Hellenisation and Romanisation in Pontos-Bithynia: an overview

Abstract

Ancient records on Mithridates of Pontos are not few. 1 However, as in the case of the Seleukids and Attalids, no biography of this important king in Asia Minor has survived from antiquity. Since the remaining evidence is hostile towards him, it is difficult to grasp his true personality. Modern accounts concentrate on the evaluation of the effect he had rather than on his achievements or merits. Mommsen wrote in the third volume of his Romische Geschichte: “Bedeutungsvoller noch als durch seine Individualitat ward er durch den Platz, auf den die Geschichte ihn gestellt hat. Als der Vorlaufer der nationalen Reaktion des Orients gegen die Okzidentalen hat er den neuen Kampf des Ostens gegen den Westen eroffnet; und das Gefuhl, dass man mit seinem Tode nicht am Ende, sondern am Anfang sei, blieb den Besiegten wie den Siegern”. 2 Fight of the East against the West – that sounds familiar today, as does the following, that Mithridates’ death was not an end, but a beginning. What makes Mithridates an appropriate starting point for my article on Hellenisation and Romanisation is indeed his position in the historical framework of my topic. By the end of the second and the beginning of the first centuries BC, Rome was present in Asia Minor with the establishment of three provinciae, Asia, Kilikia and Lykaonia. By the synoikisms and the settlements of the Hellenistic kings the institution of the Greek polis was scattered throughout most areas of these, even in the interior. The threshold between Hellenic civilisation and rural Anatolia had been gradually pushed inland by the diadochoi and their successors down to the Attalids and the Bithynian dynasts. 3 Yet the monarchies of Pontos, Kappadokia and Armenia, in spite of their Hellenised courts, Greek philoi, generals, officers and soldiers, in spite of the kings’ coinage and titles, philhellen, philorhomaios, remained outside of this new region. The rulers of these kingdoms were Iranian families, and there was a strong Iranian element in the population of their realms. The Greek cities on the coast of the Black Sea, which they had conquered, were not free, and the vast interior parts lacked poleis and were instead dominated by fortresses, villages and farmsteads as well as extensive pastures. 4 Landlords and peasants lived in feudal-like relationships. Of great importance is the fact that just about the time of Mithridates’ birth the Iranian dynasties in eastern Anatolia were backed by the Arsakid Empire at its peak, a system of vassal kingdoms stretching from northwest India to Armenia.

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