Bithynia

• 1. Introduction

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  Bithynia sits at the northwestern edge of Asia Minor. Three bodies of water converge at its shores: the Bosporus, the Black Sea, and the sea the ancients called the Propontis. Rising above the city of Prusa, the Bithynian Olympus reaches 8,000 feet, its snow-covered summit visible from Istanbul, 70 miles distant. A broad peninsula of dense forest projects westward toward the Bosporus, known in Turkish as the Ağaç Denizi, the Sea of Trees. Farther inland, beside Lake Ascania, stood Nicaea, noted in antiquity as the birthplace of the Nicene Creed. A Thracian people called the Bithyni gave this land its name after crossing from the Balkans. A line of native kings held the region independent for centuries. The last of that dynasty willed the entire kingdom to Rome in 74 BC. What made this landscape worth millennia of contest, and what it produced in its people, are the threads this documentary follows.

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• 2. Fertile Shores and Forest

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  The Gulf of Astacus, today the Gulf of İzmit, cuts between 40 and 50 miles into Bithynia's western shore, reaching as far as Nicomedia. A narrow isthmus of only about 25 miles separates it from the Black Sea. South of the same coast, the Gulf of Cius stretches about 25 miles to the town of Cius, today called Gemlik.

  Inland, the valley of the Sangarios and the plains near Prusa were fertile and well cultivated. The Black Sea-facing slopes bore fruit trees of many kinds, including oranges. Mulberry plantations around Prusa fed a silk trade that gave the city an enduring reputation.

  Three rivers defined the region's interior. The Sangarios ran from south to north across the province. The Rhyndacus marked the western boundary with Mysia. The Billaeus rose in the Aladağ mountains, roughly 50 miles from the sea. It flowed through the ancient city of Bithynion, later called Claudiopolis and today known as Bolu. After a course of more than 100 miles, it emptied into the Black Sea.

  Strabo placed Bithynia's eastern boundary at the Sangarios. The more common view extended the border to the Billaeus, which also separated the region from Paphlagonia to the northeast. A third, rarer position held that the Parthenius, today called the Bartın, marked the true eastern limit.

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• 3. Rivals and Settlers

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  Herodotus listed the Thyni and the Bithyni side by side in book VII of his Histories. Both peoples were described as being of Thracian extraction. According to Herodotus, they settled simultaneously in adjacent parts of Asia Minor. On arrival, they expelled or subdued those already living there: the Mysians, the Caucones, and smaller tribal groups.

  The Mariandyni, who survived in the northeastern part of the region east of the river Hypius, were the subject of disagreement among ancient writers. Strabo considered them a branch of the Bithyni, sharing their Thracian origins. Others suggested they were a native people more closely connected to the Paphlagonians to their east.

  Greek settlers founded colonies along the Bithynian coast: Cius, Chalcedon, and Heraclea Pontica. No trace of the Bithyni's own language survives from antiquity. Chalcedon stands today as Kadıköy on the Asian shore of Istanbul.

  Croesus, king of Lydia, incorporated the Bithynians into his realm before the great Persian expansion. Persia ended Lydian independence in 546 BC, and Bithynia passed into the satrapy of Phrygia. That satrapy controlled territories stretching all the way to the Hellespont and the Bosporus. Even before Alexander the Great reached Asia, Bithynian rulers had begun asserting an independence that Persian rule had never fully suppressed.

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• 4. A Hellenistic Kingdom

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  Bas and Zipoites, two native princes, are the first Bithynian rulers the sources name. Zipoites declared himself king with the title basileus in 297 BC.

  His son Nicomedes I founded a new capital. In 264 BC, he built Nicomedia on the site of the older city of Astacus. The city rose quickly to prosperity. Nicomedes I was followed by Prusias I, Prusias II, and then Nicomedes II, whose reign extended to roughly 91 BC.

  Nicomedes IV, the last king, found himself unable to withstand Mithridates VI of Pontus. He was driven from his throne and turned to Rome. The Roman Senate restored him. When Nicomedes IV died, no Bithynian heir remained to take what he had held.

  The coins these kings struck still survive. Each portrait was rendered in an accomplished Hellenistic style, the faces of a dynasty that endured for more than two centuries.

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• 5. Pliny's Province

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  Around 109 or 110 AD, Emperor Trajan sent Pliny the Younger to govern the combined province of Bithynia and Pontus. Pliny served until roughly 111 or 112 AD. The letters he exchanged with Trajan during his tenure have provided historians with detailed records of Roman provincial administration.

  Bithynia and Pontus formed a combined province throughout much of Rome's administration of the region. The boundaries between the two changed frequently. Trajan's appointment of Pliny came during one of the province's better-documented stretches.

  When the Byzantine Empire reorganized the region, it divided the two provinces apart once more. Only the territory west of the Sangarios retained the name of Bithynia.

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• 6. Roads and Rivalry

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  In the 7th century, Bithynia became part of the Byzantine administrative territory known as the Opsikion theme. The region connected the Danube frontier to the north with the Euphrates to the southeast. That position made it a vital corridor for the empire's eastern communications.

  Around 562 AD, Byzantine engineers completed a monumental bridge across the Sangarios. It secured the main road east. Troops frequently wintered at Nicomedia, which served as the primary staging base for campaigns in that direction.

  Nicomedia and Nicaea disputed which deserved the rank of capital throughout the Byzantine period. Neither city conclusively won the argument. The rivalry continued without resolution for centuries.

  By the 13th century, Bithynia had become a frontier zone against the Seljuk Empire. The Ottoman Turks completed the conquest between 1325 and 1333. The campaign ended Byzantine authority over a land whose history Herodotus had traced in antiquity.

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• 7. Thinkers, Soldiers, Saints

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  Hipparchus of Nicaea, working in the 2nd century BC, made two discoveries that reshaped ancient astronomy. He identified the precession of the equinoxes and worked out a method for predicting the timing of eclipses. Theodosius of Bithynia, a contemporary, contributed work in both astronomy and mathematics.

  Asclepiades of Bithynia, born around 169 BC, was a Greek physician. He died around 100 BC. Arrian, known by his Latin name Lucius Flavius Arrianus, was born in Bithynia around 86 AD. He became a Greek historian and lived until around 160 AD.

  Cassius Dio, born in Bithynia around 155 AD, served as both senator and consul of Rome while writing a history of the Roman state. He died around 235 AD.

  Antinous, a young Bithynian who became the intimate companion of Emperor Hadrian, died in the 2nd century AD. Hadrian promoted his worship across the Roman Empire. Helena, born in Bithynia around 250 AD, was the mother of Constantine the Great.

  Phrynichus Arabius, a grammarian of the 2nd century, worked on Greek usage and vocabulary. Auxentius of Bithynia, born around 400 AD, lived as a hermit until around 473. Hypatius of Bithynia died around 450. Vendemianus of Bithynia lived out his solitary years in the 6th century, in the same terrain that Hipparchus had once used to read the heavens.

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