Pon'tus. A large district in the north of Asia Minor, extending along the coast
of the Pontus Euxinus Sea, (Pontus), from which circumstance the name was
derived. It corresponds nearly to the modern Trebizond. It is three
times mentioned in the New Testament -- Act_2:9;
Act_18:2; 1Pe_1:1.
All these passages agree in showing that there were many Jewish
residents in the district. As to the annals of Pontus, the one brilliant
passage of its history is the life of the great Mithridates. Under Nero, the whole
region was made of Roman province, bearing the name of Pontus. It was conquered
by the Turks in A.D. 1461, and is still under their dominion.
Source:
Smith’s Bible Dictionary
Pontus
pon´tus (Πόντος,
Póntos): Was an important province in the northeastern part of
Asia Minor, lying along the south shore of the Black Sea. The name was
geographical, not ethnical, in origin, and was first used to designate that
part of Cappadocia which bordered on the “Pontus,” as the Euxine was often
termed. Pontus proper extended from the Halys River on the West to the borders
of Colchis on the East, its interior boundaries meeting those of Galatia,
Cappadocia and Armenia. The chief rivers besides the Halys were the Iris, Lycus
and Thermodon. The configuration of the country included a beautiful but
narrow, riparian margin, backed by a noble range of mountains parallel to the
coast, while these in turn were broken by the streams that forced their way
from the interior plains down to the sea; the valleys, narrower or wider, were
fertile and productive, as were the wide plains of the interior such as the
Chiliokomon and Phanaroea. The mountain slopes were originally clothed with
heavy forests of beech, pine and oak of different species, and when the country
was well afforested, the rainfall must have been better adequate than now to
the needs of a luxuriant vegetation.
The first points in the earliest history of Pontus emerge from
obscurity, much as the mountain peaks of its own noble ranges lift their heads
above a fog bank. Thus, we catch glimpses of Assyrian culture at Sinope and
Amisus, probably as far back as the 3rd millennium BC. The period of Hittite
domination in Asia Minor followed hard after, and there is increasing reason to
suppose that the Hittites occupied certain leading city sites in Pontus,
constructed the artificial mounds or tumuli that frequently meet the eyes of
modern travelers, hewed out the rock tombs, and stamped their character upon
the early conditions. The home of the Amazons, those warrior priestesses of the
Hittites, was located on the banks of the Thermodon, and the mountains rising
behind Terme are still called the “Amazon Range”; and the old legends live
still in stories about the superior prowess of the modern women living there.
See ARCHAEOLOGY OF ASIA MINOR.
As the Hittite power shrunk in extent and force, by the year 1000 BC
bands of hardy Greek adventurers appeared from the West sailing along the
Euxine main in quest of lands to exploit and conquer and colonize. Cape Jason,
which divides the modern mission fields of Trebizond and Marsovan, preserves
the memory of the Argonants and the Golden Fleece. Miletus, “greatest of the
Ionic towns,” sent out its colonists, swarm after swarm, up through the
Bosphorus, and along the southern shore of the Black Sea. They occupied Sinope,
the northern-most point of the peninsula with the best harbor and the most
commanding situation. Sinope was in Paphlagonia, but politically as well as
commercially enjoyed intimate relations with the Pontic cities. Settlers from
Sinope, reinforced by others from Athens direct, pressed on and founded Amisus,
the modern Samsoun, always an important commercial city. Another colony
from Sinope founded Trebizond, near which Xenophon and the Ten Thousand reached
the sea again after they had sounded the power of Persia and found it hollow at
Cunaxa. Among the cities of the interior, picturesque Amasia in the gorge of
the Iris River witnessed the birth of Strabo in the 1st century BC, and to the
geographer Strabo, more than to any other man, is due our knowledge of Pontus
in its early days. Zille, “built upon the mound of Semiramis,” contained the
sanctuary of Anaitis, where sacrifices were performed with more pomp than in
any other place. Comana, near the modern Tokat, was a city famous for
the worship of the great god Ma. Greek culture by degrees took root along the
coast; it mixed with, and in turn was modified by, the character of the older
native inhabitants.
