Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "SISSAMOS Ancient city TURKEY".
Amastris. Founded in the early 4th c. B.C. by Amastris, queen of Herakleia Pontica,
by the synoecism of four small Ionian colonies on the coast E of Herakleia: (1)
Tios, which soon seceded; (2) Sesamos, center of the new city, later named Amastris;
(3) Kromna, 40 km to the E, on Zeytin Burnu, W of Kurucalile; and (4) Kytoros,
now Gideriz, 25 km E of Kromna. Its tyrant Eumenes presented the city of Amastris
to Ariobarzanes of Pontus in ca. 265-260 B.C. rather than submit it to domination
by Herakleia, and it remained in the Pontic kingdom until its capture by Lucullus
in 70 B.C.
The original nucleus of the city itself was a peninsula and adjacent
island (now linked by bridge) on the W 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 c. The stream, "nomine quidem
flumen, re vera cloaca foedissima," covered over by Pliny (Ep. 10.98), still
runs beneath a Roman vault. Four ancient moles protect the main harbor. A lesser
harbor W of the city provided refuge from E gales. Inscriptions and architectural
fragments are housed in the municipal museum. Four km S-SW of Amasra, at Kuskaya,
the Roman road from Bartin (Parthenia) runs on a rock-cut terrace, with associated
inscriptions and relief sculpture.
The site of Kromna is marked by occupation material but no surviving
buildings. Construction of the harbor offices at Kurucasile revealed columns which
now adorn the administrative buildings at Bartin. At Kytoros the remains of impressive
harbor buildings used to be indicated by columns along the seashore.
D. R. Wilson, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Amastris (Eth. Amastrianos, Amastrianus: Amasra, or Amasserah), a city of Paphlagonia,
on a small river of the same name. Amastris occupied a peninsula, and on each
side of the isthmus was a harbour (Strab.): it was 90 stadia east of the river
Parthenius. The original city seems to have been called Sesamus or Sesamum, and
it is mentioned by Homer (Il. ii. 853) in conjunction with Cytorus. Stephanus
(s. v. Amastris) says that it was originally called Cromna; but in another place
(s. v. Kromna), 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, who was the wife of Dionysius, tyrant of Heracleia, and after
his death the wife of Lysimachus. Four places, Sesamus, Cytorus, Cromna, also
mentioned in the Iliad (ii. 855), and Teion or Ties, were combined by Amastris,
after her separation from Lysimachus (Memnon, ap. Phot. Cod. ccxxiv.), to form
the new community of Amastris. Teion, 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 (i. 19) mentions Sesamus and Cromna as cities of Paphlagonia,
and does not mention Amastris (Comp. Plin. vi. 2). There is a coin with the epigraph
Sesamum. Those of Amastris have the epigraph Amastrianon.
The territory of Amastris produced a great quantity of boxwood, which
grew on Mount Cytorus. The town was taken by L. Lucullus in the Mithridatic war
(Appian. Mithrid. 82). The younger Pliny, when he was governor of Bithynia and
Pontus, describes Amastris, in a letter to Trajan (x. 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.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Amastris (Now Amasserah or Samastro) . A titular see of Paphlagonia in Asia Minor,
on a peninsula jutting into the Black Sea. Its episcopal list dates from the third
century. It is mentioned by Homer (Iliad, II, 853), was a flourishing town in
the time of Trajan (98-117), and was of some importance until the seventh century
of our era.
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