PONTUS, the name given by the ancient Greeks to a country in the n.e. of Asia Minor, bordering on the Pontus Euxinus (whence its name), and extending from the river Malys in the west to the frontiers of Colchis and Armenia in the east. Its southern limits were the ranges of Anti-Taurus and Paryadres, so that it corresponded nearly to the modern pashaliks of Trebizond and Siwas. On the e. and s. Pontus is mountainous, but along the coast there are large and fertile plains, which in ancient times produced, and indeed still produce, abundance of grain, fruits, and timber. Game, according to Strabo, was also plentiful. The rearing of bees was carefully attended to, and honey and wax were among the chief articles of commerce. Iron was the principal mineral.
Regarding the ancient inhabitants of Pontus nothing is known ethnologically. Greek colonies, indeed, flourished on the coast from the 7th c. B.c., and doubtless spread some knowledge of civilization among the inland barbarians; but how far the latter were influenced thereby We cannot tell. They first appear as divided into numerous tribes, virtually independent, but owning a nominal allegiance to the Persian kings, whose authority was represented by a hereditary satrap belonging to the royal family of Persia.
It was one of these satraps, Ariobarzanes, who, by subjugating some of the Pontian tribes, in the year 363 B.C., during the reign of Artaxerxesll., raid the foundations of an independent sovereignty. Ariobarzanes was succeeded in 337 B. c. by Mithridates IL, 'who took advantage of civil confusions that followed the death of Alexander the great to enlarge his dominions; but the greatest of these Pontine sultans, and one of the most formidable enemies that Rome ever encountered in the east, was Mithridates VI. (q.v.). On the overthrow of this potentate by Pompey (65 ii.c.) the western part of Pontus was annexed to Bithynia, and the rest parceled out among the neighboring princes. Subsequently a grandson of Mithridates, Polemon, was installed monarch of the central part of Pontus; but in the reign of Nero it was voluntarily ceded to the Roman emperor, became a Roman province, and was called Pontus Polemoniacue. In the reign of Constantine it underwent a new division. The principal towns of ancient Pontus were Amisus, Polemonium, Pharnacia, Cerasus, Trapezus, Apsarus, Cabira, and Neocxsareia.