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We know relatively little about how the Mithridatid kingdom was organized. It seems clear that apart from the coastal strip, the level of urbanisation was low in Pontos; at least there was nothing like the Greek polis, neither in physical appearance nor in the sense of an administrative unit. The royal residence of Amaseia may be an exception since the needs of the court would have attracted a whole range of specialised labour.² The temple states of Komana Pontike, Zela, and Ameria also supported quite large populations, but whether the temple slaves and the devotees lived around the precinct or were scattered throughout the territory remains uncertain. The account of Strabon (12.3.36-37) suggests that some form of urban structure did exist around the temples. Eupatoria, founded by Mithridates VI in Phanaroia, may have been a first attempt by the kings to encourage the formation of cities in the interior.³ Symptomatically, he destroyed the city himself after it had sided with the Romans during the Third Mithridatic War.

Central to the royal control of the land was a large number of castles scattered over the whole territory.⁴ Many of these served as treasuries of the king, but the commander (φρούραρχος) of the castle may equally well have served as governor of the surrounding district (έπαρχὶα). This system of control has analogies throughout eastern Asia Minor, and also seems to have been exported to the northern Black Sea area after Mithridates gained control of the Bosporan Kingdom.⁵ Pompey destroyed most of the castles, supposedly because they could become refuges for robbers and brigands, in reality probably because in the hands of disloyal local dynasts, they could be a threat to Roman control.

The administrative units in Pontos seem to have been quite small. We know from the inscriptions in the sanctuary of Zeus Stratios that the territory of Amaseia was divided into at least twelve districts, only five of which are mentioned by Strabon.⁶ By the second century AD, when the inscriptions were erected, these districts had long ceased to have any administrative function, but their names lingered on. Almost all the districts have indigenous names ending in -ηνη or -ιτις, probably with roots going back to the Bronze Age, and the same is true for the villages or hamlets mentioned.⁷ On account of the inscriptions, D. French suggests that there may have been as many as 500 villages in the territory of Amaseia,⁸ which of course brings to mind the district northwest of Amaseia called Chiliokômon, the “valley of a thousand villages”. Contrary to most names of districts, this carries a Greek name, but it could of course be a Greek translation of an earlier, indigenous name. All this suggests a densely populated rural landscape in the valleys of the interior during the pre-Roman period. Supposedly it was from all these scattered villages that the inhabitants of the Roman foundations were drawn.

There are, however, reasons for not accepting this interpretation of pre- Roman decentralisation contra Roman urbanisation too readily. Over the past few years, our knowledge about settlement patterns and land-use in central northern Asia Minor has increased significantly, mainly due to two international survey projects carried out in Paphlagonia in the late 1990s. Many other, less intensive surveys have been carried out in Pontos by local archaeologists.

Fig. 1. Satellite image of the Sinop Promontory.