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Concept
Pontus (region)
Summary
Pontus or Pontos (ˈpɒntəs; Πόντος, "Sea") is a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in the modern-day eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey. The name was applied to the coastal region and its mountainous hinterland (rising to the Pontic Alps in the east) by the Greeks who colonized the area in the Archaic period and derived from the Greek name of the Black Sea: Εύξεινος Πόντος (Eúxinos Póntos), "Hospitable Sea", or simply Pontos (ὁ Πόντος) as early as the Aeschylean Persians (472 BC) and Herodotus' Histories (circa 440 BC).
Having originally no specific name, the region east of the river Halys was spoken of as the country Ἐν Πόντῳ (En Póntō), lit. "on the [Euxinos] Pontos", and hence it acquired the name of Pontus, which is first found in Xenophon's Anabasis (370 BC). The extent of the region varied through the ages but generally extended from the borders of Colchis (modern western Georgia) until well into Paphlagonia in the west, with varying amounts of hinterland. Several states and provinces bearing the name of Pontus or variants thereof were established in the region in the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods, culminating in the late Byzantine Empire of Trebizond. Pontus is sometimes considered as the original home of the Amazons, in ancient Greek mythology and historiography (e. g. by Herodotus and Strabo).
Pontus remained outside the reach of the Bronze Age empires, of which the closest was Great Hatti. The region went further uncontrolled by Hatti's eastern neighbors, Hurrian states like Azzi and (or) Hayasa. In those days, the best any outsider could hope from this region was temporary alliance with a local strongman. The Hittites called the unorganized groups on their northeastern frontier the Kaška. As of 2004 little had been found of them archaeologically.
In the wake of the Hittite empire's collapse, the Assyrian court noted that the "Kašku" had overrun its territory in conjunction with a hitherto unknown group whom they labeled the Muški.
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