PON'TUS (Lat., from Gk. 116vres, Pontos). The ancient name of a district in the northeast of Asia Minor, bordering on the Pontus Euxinus (whence its name), and extending from the river Hillys (now Kizil lrmak) in the west to the frontiers of Colchis and Armenia, a short dis tance beyond the modern Batton, in the east. Its southern limits were the ranges of Anti-Taurus and Paryadres, so that it corresponded pretty nearly to the modern provinces of Trebizond and Sivas. On the cast and south Pontes is mountainous, but along the coast there arc large and fertile plains which in ancient times pro duced, and indeed still produce, abundance of grain, fruits, and timber. Game, according to Strabo, who was a native of Amasia, was also plentiful. Apiculture was common, and honey and wax were among the chief articles of com merce. Iron was the principal mineral, Besides the Halys at the west, the chief rivers were the Iris and its tributary, the Lyeus, and at the east the Acampsis. Small, but famous from its association with the Amazons, was the Ther motion.
Poutus was not an ethnological. but purely a geographical, division. The name does not occur before the fourth century B.C., and is not common till after the time of Alexander the Great. Properly, the region was called Cappadocia ad Pontum. The early inhabitants seem to have been barbarous but warlike tribes, over whom the monarchs of Assyria, Lydia, and even Persia had but little more than a nominal control, though the region formed one of the satrapies under Darius. The advantages of the fertile coast and the prospects of trade early attracted Greek merchants, and the Argonautic epic re flects the voyages of the early A:0lian and Ionian traders. As early as the seventh century n.e.
the Milesians had founded Sinope, and that city and Miletus planted a number of settlements along the Politic coast, of which the most famous was Trapezus (Trebizond) ; others were Amisus (Samsun), Cotyora, and Cerasus (near the later Pharnacia). In the interior were native cities which later attained prominence, such as Amasia, the old capital and burial place of the earlier kings; Coinana Pontica, the chief seat of the worship of the Asiatic goddess Ma; and Cabira or Neoctesarea. the modern Niksar. Some of the earlier satraps or local princes seem to have assumed a royal title in the fourth century n.e., or at any rate were regarded as the founders of the dynasty, but the foundation of the King dom of Pontus was really laid by Mithridates III. Ctistes (or founder), who in B.C. 302 fled to this region from Antigonus. At first little more than a robber chief, he so skillfully used the disturbances of this time that in B.c. 2S0 he could assume the title of king. He seems to have died about B.C. 26(1, master of Paphlagonia and Northern Cappadocia, though Sinope was still independent. Ile was succeeded by his son, Ariobarzanes Ill., who was followed by Mithri dates IV., and Pharnaces I., who took Sinope and removed the inhabitants of Cotyora and Cerasus to his new city of Pharnacia. He was, however. forced by the Romans to give tip most of his Paphlagonian conquests. To him suc ceeded Mithridates V., and about n.e. 121 the great Mithridates VI. Eupator (see