Pharnakeia

Pharnakeia ( Greek  Φαρνάκεια ; also Φαρνακία ) was an ancient city in Asia Minor on the south coast of the Black Sea in what is now Turkey .

location

According to Arrian, it was 150 stadia from Cape Zephyrium by sea and 24 miles by land. According to the elder Pliny , it was 95 to 100 miles west of Trapezus, today's Trabzon . Even Strabo locates the place, making note of Trapezus. The place can be identified with today's Giresun , should Pharnakeia be identical with Kerasus. This localization contradicts Xenophon's statement that Kerasus was further east in the area of Colchis , but it could also have been another, later submerged city of that name.

history

Pharnakeia was named after Pharnakes I of Pontus , and it was founded with the support of the residents of Kotyora . The city's coins are labeled Φαρνακείας or Φαρνακεων . At the time of Mithridates VI. the place must have been fortified so that Mithridates could accommodate his sisters and wives in the city during the war against Sulla . There are also archaeological remains of a Byzantine fortification.

economy

Most of the inhabitants lived from fishing, especially the tuna and dolphins. Ore mining and timber industry were carried out in the adjacent mountain areas.

literature

• Eckart Olshausen : Pharnakeia. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 9, Metzler, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-476-01479-7 .
• Walther Sontheimer : Pharnakeia. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 4, Stuttgart 1972, column 715.
• David Raoul Wilson:  Pharnakeia Kerasous (Giresun) Pontus, Turkey . In: Richard Stillwell et al. a. (Ed.): The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1976, ISBN 0-691-03542-3 .

Web links

• Coins of Pharnakeia (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Arrian: Periplus 24 ( French translation ).
2. ↑ Pliny: Naturalis historia 6, 4 ( English translation ).
3. ↑ Strabon 6, 7, 2 ( English translation ); see. also 12, 3, 19 ( English translation ).
4. ↑ Arrian: Periblus 24; Walther Sontheimer : Pharnakeia. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 4, Stuttgart 1972, Sp. 715 .; Eckart Olshausen : Pharnakeia. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 9, Metzler, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-476-01479-7 .
5. ↑ Xenophon, Anabasis 5, 3, 2 ( English translation ).
6. ^ David Raoul Wilson:  Pharnakeia Kerasous (Giresun) Pontus, Turkey . In: Richard Stillwell et al. a. (Ed.): The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1976, ISBN 0-691-03542-3 .
7. ^ Samuel Friedrich Wilhelm Hoffmann: Greece and the Greeks in antiquity. Leipzig 1841, p. 1576.
8. ↑ Plutarch : Lucullus 18, 2 ( English translation ).
9. ↑ Strabon 12, 3, 19 ( English translation ).