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| Provincia Bithynia et Pontus Ἐπαρχία Βιθυνίας καὶ Πόντου | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Province of theRoman Empire | |||||||||||||||
| 74 BC/64 BC–c. 300 AD | |||||||||||||||
.svg) The province of Bithynia et Pontus within the Roman Empire, ca. 125 AD | |||||||||||||||
| Capital | Nicomedia (modern-dayİzmit,Turkey) | ||||||||||||||
| Historical era | Antiquity | ||||||||||||||
| 74 BC/64 BC | |||||||||||||||
| c. 300 AD | |||||||||||||||
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| Today part of | Turkey | ||||||||||||||
Bithynia and Pontus (Latin:Provincia Bithynia et Pontus;Ancient Greek:Ἐπαρχία Βιθυνίας καὶ Πόντου,romanized: Eparkhía Bithynías kaì Póntou) was the name of aprovince of theRoman Empire on theBlack Sea coast ofAnatolia (modern-day Turkey). It was formed during the lateRoman Republic by the amalgamation of the former kingdoms ofBithynia (made a province by Rome 74 BC) andPontus (annexed to Bithynia 74 BC). The amalgamation was part of a wider conquest of Anatolia and its reduction to Roman provinces.
In 74 BC,Nicomedes IV of Bithynia willed his kingdom to the Romans, whom he hoped would defend it against its old enemy, Pontus. Due to the influence ofJulius Caesar, then a young man and aguest-friend of Nicomedes, and an impassioned speech by the deceased king's sisterNysa before the Senate, the gift was accepted. Contemporary Rome was divided into two parties, thePopulares, party of the "people," and theOptimates, party of the "best." The guest-friendship had been offered to Caesar, a popular, to save his life by keeping him from Rome during aproscription (a kind of witch-hunt) bySulla, an optimate in power. Forever after Caesar had to endure scurrilous optimate slander about his relationship to Nicomedes, but Bithynia became a favored project of the populares.
The Populares held both consulships at Rome.Marcus Aurelius Cotta, a maternal uncle of Julius Caesar, was sent to secure the province as governor.Mithridates VI of Pontus, seeing a prospective addition to his kingdom about to escape, attacked Bithynia even before the consul arrived. Cotta sent for his co-consul,Lucius Licinius Lucullus. TheThird Mithridatic War ensued and dragged on. At the end of their consulships the two commanders stayed on as proconsuls. Mithridates was able to mobilize almost all the rest of Anatolia against them. The two populares were insufficiently skilled to take on Mithridates. Cotta was removed finally by the Senate on a charge of corruption. Lucullus' men mutinied. In the confusion he lost nearly all Anatolia and was out of it. Their patience at an end, the Senate chose the best commander they had. In 66 BC Rome passed theLex Manilia appointingPompey, a popular, as SummusImperator, a term that would find more use after the Civil War. He had the full support of Caesar, then coming into his own. He was to have a totally free hand in Asia. By 64 BC all of Mithridates' allies had been defeated or forced to change sides. Driven from Pontus, hunted through Anatolia, he was assassinated at last by former friends hoping to win Roman favor.
The wealth of Anatolia was now at Rome's command. It was Pompey's task todivide it into provinces. He kept the larger regions and combined the smaller city states. Pontus never became a province of its own. It was simply added to its former competitor, Bithynia, while its name was tacked on at the end of Bithynia. This was not a marriage of different cultures. The coast of the Black Sea had long been Hellenized, despite differences of ancestral populations. The new province began in 74 BC. It was of storied wealth and importance to the Republic. Pompey went on to be in theFirst Triumvirate with his fellow Populares. It was the peak of his career. They had a falling-out and fought theRoman Civil War. The last popular standing, Octavian Caesar, assumed the title imperator on a permanent basis and was granted another by the Senate,Augustus. Bithynia and Pontus went on from that date, 27 BC, as an imperial province, a name which it kept.
