the area. There were small Gr. city-states dating from the great early movement of Gr. colonization in the Euxine. As usual, the Gr. colonies were in the nature of coastal trading posts with little territory, and no tendency to expand into or to dominate the hinterland. There were large temple territories staffed by multitudes of slaves and ruled by a hierarchy. A feudal Iranian nobility permeated the whole structure. One of these aristocratic houses, dominating the rest and bringing the hierarchy of priests into subjugation, gained control of the country and established a system of unified administration. One may guess that wild tribal areas remained beyond central control, but c. 337/336 b.c., a strong Pontic kingdom was emerging, and with such independence that first the Persians and then the Seleucids of Antioch allowed it. In a remote area, in difficult territory, walled by mountains and with difficult communications, Pontus was not open to easy subjugation, decisive invasion, or alien control.
The history of the first three centuries is fragmentary. The royal rulers of Pontus became more and more involved in the history and fortunes of Asia Minor as a whole. The progress of their kingdom was interwoven with the doings of neighboring Bithynia and the dynamic kingdom of Pergamum and finally with Rome, as the Republic began to penetrate the eastern Mediterranean and the Asia Minor peninsula.
Mithridates V followed a philo-Rom. and Hellenizing policy in the middle years of the 2nd cent. b.c. He aided Rome in the final war against Carthage (149 to 146 b.c.). When Aristonicus of Pergamum rose in revolt and Attalus III bequeathed his kingdom to Rome, Mithridates aided the Republic to put down the rebellion and to establish the firm and final foothold in Asia Minor that the amazing bequest of Attalus gave. Mithridates’ payment was Phrygia, and since he already had gained control of the vast “heartland” of Galatia, the ruler of Pontus was dominant in all Asia Minor and a force to be reckoned with. Mithridates V was assassinated in 120 b.c. at Sinope, and his will, undoubtedly a forgery, named Laodice his wife, and his two minor children Eupator and Chrestos as his heirs and successors.
With Eupator, an unusual youth who was to be called Mithridates VI, began the most remarkable and ultimately tragic chapter in the history of Pontus. In a typical Toynbee pattern of “withdrawal and return,” the boy fled from his mother’s court, led a fugitive existence in the rugged interior of the land, and ultimately returned to take Sinope, dethrone his mother, kill his brother, and resume from the captured throne his royal father’s program of dynamic expansion. Cannily, and with farsighted strategy, he first secured the northern shore of the Euxine, thus gaining control over the coastal communities and vital lanes of communication. Revenue and manpower came from the same region. Thrusting southward into Paphlagonia and Cappadocia, Mithridates VI found himself in confrontation with Rome. The Republic was feeling for a firm frontier in the area, and had not yet found one.
Rome blocked Mithridates’ thrust westward into Bithynia, and the clash led to the First Mithridatic War. Rome, in the midst of her expansion, with the corruption of her governing aristocracy spreading hatred and resentment through the expanding area of her rule, was unloved in Asia Minor, and Mithridates found ready support in the population of the peninsula, where he was hailed as a deliverer. The war began in 88 b.c. Mithridates rapidly occupied Asia Minor where there was a vast massacre of Italian and Roman immigrants. He carried the war across the Aegean only to meet defeat at the hands of the able and ruthless Sulla.
Asia turned against Mithridates in defeat, and in 84 b.c. at Dardanus, the king made peace on Sulla’s terms, which stripped him of all his conquered territory. That he was left in control of Pontus shows that Sulla had realized that there was a limit to Rome’s reach and power to subdue. The king used the next ten years well. The Romans harried Mithridates’ borders in 81 b.c. in a minor conflict, which it is the fashion to call the Second Mithridatic War, but the king had little trouble in parrying the attacks of Murena, Sulla’s lieutenant. He wisely limited his activities, tightened his grip on the vital Black Sea littoral, piled up money and supplies, and made useful compacts with the pirate fleets.
In 74 b.c. Rome decided to annex Bithynia. Mithridates saw the move as an attack on his flank, and occupied Bithynia, which began the Third Mithridatic War. Lucullus was in command of the Romans. He moved on Pontus by way of the Lycus valley, defeated the king and drove him to seek refuge in Armenia in 71 b.c. Spending the winter in the organization and administration of Asia, Lucullus advanced into Armenia in 70, 69 and 68 b.c. The slow deliberate campaigning was difficult for the morale of the troops and for the patience of those at home. The Lex Manilia in 66 b.c. transferred the command to Pompey, Caesar’s great rival, and the foremost soldier of the day.
Pompey had little difficulty in concluding the war. Mithridates had been worn down by Lucullus, and he was driven from his kingdom to find refuge in the Crimea. He sought to carry on the war from exile but his subjects in Pontus had reached the limit of endurance. Rebellion broke out and the king died by the sword of a guardsman at the age of 68. The legend was that he tried in vain to poison himself, for he had long immunized his body to poisons of all sorts by a diet of prophylactic doses. He had fought a valiant fight against the might of the world’s emerging power. Lucullus and Pompey outgeneraled him, and he proved unable to retain the loyalty of his subjects.
In his postwar organization, Pompey broke up Pontus, giving a portion to Deiotarus of Galatia and restoring other parts to the priestly or regional control, which they had enjoyed or endured before the unification of the kingdom. Varied patterns of divided city and regional rule, difficult to describe and document, filled the next hundred years. Pompey’s object of “divide and rule” seems to have been in large measure successful, for no major military threat took shape in the region after the defeat of the great Mithridates. From a.d. 64, Pontus was made part of the Galatian-Cappadocian province. Variants of no great historical significance may be noted in the political affiliation and structure of the area from this time to the end of the empire.
The region retained throughout much of its original character. It was remote, and neither Gr. nor Rom. culture had penetrated it deeply or decisively. City and countryside remained divided. Feudal rule retained a shadow. The Jews from Pontus mentioned in the NT (Acts 2:9; 18:2) were no doubt colonists in the Gr. coastal towns. Christianity penetrated the area (1 Pet 1:1) but there is no information about its origins or progress.
Bibliography CAH, XI, 211ff., 575; D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor, 2 vols. (1950).