page_title: Pontus (region)
section_title: Roman province
hierarchical_section_title: Pontus (region) / History / Roman province
caption_attribution_description: Map of the Diocese of Pontus (Dioecesis Pontica) ca. 400 AD, showing the subordinate provinces and the major cities.
context_page_description: Pontus or Pontos is a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in modern-day eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey. The name was applied to the coastal region and its mountainous hinterland by the Greeks who colonized the area in the Archaic period and derived from the Greek name of the Black Sea: Εύξεινος Πόντος, "Hospitable Sea", or simply Pontos as early as the Aeschylean Persians and Herodotus' Histories.
  Having originally no specific name, the region east of the river Halys was spoken of as the country Ἐν Πόντῳ, lit. "on the [Euxinos] Pontos", and hence it acquired the name of Pontus, which is first found in Xenophon's Anabasis. The extent of the region varied through the ages but generally extended from the borders of Colchis until well into Paphlagonia in the west, with varying amounts of hinterland. Several states and provinces bearing the name of Pontus or variants thereof were established in the region in the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods, culminating in the late Byzantine Empire of Trebizond. Pontus is sometimes considered as the original home of the Amazons, in ancient Greek mythology and historiography.
context_section_description: 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 (today Ereğli) and Amisus (Samsun), the ora Pontica. The larger part of Pontus, however, was included in the province of Galatia.
  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. The eastern half of the old kingdom was administered as a client kingdom together with Colchis. Its last king was Polemon II.
  In AD 62, the country was constituted by Nero a Roman province. It was divided into the three districts: Pontus Galaticus in the west, bordering on Galatia; Pontus Polemoniacus in the centre, so called from its capital Polemonium; and Pontus Cappadocicus in the east, bordering on Cappadocia (Armenia Minor). Subsequently, the Roman Emperor Trajan moved Pontus into the province of Cappadocia itself in the early 2nd century AD. In response to a Gothic raid on Trebizond in 287 AD, the Roman Emperor Diocletian decided to break up the area into smaller provinces under more localized administration.
  With the reorganization of the provincial system under Diocletian (about AD 295), the Pontic districts were divided up between three smaller, independent provinces within the Dioecesis Pontica:
  Galatian Pontus, also called Diospontus, later renamed Helenopontus by Constantine the Great after his mother. It had its capital at Amisus, and included the cities of Sinope, Amasia, Andres, Ibora, and Zela as well.
  Pontus Polemoniacus, with its capital at Polemonium (also called Side), and including the cities of Neocaesarea, Argyroupolis, Comana, and Cerasus as well.
  Cappadocian Pontus, with its capital at Trebizond, and including the small ports of Athanae and Rhizaeon. This province extended all the way to Colchis.
caption: The Diocese of Pontus and its provinces, c. 400 AD
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