Pontus
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Traditional rural Pontic house |
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A man in traditional clothes from Trabzon, illustration |
Pontus is the name which was applied, in ancient times, to extensive tracts of country in the northeast of
Asia Minor (modern
Turkey) bordering on the Euxine (
Black Sea), which was often called simply
Pontos (the main), by the
Greeks, after the colonisation of the
Anatolian shores by the
Ionian
Greeks. The exact signification of this purely territorial name varied greatly at different times. The Greeks used it loosely to denote various parts of the shores of the Euxine, and the term did not get a definite connotation of being a separate state until after the establishment of the kingdom of Pontus, founded beyond the
Halys during the troubled period following the death of
Alexander the Great, shortly after
302 BC, by
Mithradates I Ktistes, son of
Mithridates II of Kios (
Mysia) a
Persian ruler in the service of
Antigonus, one of Alexander's successors. The kingdom of Pontus was henceforth ruled by a succession of kings, mostly bearing the same name, till
64 BC.
As the greater part of this kingdom lay within the immense region of
Cappadocia, which in early ages extended from the borders of
Cilicia to the Euxine, the kingdom as a whole was at first called "Cappadocia towards the Pontus", but afterwards simply "Pontus," the name Cappadocia being henceforth restricted to the southern half of the region previously included under that title. Under the last king,
Mithradates Eupator, commonly called the Great, the realm of Pontus included not only Pontic Cappadocia but also the seaboard from the
Bithynian frontier to
Colchis, part of inland
Paphlagonia, and
Lesser Armenia. With the subjection of this kingdom by
Pompey in
64 BC, in which little changed in the structuring of life, neither for the oligarchies that controlled the cities nor for the common people in city or hinterland, the meaning of the name Pontus underwent a change. Part of the kingdom was now annexed to the
Roman Empire, being united with Bithynia in a double province called
Pontus and Bithynia: this part included only the seaboard between
Heraclea (
Eregli) and Amisus (
Samsun), the
ora Pontica. Hereafter the simple name Pontus without qualification was regularly employed to denote the half of this dual province, especially by Romans and people speaking from the Roman point of view; it is so used almost always in the
New Testament.
With the reorganization of the provincial system under
Diocletian (about AD
295), the Pontic districts were divided up between four provinces of the
Dioecesis Pontica:#
Paphlagonia, to which was attached most of the old province Pontus#
Diospontus, re-named
Helenopontus by
Constantine, containing the rest of the province Pontus and the adjoining district, eight cities in all (including
Sinope,
Amisus and
Zela) with
Amasia as capital#
Pontus Polemoniacus, containing Comana, Polemonium, Cerasus and Trapezus with
Neocaesarea as capital#
Armenia Minor, five cities, with
Sebasteia as capital.
This rearrangement gave place in turn to the
Byzantine system of military districts (
themes).
Pontus continued to be an autonomous state under the Imperial rule of Constantinople through most of the history of the
Byzantine Empire. Its fall gave rise to the
Empire of Trebizond, which existed in the area from
1204 to
15 August 1461. After that, the name Pontus was preserved as a state within the
Ottoman Empire.
In the 20th century, the situation of Christian minorities in Pontus worsened with the increasing influence of the
Young Turks, culminating in mass killings and deportations.
[ The Blight of Asia, by G. Horton full E-text available ] [ The Hellenic Genocide Quotes from historical documents ] [ Home page of Pontus and Asia Minor Genocide The Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies ] The
Greek parliament has declared 19th May as a memory date for the
Pontian Greek Genocide.
After the establishment of the Republic of
Turkey, Pontus was not recognised as autonomous. In 1921, an independent Pontic state was proposed, but never realized. Under the
Treaty of Lausanne, the borders of Turkey were renegotiated and in 1923, the
exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey required approximately 1.5 million Greeks living in Turkey to resettle in
Greece, and approximately 500,000 Turks living in Greece to resettle in Turkey. Among the former were the remaining 300,000
Pontic Greeks of Muslim faith, of an original population of more than 700,000.
Article 1 of the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations, dated
30 January,
1923, between the governments of Greece and Turkey reads as follows:
"As from
1 May,
1923, there shall take place a compulsory exchange of Turkish nationals of the Greek Orthodox religion established in Turkish territory, and of Greek nationals of the Muslim religion established in Greek territory. These persons shall not return to live in Turkey or Greece respectively without the authorization of the Turkish Government or of the Greek Government respectively."
A number of Pontic Greeks moved from Turkey to countries in the
Caucasus region, mainly
Georgia and
Russia. The majority of the
Greek diaspora in the countries of the former USSR descends from these Pontic Greeks.
*Ramsay MacMullen, 2000.
Romanization in the Time of Augustus (Yale University Press)
*
Pontic language*
Pontic Greeks*
Hayastan (Greater Armenia)
*
Cilicia (Lesser Armenia)
*
Western Armenia (Ottoman Armenia)
*
Kurdistan*
Lazistan*
Cheveneburi*
Ajarians*
Greek Muslims*
Amazons (mythological women warriors)
