PONTUS - In the earliest times of which we have any knowledge, this name, meaning 'sea' in Greek and Latin, was used by Greeks to indicate vaguely country bordering on or near the Black Sea. From its importance for the grain supply of Greece, the Black Sea and the land around it came to be known as 'the sea' par excellence. As time went on the term gradually became confined to the country to the south of the Black Sea.
It was not till about 302 BC that a kingdom was formed here. In that year consequent upon the troubles due to the early death of Alexander the Great, Mithridates ii. was able to carve out for himself a kingdom beyond the river Halys in NE. Asia Minor, and about 281 BC he assumed the title of king. We cannot define the exact extent of the territory ruled by him and his descendants, but it is certain that it included part of the country previously called Cappadocia, some of the mountain tribes near the Black Sea coasts, and part of Paphlagonia; and also certain that its extent varied from time to time. Acting with Nicomedes of Bithynia he succeeded in settling down the Galatians (who were Gauls, i.e. Celts) in Phrygia. The Mithridatic dynasty lasted till 63 BC, when Mithridates vi., 'the Great,' died, defeated by Pompey. In the preceding year the kingdom ceased to exist, and part of it was incorporated in the Roman Empire under the name Pontus, and this district henceforth constituted one-half of the combined province Bithynia-Pontus, which was put under one governor. The remaining portions of the old kingdom were distributed in other ways. The civil wars helped Pharnaces, a son of the last Mithridates, to acquire the whole of his father's kingdom, but his brief reign ended in his defeat by Julius Caesar (47 BC). The narrowed kingdom of Pontus was reconstituted by Mark Antony in 39 BC, and given in 36 BC to Polemon, who founded a dynasty, which ruled over this kingdom till AD 63. The daughter of this Polemon, Queen Tryphaena, is mentioned in the apocryphal book, The Acts of Paul and Thecia, as having been present at a great imperial festival at Pisidian Antioch in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, whose blood-relation she was. This statement is no doubt founded on fact. These Acts relate that she protected the Christian maiden Thecia, and was converted, through her instrumentality, to Christianity. As tradition connects Bartholomew also with the Polemonian dynasty, it is probable that there were some Christians among them. In AD 63 the kingdom of Pontus had been brought to a sufficiently high pitch of civilization to be admitted into the Roman Empire; the western part was made a region of the province Galatia, and the eastern was added to Cappadocia. The dispossessed Polemon was given a Cilician kingdom, and it was as king of part of Cilicia that he (later than AD 63) married Berenice (q.v.).
In the 1st cent. AD, therefore, the name Pontus had various significations, and a strict nomenclature was available for their distinction. The province was Pontus, Polemon's kingdom was Pontus Polemoniacus (incorporated into the province of Galatia AD 63), the part of Mithridates' old kingdom incorporated in the province Galatia (3-2 BC) was Pontus Galaticus, and the regions that lay E. of Pontus Polemoniacus, between the Black Sea and Armenia, were known as Pontus Cappadocicus. From about AD 78 to 106 Pontus Galaticus and Pontus Polemoniacus were included in the combined provinces Galatia and Cappadocia, and after AD 106 they constituted permanent parts of the province Cappadocia. In 1 P.1.1 Pontus means clearly the Roman province. There is little doubt that the adjective Pontikos, applied to Aquila in Ac.18.2, means that, though a Jew, he was a native of the Roman province, and it is interesting in connexion with this to mention that an inscription has been found which refers to one Aquila at Sinope, one of the principal cities of the Roman province of Pontus. The only remaining NT reference to Pontus (Ac.2.9) cannot be so easily explained. It must be left uncertain whether the name Pontus there is used strictly of the province, or more loosely of the kingdom, or of the kingdom and the province together.
Christianity was not brought to Pontus by St. Paul, if we can trust the silence of Acts, and it is best to do so. From 1 Peter it is clear that by the date of the Epistle there were Christians in that country, and these converts from paganism to Christianity probably came there from the Asian coasts or from Rome. There is a well-known and valuable testimony to the prevalence of Christianity in the province, belonging to the period AD 111-113. At that time the younger Pliny was governor of the province Bithynia-Pontus, and addressed inquiries to the Emperor Trajan on the manner in which Christians ought to be treated by the administration. He reports that many men and women of all ages and of every rank in town and country were Christians, and that some had abandoned the faith twenty or twenty-five years before (see Pliny, Epp. x. 96 f). After Pliny's time Pontus continued to be a stronghold of Christianity. From here came the famous Marcion (born about 120 at Sinope), and of this province Aquila, a translator of the OT into Greek, was a native. [Article: Dictionary of the Bible, J.Hastings, 2nd Ed., T&T.Clark, 1963 - A.So. - F.C.G.]