Panticapaeum

A coin from Panticapaeum, bearing a star inside a diadem and the letters "ΠAN". 2nd century BCE.

Panticapaeum (Greek: Παντικάπαιον, Pantikápaion), present-day Kerch: an important city and port in Taurica (Tauric Chersonese), situated on a hill (Mt. Mithridates) on the western side of the Cimmerian Bosporus, founded by Milesians in the late 7th–early 6th century BC. During the first centuries of the city's existence, imported Greek articles predominated: pottery (see Kerch Style), terracottas, and metal objects, probably from workshops in Rhodes, Corinth, Samos, and Athens. Local production, imitated from the models, was carried on at the same time. Athens manufactured a special type of bowl for the city, known as Kerch ware. Local potters imitated the Hellenistic bowls known as the Gnathia style as well as relief wares—Megarian bowls. The city minted silver coins from the mid-6th century BC and from the 1st century BC gold and bronze coins. The Hermitage and Kerch Museums contain material from the site, which is still being excavated.

In the 5th–4th centuries BC, the city became the residence first of the Archaeanactids and then of the Spartocids, dynasties of Thracian kings of Bosporus, and was hence itself sometimes called Bosporus. Its economic decline in the 4th–3rd centuries BC was the result of the Sarmatian conquest of the steppes and the growing competition of Egyptian grain. The last of the Spartocids, Paerisades V, apparently left his realm to Mithridates VI Eupator, king of Pontus.

This transition was arranged by one of Mithridates's generals, a certain Diophantus, who earlier was sent to Taurica to help local Greek cities against Palacus of Lesser Scythia. The takeover didn't go smoothly: Paerisades was murdered by Scythians led by Saumacus, Diophantus escaped to return later with reinforcements and to suppress the revolt (c. 110 BC).

Ruins of Panticapaeum in Kerch (Ukraine)

Scythians shooting with bows, Kertch (antique Panticapeum), Ukrainia, 4th century BCE.

Half of a century later, Mithridates himself took his life in Panticapaeum, when, after his defeat in a war against Rome, his own son and heir Pharnaces and citizens of Panticapaeum turned against him. In 63 BC the city was partly destroyed by an earthquake. Raids by the Goths and the Huns furthered its decline, and it was incorporated into the Byzantine state under Justin I in the early 6th century AD. The city was lost to the Khazars in the 7th century, but was regained by the Byzantines during the 8th century. Panticapaeum became independent from the empire in the 10th century, forming the Khanate of Korchev, but was retaken by the Byzantines again in the 11th century. After the Fourth Crusade and the sack of Constantinople in 1204, Panticapaeum passed to the Byzantine Empire's successor state the Empire of Trebizond. By now referred to as Cherson, the city was retained by Trebizond until the 14th century.

Bibliography

• Noonan, Thomas S. "The Origins of the Greek Colony at Panticapaeum", American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 77, No. 1. (1973), pp. 77–81.

See also

• List of traditional Greek place names

External links

• Perseus Digital Library
• Iconicarchive Photo Gallery
• Decree honoring Diophantos, general of the Pontic king Mithridates VI
• Similarities between Panticapaeum and the City of Atlantis as described by Plato. Eagle/Wind 2005
• MA in Black Sea Cultural Studies. International Hellenic University-School of Humanities