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Pontica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

About forty-five miles in an air-line west-south-west of Samsun (Amisos) lies the town of Vezir Keupru, situated at the eastern edge of a rolling plain bounded towards the west by the Halys, on the south by the long ridge of Tavshan Dagh, and on the north by the mountain-rim of the plateau through which the Halys forces its way to the sea. This undulating tract is the extreme westerly part of the ancient Phazemonitis, over which passed the one great ‘through route’ from Constantinople across Paphlagonia to the Euphrates, following throughout its course a line curiously parallel to the coast. Though this road is not described in any ancient document, its importance for the Roman period is amply proved by a remarkably complete series of milestones, erected or re-erected by successive emperors between Nerva and Constantine, which we discovered last summer between the Halys and Neocaesareia. In modern times it cannot claim any such importance.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1900

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References

page 151 note 1 This road is discussed by Mr. J. A. E. Munro below (pp. 159 ff.)

page 152 note 1 Neoclaudiopolis was a temporary name, which entirely disappears in the Byzantine period.

page 153 note 1 Pompeiopolis was within Mithradates' part of Paphlagonia. The phrase ἡ ἐκτὸς (west of) ῾´ Αλυος χώρα τῆς Ποντικῆς ἐπαρχίας used by Strabo to describe the districts about Pompeiopolis (p. 562), which Prof.Ramsay, finds peculiar and obscure (Hist. Geog. p. 193Google Scholar), seems easily explicable when we observe that Strabo has just finished speaking of Amaseia, his own birthplace. ᾿Εκτὸςi is used from the point of view of Amaseia and Ποντισὴ ἐπαρχία means here, as elsewhere, the Roman province.

page 153 note 2 Pliny, v. 149.

page 154 note 1 Also on coins of Amasela.

page 154 note 2 Arising doubtless from the Archiereus' function as president of the meetings of the Koinon (ἄρχων τοῦ κοινοῦ for the phrase cf. Perrot, , Exploration, p. 32Google Scholar, No. 22, etc.). Mommsen puts the case clearly. Es können die sacrale Vertretung des Bundes im Kaisercult und der Vorsitz in der Bundesversammlung, das Priesterthum und die Lykiarchie nichts gewesen sein als zwiefache Function desselben Amtes.

page 154 note 3 Ath. Mittheil., xviii. (1893), p. 230.

page 154 note 4 C.I.G. 4157.

page 154 note 5 Perrot, , Mém. d'Arch. p. 168Google Scholar, and Hirschfeld, , Sitz. Berl. Akad. 1888, p. 877Google Scholar, No. 61.

page 155 note 1 C.I.G. 4149 = Hirsohfeld No. 28.

page 155 note 2 Hirsohfeld, No. 61.

page 155 note 3 B.C.H. 1898, p. 492.

page 155 note 4 Rev. Ét. Grecques, viii. (1895) p. 86, No. 31.

page 155 note 5 As Dr. Brandis does, art. Bithynia in Pauly-Wissowa, , Real-Encyc. pp. 533–4Google Scholar.

page 155 note 6 We cannot here enter into the problem as to the extent of the province of Pontus as constituted by Pompey. Strabo's account leaves the question doubtful; but against the view put forward in criticism of Marquardt by Niese, (Rhein. Museum, xxxviii., 1883, p. 577 ff.)Google Scholar, that the xi. πολιτεῖαι into which Pompey divided Pontus (Strabo, p. 541) included all his own 7 foundations except Nicopolis,—i.e. that Pompey's Pontus extended to Sivas Megalopolis) on the Halys and up to Armenia Minor, and that this arrangement continued until B.C. 39 when Antony cut great slices out of the province, is to be set an inscription of Herakleia (published in B.C.H. 1898 p. 492) belonging to the 3rd. century of our era ῾Α βουλὰ καὶ ὁ δᾶμος καὶ τὸ κοινὸν τῶν ἐν Πόντῳ πόλιων ί ἐτείμασαν τὸν....ἀρχιερέα τοῦ Πόντου Αὐρ. ᾿Αλέξανδρον Τειμύθεον Now in imperial times Pontus did not contain any of the six πόλεις founded by Pompey which Niese assigns to the original province of Pontus, and yet it was still governed by the old lex Pompeia and contained x. cities. Pompeiopolis, which was one of Pompey's xi., was (as we have just seen) given to dynasts, and afterwards included in the Province Galatia, so that there remained x. πολιτεῖαι which had become πόλεις by the third century A.D. Niese laid great stress on the argument that 11 πόλεις did not exist in B.C. 63 within the limits of the prov. Pontus of Imperial times; but the term πολιτεῖαι was probably used expressly by Strabo in contradistinction to πόλεις to denote distinct governmental districts containing no true πόλις To Strabo there was not a single πόλις in Galatia except Pessinus, and there were only two in Cappadocia, but in each case there must have been many πολιτεῖαι —a vaguer term appropriate to this oriental country. I am indebted to Prof. Ramsay for help on this subject.

page 155 note 7 Cf. Imhoof-Blumer, , Griech. Münzen p. 578Google Scholar (A.D. 146).

page 156 note 1 On the eras of Amasela and Sebastopolis, Imhoof-Blumer, op. cit. pp. 560, 579 f. Komana and the district around were not added till A.D. 35.

page 156 note 2 Cf. Ramsay, Hist. Geogr. p. 253Google Scholar f.

page 156 note 3 Kenyon, in Class. Review, 1893, p. 477Google Scholar f.

page 156 note 4 See especially Lipsius, R. A., Die Edesseniiche Abgar-sage (1880)Google Scholar, and Tixeront, L. J., Les origines de l'Église d'Édesse et la legende d'Abgar (1888)Google Scholar. For a full account of the literature, see Harnack, Gesch. d. altchristlichen Literatur.

page 156 note 5 Edited and translated by G. Phillips (1876).

page 156 note 6 Mr. Grenfell has kindly examined it for me; the text is written on the recto, while on the verso is part of a vi/vii cent. document. Prof. Lindsay had assigned it to the 5th or even the 4th century.

page 157 note 1 Ούχάμα was originally in the text, see note 61 in Migne and cf. Lipsius, op. cit. p. 15 n. 1.

page 157 note 2 Probably interpolated, cf. Lipsius, p. 15 n. 2.