Life in the Pontic Kingdom: Coastal Cities and Inland Communities

From its formation around 281 BCE until Rome ended its independence in 63 BCE, the Pontic kingdom joined Greek coastal cities to a largely rural interior in northern Anatolia. The Black Sea coast and the valleys to its south offered different resources and ways of making a living, while the Pontic Alps separated many inland communities from the shore. The kingdom’s borders changed, especially under Mithridates VI, so its peoples did not share one uniform way of life.

Greek was used in coastal civic life and at the royal court, alongside local Anatolian and Iranian traditions. Communities included cities, villages, fortified settlements and sacred estates. Their daily needs connected them through food supply, craft work and trade, while their institutions and access to resources differed.

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A landscape with different livelihoods

The coastal strip faced the Black Sea, while mountain ranges and uplands lay inland. River valleys, including those of the Iris and Lycus, cut through the interior and provided fertile land. Coastal cities such as Sinope and Amastris connected the kingdom to maritime exchange. Amaseia, an early royal centre in the interior, stood in a productive river valley; Sinope became a capital after the Pontic kings captured it.

Settlement patterns also varied. Greek cities were concentrated on the coast, while much of the interior was made up of villages, farms and fortified centres. Those differences were not absolute: farming communities existed near cities, and inland towns and sanctuaries served people beyond their immediate settlements. Routes through valleys connected important centres, allowing goods and people to move between the coast and the interior.

Farming, herding and natural resources

Fertile valleys supported grain, fruit and vineyards; pasture sustained animals in other districts. Harvesting was followed by processing and storage before supplies reached a household or market. Moving produce from fields to centres of demand required people, containers and routes, joining rural work with urban provision.

Fishing added another source of provision along the Black Sea. At Cıngırt Kayası near Fatsa, a settlement occupied from Mithridates VI’s reign onward, excavators found hooks and lead weights interpreted as line or net equipment. A sinker carried a line downward or weighted the lower edge of a net. Late Hellenistic fish plates connect this work with the serving of the catch.

Villages, cities and royal authority

Coastal Greek poleis, city communities with their own civic traditions, operated alongside inland villages and fortified centres. A stronghold could guard treasure, provisions and routes through the mountains. Keeping troops supplied connected royal defence with the surrounding productive territory and its people.

Royal authority also overlapped with the power of major sanctuaries. Some temple districts controlled estates, income and surrounding communities, and retained a degree of local autonomy. Their land could be cultivated to support the sanctuary and its personnel. In this way, institutions that organised public worship also shaped agricultural production and the distribution of resources. Their influence was especially visible in the interior, where large sanctuaries could serve as centres for surrounding settlements.

Sanctuaries, festivals and worship in the Pontic kingdom

Public religious life reflected the kingdom’s varied traditions. Greek, Iranian and local Anatolian deities were worshipped, sometimes identified with one another, but practices differed by place. The goddess Ma was central to the sanctuary at Comana Pontica; Anaïtis was worshipped at Zela, and Men Pharnaku was associated with Ameria. In coastal cities such as Amisos, Dionysus had a following connected with wine and agriculture.

Comana Pontica joined a sanctuary of Ma with a productive estate and regional market. Strabo, writing in the early Roman period, describes twice-yearly processions in which the goddess’s image was taken out and the priest wore a diadem. Men and women came from towns and countryside; some stayed to fulfil vows through sacrifices. He reports at least 6,000 temple servants in his account of the arrangement under Pompey.

At Zela, Strabo describes the Sakaia, an annual festival explained through a tradition of Persian victory over the Sakae. Participants wore Scythian clothing and drank wine. A royal ceremony recorded by Appian took another form: Mithridates VI led the bringing of wood for a mountain pyre in honour of Zeus Stratios. Milk, honey, wine, oil and incense were offered, while food was provided for those attending. Public worship could organise both a local gathering and a royal act of thanksgiving.

Household goods, crafts and local exchange in Pontic communities

Spindle whorls and loom weights from Cıngırt Kayası reveal textile work. A rotating spindle twisted fibres into thread, while weights kept the vertical threads of a loom taut as the cross-thread was woven between them. Published first-century BCE examples belong to the period spanning the kingdom’s last decades and early Roman control. They preserve useful equipment whose wooden frames and cloth have disappeared.

Decorated Hellenistic bowls found at the same settlement show connections with a wider market for tableware. Potters used moulds to reproduce figures and plants on the surface, then dried, finished and fired the vessels. Finding such bowls establishes their use and movement; their production place requires separate study of clay and decoration. Markets and coastal routes connected consumers with specialised makers.

War, Rome and the end of the independent kingdom

The Mithridatic Wars, fought in several phases between Rome and Mithridates VI, ended the independent Pontic monarchy. In 63 BCE, Pompey reorganised the region: much of western Pontus, including Greek coastal cities, became part of the Roman province of Bithynia et Pontus, while some eastern territories remained under rulers dependent on Rome. The coastal and inland communities described here consequently entered different relationships with Roman power.

Pharnaces II, Mithridates VI’s son, held the Bosporan kingdom and attempted to recover Anatolian territory during the Roman civil war. Caesar defeated him at Zela in 47 BCE. Rome later supported rulers including Darius, Polemon I, Pythodorida and Polemon II in parts of Pontus. Nero absorbed the remaining client kingdom into provincial government during the 60 sCE.

For the wider setting, see Kingdom of Pontus.