TheRoman province of Bithynia et Pontus (et is Latin "and") comprised a coastal strip of hilly country containing tracts of intensely fertile, arable land, in a mild and moist climate, on the southern shore of theBlack Sea from theBosphorus to approximately the city ofTrabzon. Just to the south of the coastal strip was an east-west striking range, thePontic Mountains, isolating the coast from theCentral Anatolia Region, a temperate plateau of grasslands and low forests. The province extended up the slopes to the ridge. On its reverse side were valleys and plateaus in which were situated cities that were on the edge of the coastal province but were not part of it.
TheKingdom of Bithynia became a Roman ally around 149 BC. In 74 BC, during theThird Mithridatic War, KingNicomedes IV of Bithynia died and, hoping to secure his kingdom from furtherPontic aggression, bequeathed his kingdom to Rome. The Senate immediately voted to annex the kingdom as aprovince directly governed by the Republic. The province ofPontus, which was conquered and created by theRoman Empire's from thePontus in 65 BC, was combined with the province ofBithynia, which was created in 74 BC when the last Bithynian kingNicomedes IV, left the Kingdom of Bithynia to theRoman Empire with a will, and was attached to the province of Bithynia and Pontus.[1]
Bithynia and Pontus became an important player during theRoman Republican civil wars. WhenJulius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River in 49 BC and startedhis civil war, many of members of theRoman Senate under the leadership ofPompey fled to the East. The Galatian client kingDeiotarus, ruler of therump state of eastern Pontus (Lesser Armenia), sided with his old patron Pompey against Caesar. However, following Pompey's defeated at theBattle of Pharsulus and subsequent death in 48 BC, Deiotarus faced execution by Caesar's forces until the Roman oratorMarcus Tullius Cicero pleaded his case and secured his pardon from Caesar. Caesar subsequently namedGnaeus Domitius Calvinus as his chief lieutenant in Asia Minor while Caesar traveled toPtolemaic Egypt.
With the Caesar in Egypt,Pharnaces II, the Roman client king of theBosporan Kingdom and the youngest son ofMithridates VI, seized the opportunity and conqueredColchis andLesser Armenia. The rulers of Cappadocia andGalatia,Ariobarzanes III andDeiotarus respectively, appealed to Calvinus for protection and soon the Roman forces sought battle with Pharnaces II. They met at theBattle of Nicopolis in easternAnatolia in 48 BC, where Pharnaces II soundly defeated the Roman army and overran much of Cappadocia, Pontus, and Bithynia.
After defeating the Ptolemaic forces at theBattle of the Nile, Caesar left Egypt in 47 BC and travelled through Syria, Cilicia, and Cappadocia to face Pharnaces II. As Pharnaces II gained word of Caesar's approach with his veteran army, he sent envoys to seek a peace, which Caesar refused. Caesar met Pharnaces II at theBattle of Zela, decisively defeating the Pontic king and reassessing Roman dominance over Asia Minor. Upon his return to the Bosporan Kingdom, Pharnaces II was assassinated by his son-in-lawAsander. In return, Caesar named Asander as the kingdom's new Roman client king. Caesar then incorporated Lesser Armenia into the Roman client kingdom ofCappadocia to serve as a buffer between Rome's interests in Asia Minor against future aggression from Eastern kingdoms.
In 45 BC, Caesar, nowdictator of Rome, appointedQuintus Marcius Crispus as governor of Bithynia and Pontus. Following Caesar's assassination on March 15, 44 BC, by the members of the Roman Senate,Marcus Junius Brutus andGaius Cassius Longinus fled from Italy and assumed command of the Republic's eastern provinces, including Bithynia and Pontus, in 43 BC. When Crispus refused to serve the assassin of his patron, Cassius had him removed from office and forced into retirement. Following the defeat of Brutus and Cassius by theSecond Triumvirate at theBattle of Philippi in 42 BC, TriumvirMark Antony assumed command of the Republic's eastern provinces.