When the Persians established their supremacy in Asia Minor with the
overthrow of Lydia, 546 BC, Pontus was loosely joined to the great empire and
was ruled by Persian satraps. Ariobarzanes, Mithradates and Pharnaces are the
recurring names in this dynasty of satraps which acquired independence about
363 and maintained it during the Macedonian period. The man that first made
Pontus famous in history was Mithradates VI, surnamed Eupator. Mithradates was
a typical oriental despot, gifted, unscrupulous, commanding. Born at Sinope 136
BC and king at Amasia at the age of twelve, Mithradates was regarded by the
Romans as “the most formidable enemy the Republic ever had to contend with.” By
conquest or alliance he widely extended his power, his chief ally being his
son-in-law Dikran, or Tigranes, of Armenia, and then prepared for the impending
struggle with Rome. The republic had acquired Pergamus in 133 BC and assumed
control of Western Asia Minor. There were three Roman armies in different parts
of the peninsula when war broke out, 88 BC. Mithradates attacked them
separately and over-threw them all. He then planned and executed a general
massacre of all the Romans in Asia Minor, and 80,000 persons were cut down.
Sulla by patient effort restored the fortunes of Rome, and the first war ended
in a drawn game; each party had taken the measure of its antagonist, but
neither had been able to oust the other. The second war began in the year 74,
with Lucullus as the Roman general. Lucullus took Amisus by siege, chased Mithradates
to Cabira, modern Niksar, scattered his army and drove the oriental
sultan out of his country. Subsequently on his return to Rome, Lucullus carried
from Kerasoun the first cherries known to the western world. In the third war
the hero on the Roman side was the masterful Pompey, appointed in 66 BC. As a
result of this war, Mithradates was completely vanquished. His dominions were
finally and permanently incorporated in the territories of the Roman republic.
The aged king, breathing out wrath and forming impossible plans against his
lifelong enemies, died in exile in the Crimea from poison administered by his
own hand.
Most of Pontus was for administrative purposes united by the Romans with
the province of Bithynia, though the eastern part subsisted as a separate
kingdom under Polemon and his house, 36 BC to 63 AD, and the southwestern
portion was incorporated with the province of Galatia.
It was during the Roman period that Christianity entered this province.
There were Jews dwelling in Pontus, devout representatives of whom were in
Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost (Act_2:9).
Paul's associates, Aquila and Priscilla, were originally from here (Act_18:2). The sojourners of the Dispersion are
included in the address of the first Epistle of Peter together with the people
of four other provinces in Asia Minor (1Pe_1:1).
Local traditions connect the apostles Andrew and Thaddeus with evangelistic
labors in this region. They are said to have followed the great artery of
travel leading from Caesarea Mazaca to Sinope. Pliny, governor of Bithynia and
Pontus 111-113 AD, found Christians under his authority in great numbers (see
BITHYNIA), and Professor Ramsay argues that Pliny's famous letters, Numbers 96
and 97, written to the emperor Traian on the subject of the treatment of
Christians under his government (see PERSECUTION), were composed in view of
conditions in Amisus (Church in Roman Empire, 224, 225).
The Roman empire in the East was gradually merged into the Byzantine,
which is still known to the local inhabitants as the empire of “Roum,” i.e.
Rome. Pontus shared the vicissitudes of this rather unfortunate government
until, in 1204, a branch of the Byzantine imperial family established in Pontus
a separate small state with its capital at Trebizond. Here the house of the
Grand Comneni, sheltered between the sea and the mountain ranges, maintained
its tinsel sovereignty to and beyond the fall of Constantinople. In 1461
Trebizond was taken by Mohammed the Conqueror, since which date Pontus, with
its conglomerate population of Turks, Armenians, Greeks and fragments of other
races, has been a part of the Ottoman empire.
Source:
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Pontus
A province of Asia Minor, stretching along the southern coast of the
Euxine Sea, corresponding nearly to the modern province of Trebizond. In the
time of the apostles it was a Roman province. Strangers from this province were
at Jerusalem at Pentecost (Act_2:9),
and to “strangers scattered throughout Pontus,” among others, Peter addresses
his first epistle (1Pe_1:1). It was
evidently the resort of many Jews of the Dispersion. Aquila was a native of
Pontus (Act_18:2).
Source: Easton’s
Bible Dictionary