Amasra (anciently called Amastris) is a small Black Sea port town in the Bartin Province, Turkey.
History
Situated in the ancient region of Paphlagonia, the original city seems to have been called Sesamus, and it is mentioned by Homer(refactored from hom_2.853) in conjunction with Cytorus. Stephanus(refactored from steph) says that it was originally called Cromna; but in another place (refactored from steph), where he repeats the statement, he adds, as it is said; but some say that Cromna is a small place in the territory of Amastris, which is the true account. The place derived its name Amastris from Amastris, the niece of the last Persian king Darius III, who was the wife of Dionysius, tyrant of Heraclea, and after his death the wife of Lysimachus. Four small Ionian colonies, Sesamus, Cytorus, Cromna, also mentioned in the Iliad (refactored from hom_2.855), and Tium, were combined by Amastris, after her separation from Lysimachus(refactored from memn_5_9), to form the new community of Amastris, placed on a small river of the same name and occupying a peninsula(refactored from strab_12.3). Tium, says Strabo, soon detached itself from the community, but the rest kept together, and Sesamus was the acropolis of Amastris. From this it appears that Amastris was really a confederation or union of three places, and that Sesamus was the name of the city on the peninsula. This may explain the fact that Mela(refactored from mela_1.93) mentions Sesamus and Cromna as cities of Paphlagonia, and does not mention Amastris.(refactored from plin1_6.2)
The territory of Amastris produced a great quantity of boxwood, which grew on Mount Cytorus. Its tyrant Eumenes presented the city of Amastris to Ariobarzanes of Pontus in c. 265–260 BC rather than submit it to domination by Heraclea, and it remained in the Pontic kingdom until its capture by Lucius Lucullus in 70 BC in the second Mithridatic War.(refactored from app_82) The younger Pliny, when he was governor of Bithynia and Pontus, describes Amastris, in a letter to Trajan(refactored from plin2_10.99), as a handsome city, with a very long open place (platea), on one side of which extended what was called a river, but in fact was a filthy, pestilent, open drain. Pliny obtained the emperor's permission to cover over this sewer. On a coin of the time of Trajan, Amastris has the title Metropolis. It continued to be a town of some note to the seventh century of our era.
The original nucleus of the city itself was a peninsula and adjacent island (now linked by bridge) on the West side of a sheltered bay which formed the main harbor. This part of the city is covered by Genoese fortifications and the modern Turkish town. In the Roman period Amastris also extended inland over the little valley behind this bay, and the suburbs covered some of the lower hills. Roman buildings can still be traced for 1.5 km inland from the sea. The most impressive are a temple, and a warehouse 115 m long and three stories high. Other buildings, no longer visible, were recorded in the mid 19th century. The stream covered over by Pliny still runs beneath a Roman vault. Four ancient moles protect the main harbor. A lesser harbor West of the city provided refuge from East gales. Inscriptions and architectural fragments are housed in the municipal museum. Four km South-South West of Amasra, at Kuşkaya, the Roman road from Bartin runs on a rock-cut terrace, with associated inscriptions and relief sculpture.
References
- Richard Stillwell, William L. MacDonald, Marian Holland McAllister (editors); The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, Princeton, (1976)
- Smith, William (editor); Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, "Amastris", London, (1854)
Notes
Template:Ent Homer, Iliad, ii. 853 Template:Ent Stephanus, Ethnica, s.v. "Amastris" Template:Ent Ibid., s.v. "Cromna" Template:Ent Homer, ii. 855 Template:Ent Memnon, History of Heraclea, 5, 9 Template:Ent Strabo, Geography, xii. 3 Template:Ent Pomponius Mela, De chorographia, i. 93 Template:Ent Pliny the Elder, Natural History, vi. 2 Template:Ent Appian, The Foreign Wars, "The Mithridatic Wars", 82 Template:Ent Pliny the Younger, Letters, x. 99
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public ___domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.