The Second Triumvirate expired in 33 BC, ending Antony's legal right to govern the Eastern half of the Republic. With the Triumvirate lapsed, the struggle for dominance between Antony andOctavian intensified. As Octavian built up his support in the West, Antony drew ever closer to Egyptian QueenCleopatra. WhenOctavian declared war on Egypt, Antony, supported by the Eastern provinces (including Bithynia and Pontus) went to Egypt's aid against Octavian. Octavian's victory over Antony at theBattle of Actium in 31 BC ensured Octavian's position as undisputed master of the Roman world. In 27 BC, Octavian became "Augustus": the firstRoman Emperor.
In 39 BC, Antony stripped control ofLesser Armenia (theremnants of the formerKingdom of Pontus) from the rulership of the Cappadocian kingAriarathes X of Cappadocia and madeDarius of Pontus, son ofPharnaces II of Pontus, the Roman client king of Pontus. Antony also granted to Darius the rulership of the Roman client kingdom ofCilicia. His reign lasted until his death in 37 BC, after which Antony appointedPolemon I of Pontus as client king of Cilicia andArsaces of Pontus as client king of Lesser Armenia.
Following Arsaces' untimely death the next year in 36 BC, Antony appointed Polemon I as client king of Pontus. Years later, in 16 BC, Polemon I, at the request ofMarcus Vipsanius Agrippa and with the approval ofRoman EmperorAugustus, marriedQueen Dynamis of theBosporan Kingdom, becoming ruler of that realm in addition to Pontus and Cilicia. Polemone I would later addColchis to his realm of client kingdoms he ruled on behalf of Rome.
Following Polemon I's death in 8 BC, he was succeeded by his stepsonTiberius Julius Aspurgus as client king of the Bosporan Kingdom and by his second wifePythodorida of Pontus became client queen of Pontus, Cilicia, and Colchis. Pythodorida would marry then KingArchelaus, the Roman client king of Cappadocia, in 8 BC, thereby joining the several eastern client kingdom under a single family. Following Archelaus' death in 14 AD and the subsequent transformation of Cappadocia into a directly governed province in 18 AD, Pythodorida lost her title as queen of Cappadocia.
Pythodorida was succeeded by her stepsonPolemon II of Pontus following her death in 38 AD. Polemon II ruled as a Roman client king over Pontus and Cilicia until theRoman EmperorNero deposed him in 62 AD. Cilicia was then annexed into a directly governed Roman province and Pontus was re-incorporated in Cappadocia, then a directly governed Roman province.
As part of theConstitutional Reforms of Augustus, which transformed theRoman Republic into theRoman Empire, Rome'sterritories were divided intoimperial provinces andsenatorial provinces. Imperial provinces were border lands which required a permanent military presence to protect the Empire from invasion. As such, only the Emperor (as supreme commander of the army) had the right to appoint the governors of those provinces.[2]
Senatorial provinces, conversely, were centered along theMediterranean Sea and did not possess any significant military force; the province of Bithynia and Pontus, being located along the southernBlack Sea coast, was an exception although it too lacked any significant garrison.Augustus allowed the Senate to appoint the governors of these provinces as it had done with all provinces under the Republican system: asortition was used to select aproconsul who would haveimperium over the territory, and be assisted by alegatus or a lieutenant governor, andquaestor who handled financial issues.
The Roman writerPliny the Younger was governor of the province in AD 110-113. HisEpistulae ("Letters") to emperorTrajan (ruled 98-117) are a major source on Roman provincial administration.
The cities of Bithynia took on many features of Roman cities (e.g. councils ofdecuriones) in the Imperial period, to a much greater degree than the rest of Roman Asia Minor.[3]
According toCassius Dio, around AD 134 the Senate ceded control of Bithynia and Pontus to the Emperor in return forLycia et Pamphylia.[4]
Under the administrative reforms of emperorDiocletian, c.295, Bithynia et Pontus was divided into 3 smaller provinces:Bithynia,Honorias andPaphlagonia (replaced by theTheme of Paphlagonia around 820). These belonged to thediocese ofPontica (establishedc. 314), in turn part of thePrefecture of the East (establishedc. 337).
Following the Muslim invasions of the 640s AD, theByzantine Empire reorganized its provincial structure intothemes. The province of Bithynia and Pontus was reorganized into theBucellarian,Opsikion, andOptimatoi themes.
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