Pontus
（
Πόντος). The most northeasterly district of Asia Minor,
along the coast of the Euxine, east of the river Halys, having originally no specific name,
was spoken of as the country
ἐν Πόντῳ, “on the
Pontus” (Euxinus), and hence acquired the name of Pontus, which is first found in
Xenophon's
Anabasis. The name first acquired a political importance through the
foundation of a new kingdom in it, about the beginning of the fourth century B.C., by
Ariobarzanes I. This kingdom reached its greatest height under Mithridates VI., who for many
years carried on war with the Romans. (See
Mithridates
VI.) In A.D. 62 the country was constituted by Nero a Roman province. It was divided
into the three districts of Pontus Galatĭcus in the west,
bordering on Galatia; P. Polemoniācus in the centre, so
called from its capital
Polemonium; and P. Cappadocius in the east, bordering on Cappadocia (Armenia Minor).
Pontus was a mountainous country—wild and barren in the east, where the great chains
approach the Euxine; but in the west watered by the great rivers Halys and Iris, and their
tributaries, the valleys of which, as well as the land along the coast,
are extremely fertile. The eastern part was rich in minerals, and contained the celebrated
iron mines of the Chalybes. The inhabitants of Pontus were called generically
Leucosyri (q.v.). See Meyer,
Geschichte
d. Königr. Pontos (Leipzig, 1879).
