Bithynia

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Bithynia

🎨 January AD 118 – Hadrian inaugurates the new year in Nicomedia.

January AD 118 – Hadrian inaugurates the new year in Nicomedia. (L)

Reconstruction of ancient Nicomedia, done by Onur Şahna, taken from Çalık Ross A., Ancient Izmit, 2007.

One thousand nine hundred years ago, Hadrian most likely celebrated the new year (year 871 Ab urbe condita) in Nicomedia, the capital of the province of Pontus and Bithynia in worth-west Asia Minor. After a short stay in Nicaea (see previous post here) Hadrian and his army continued to march towards Byzantium along the Gulf of Nicomedia. Hadrian inaugurated the year 118 as consul for the second time (COS II) and appointed as ordinary consul his great-nephew Pedanius Fuscus, who is assumed to have initially been regarded as Hadrian’s heir.

Nicomedia was one of the most important port cities in the ancient Mediterranean. It was founded around 264 BC by King Nicomedes I of Bithynia on the site of the ruined Greek colony of Olbia, a Megarian city founded in the 8th century BC. It was built across several hills rising from the Gulf and was urbanised in accordance with the Hellenistic model. Nicomedia enjoyed an advantageous position on the land between two important cities, Byzantium and Nicaea, and major sea routes between Europe and Asia as well as the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. It served as the capital of the kingdom of Bithynia and later of the Roman province of Bithynia-Pontus with Nicaea as its rival. Under Diocletian Nicomedia became the eastern capital of the Roman Empire. The importance of Nicomedia was also due to its marble-quarries and the marble trade centred in Nicomedia was famous throughout the whole region.

Bithynia

Bithynia (W)

Old view of Nicomedia (nowadays Izmit) senior capital city of the Roman empire. Created by Gaiaud, published on Le Tour du Monde, Paris, 1864

Bithynia (Koine Greek: Βιθυνία, Bithynía) was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor, adjoining the Propontis, the Thracian Bosporus and the Euxine Sea. It bordered Mysia to the southwest, Paphlagonia to the northeast along the Pontic coast, and Phrygia to the southeast towards the interior of Asia Minor.

Bithynia was an independent kingdom from the 4th century BC. Its capital Nicomedia was rebuilt on the site of ancient Astacus in 264 BC by Nicomedes I of Bithynia. Bithynia was bequeathed to the Roman Republic in 74 BC, and became united with the Pontus region as the province of Bithynia et Pontus. In the 7th century it was incorporated into the Byzantine Opsikion theme. It became a border region to the Seljuk Empire in the 13th century, and was eventually conquered by the Ottoman Turks between 1325 and 1333.

Bithynia and Pontus (a province of the Roman Empire)

Bithynia and Pontus (a province of the Roman Empire) (74 BC/64 BC–7th Century) (W)

A map of Asia Minor in 89 BC at the start of the First Mithridatic War. Bithynia, light red, is shown as a client kingdom of Rome, dark red. Pontus is shown in dark green.

Bithynia and Pontus (Latin: Provincia Bithynia et Pontus) was the name of a province of the Roman Empire on the Black Sea coast of Anatolia (Turkey). It was formed during the late Roman Republic by the amalgamation of the former kingdoms of Bithynia (made a province by Rome 74 BC) and Pontus (annexed to Bithynia 63 BC). The amalgamation was part of a wider conquest of Anatolia and its reduction to Roman provinces.

In 74 BC Bithynia was willed to Rome by Nicomedes IV of Bithynia in the hope that Rome would defend it against its old enemy, Pontus. Due to the influence of a guest-friend of Nicomedes, Julius Caesar, then a young man, and an impassioned speech by the deceased king's sister, Nysa before the Senate, the gift was accepted. Rome was divided into two parties, the populares, party of the "people," and the optimates, party of the "best." The guest-friendship had been offered to Caesar, a popular, to save his life by keeping him from Rome during a proscription (a kind of witch-hunt) by Sulla, 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 was sent to secure the province as governor. He was a maternal uncle of Julius Caesar. Mithridates VI of Pontus, a skilled warrior, 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. The Third 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 the Lex Manilia appointing Pompey, a popular, as Summus Imperator, 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 to divide 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 63 BC. It was of storied wealth and importance to the Republic. Pompey went on to be in the First Triumvirate with his fellow Populares. It was the peak of his career. They had a falling out and fought the Roman 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.