PONTUS

ancient district in northeastern Anatolia adjoining the Black Sea. In the 1st century BC it briefly contested Rome's hegemony in Anatolia. An independent Pontic kingdom with its capital at Amaseia (modern Amasya) was established at the end of the 4th century BC in the wake of Alexander's conquests. Superficially Hellenized, the kingdom retained its Persian social structure, with temple priests and Persianized feudal nobles ruling over a heterogeneous village population. In the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC Pontus gradually asserted itself among the petty Hellenistic states of Anatolia, annexing Sinope (modern Sinop) as its new capital (183 BC). The Pontic kingdom reached its zenith under Mithradates VI Eupator (c. 115-63 BC), whose program of expansion brought him into disastrous conflict with Rome, resulting in the virtual extinction of the Pontic kingdom and its incorporation into the Roman Empire (63-62 BC).