Panticapaeum present-day Kerch

Kerch

Kerch is a city on the Kerch Peninsula of eastern Crimea, an important industrial, transport and tourist centre of Ukraine. Kerch, founded 2600 years ago, is considered as one of the most ancient cities in Ukraine.-Ancient times:...

: an important city and port in Taurica

Taurica

Taurica, Tauric Chersonese, and Taurida were names by which the territory of Crimea was known to the Greeks and Romans.- Etymology of the name :...

 (Tauric Chersonese), situated on a hill (Mt. Mithridates

Mithridates

Mithridates or Mithradates is the Hellenistic form of an Iranian theophoric name, meaning "given by the deity Mithra". It may refer to:Rulers*Mithridates I of Parthia *Mithridates II of Parthia...

) on the western side of the Cimmerian Bosporus, founded by Milesians

Miletus

Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...

 in the late 7th–early 6th century BC.
During the first centuries of the city's existence, imported Greek articles predominated: pottery

Pottery

Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

 (see Kerch Style

Kerch Style

.The Kerch style is an archaeological term describing vases from the final phase of Attic red-figure pottery production. Their exact chronology remains problematic, but they are generally assumed to have been produced roughly between 375 and 330/20 BC...

), terracottas, and metal objects, probably from workshops in Rhodes

Rhodes

Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...

, Corinth

Corinth

Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...

, Samos

Samos Island

Samos is a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese, and off the coast of Asia Minor, from which it is separated by the -wide Mycale Strait. It is also a separate regional unit of the North Aegean region, and the only municipality of the regional...

, and Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

. 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

Kerch

Kerch is a city on the Kerch Peninsula of eastern Crimea, an important industrial, transport and tourist centre of Ukraine. Kerch, founded 2600 years ago, is considered as one of the most ancient cities in Ukraine.-Ancient times:...

 ware. Local potters imitated the Hellenistic bowls known as the Gnathia

Gnathia

Gnathia is a genus of isopod crustaceans, containing the following species:*Gnathia africana Barnard, 1914*Gnathia albescens Hansen, 1916*Gnathia alces Monod, 1926*Gnathia andrei Pires, 1996*Gnathia antarctica...

 style as well as relief wares—Megarian

Megara

Megara is an ancient city in Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens. Megara was one of the four districts of Attica, embodied in the four mythic sons of King...

 bowls. The city minted silver coins from the mid 6th century BC and from the 1st century BC gold and bronze coins. The Hermitage

Hermitage Museum

The State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...

 and Kerch

Kerch

Kerch is a city on the Kerch Peninsula of eastern Crimea, an important industrial, transport and tourist centre of Ukraine. Kerch, founded 2600 years ago, is considered as one of the most ancient cities in Ukraine.-Ancient times:...

 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

Archaeanactids

Archaeanactids : a Greek dynasty of the Kingdom of Bosporus, ruled in 480–438 BC....

 and then of the Spartocids

Spartocids

Spartocids : a Thracian dynasty of the Kingdom of Bosporus, ruled in 438–110 BC.The following genealogy is based upon Ferdinand Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch, , , p. 400:- See also :...

, dynasties of Thracian kings of Bosporus

Bosporan Kingdom

The Bosporan Kingdom or the Kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus was an ancient state, located in eastern Crimea and the Taman Peninsula on the shores of the Cimmerian Bosporus...

, and was hence itself sometimes called Bosporus. Its economic decline in the 4th–3rd centuries BC was the result of the Sarmatian

Sarmatians

The Iron Age Sarmatians were an Iranian people in Classical Antiquity, flourishing from about the 5th century BC to the 4th century AD....

 conquest of the steppes and the growing competition of Egyptian

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

 grain. The last of the Spartocids

Spartocids

Spartocids : a Thracian dynasty of the Kingdom of Bosporus, ruled in 438–110 BC.The following genealogy is based upon Ferdinand Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch, , , p. 400:- See also :...

, Paerisades V, apparently left his realm to Mithridates VI Eupator, king of Pontus

Pontus

Pontus or Pontos is a historical Greek designation for a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in modern-day northeastern Turkey. The name was applied to the coastal region in antiquity by the Greeks who colonized the area, and derived from the Greek name of the Black Sea: Πόντος...

.

This transition was arranged by one of Mithridates's generals, a certain Diophantus

Diophantus (general)

Diophantus , son of Asclepiodorus, of Sinope, was a general in the service of Mithridates VI of Pontus. Diophantus was active in Mithridates' campaigns in the Bosporan Kingdom and elsewhere around the Black Sea, although their chronology is disputed...

, who earlier was sent to Taurica to help local Greek cities against Palacus

Palacus

Palacus or Palakus was the king of Lesser Scythia who succeeded his father, Skilurus. Resuming the latter's war against Mithridates the Great, he attempted to besiege Chersonesos but was defeated by Pontic forces under Diophantus. Enlisting the assistance of the Rhoxolani under Tasius, Palacus...

 of Lesser Scythia. The takeover didn't go smoothly: Paerisades was murdered by Scythians led by Saumacus, Diophantus

Diophantus (general)

Diophantus , son of Asclepiodorus, of Sinope, was a general in the service of Mithridates VI of Pontus. Diophantus was active in Mithridates' campaigns in the Bosporan Kingdom and elsewhere around the Black Sea, although their chronology is disputed...

 escaped to return later with reinforcements and to suppress the revolt (c. 110 BC).
Half of a century later, Mithridates himself took his life in Panticapaeum, when, after his defeat in a war

Third Mithridatic War

The Third Mithridatic War was the last and longest of three Mithridatic Wars fought between Mithridates VI of Pontus and his allies and the Roman Republic...

 against Rome

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

, his own son and heir Pharnaces

Pharnaces II of Pontus

Pharnaces II of Pontus, also known as Pharnaces II was a prince, then King of Pontus and the Bosporan until his death. He was a monarch of Persian and Greek Macedonian ancestry. Pharnaces II was the youngest son and child born to King Mithridates VI of Pontus from his first wife, his sister Queen...

 and citizens of Panticapaeum turned against him. In 63 BC the city was partly destroyed by an earthquake. Raids by the Goths

Goths

The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....

 and the Huns

Huns

The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...

 furthered its decline, and it was incorporated into the Byzantine

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 state under Justin I

Justin I

Justin I was Byzantine Emperor from 518 to 527. He rose through the ranks of the army and ultimately became its Emperor, in spite of the fact he was illiterate and almost 70 years old at the time of accession...

 in the early 6th century AD. The city was lost to the Khazars

Khazars

The Khazars were semi-nomadic Turkic people who established one of the largest polities of medieval Eurasia, with the capital of Atil and territory comprising much of modern-day European Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the northern Caucasus , parts of...

 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

Fourth Crusade

The Fourth Crusade was originally intended to conquer Muslim-controlled Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt. Instead, in April 1204, the Crusaders of Western Europe invaded and conquered the Christian city of Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire...

 and the sack of Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

 in 1204, Panticapaeum passed to the Byzantine Empire's successor state the Empire of Trebizond

Empire of Trebizond

The Empire of Trebizond, founded in April 1204, was one of three Byzantine successor states of the Byzantine Empire. However, the creation of the Empire of Trebizond was not directly related to the capture of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, rather it had broken away from the Byzantine Empire...

. By now referred to as Cherson, the city was retained by Trebizond until the 14th century.

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