John George Clark Anderson

“ SINOPE, Turk. Sinūb, a town on the N. coast of Asia Minor in the vilayet of Kastamūni, on a low isthmus which joins the promontory of Boz Tepé to the mainland. Though it possesses the only safe roadstead between the Bosporus and Batum, the difficulties of communication with the interior, and the rivalry of Ineboli on the W. and Samsun on the E. have prevented Sinope from becoming a great commercial centre. ”

“ Here, as in the oriental mysteries generally, the goddess is made more prominent. Where Greek influence affects the native religion, emphasis tends to be laid on the god, but the character of the religion remains everywhere ultimately the same (see Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, ch. iii.) ”

“ The rest of the interior was partitioned by Pompey amongst the inland cities, almost all of which were founded by him, and, according to one view, was included together with the seaboard west of Amisus and the corner of north-east Paphlagonia possessed by Mithradates in his new province Pontus-Bithynia. Others maintain that only the seaboard was included in the province, the inland cities being constituted self-governing, “protected” communities. ”

“ Between the Halys and the Iris the mountain rim is comparatively low and broken, but east of the Iris it is a continuous lofty ridge (called by the ancients Paryadres and Scydises) , whose rugged northern slopes are furrowed by torrent beds, down which a host of small streams (among them the Thermodon, famed in Amazon story) tumble to the sea. ”

“ Polemoniacus included the sea-coast from the Thermodon to Cotyora and the inland cities Zela, Magnopolis, Megalopolis, Neocaesarea and Sebasteia (according to Ptolemy, but apparently annexed since 2 B.C., according to its coins) . (3) Finally, at the same time (A.D. 64) was annexed the remaining eastern part of Pontus, which formed part of Polemon’s realm but was attached to the province Cappadocia and distinguished by the epithet cappadocicus. ”

“ The conquerors, who were few in number, formed a small military aristocracy, living not in the towns, but in fortified villages, where the chiefs in their castles kept up a barbaric state, surrounded by their tribesmen. ”

“ On the lateral walls of the approach we have a similar procession of attendants headed by the chief priestess and priest, who pours a libation at the feet of the goddess seated on her throne; while on the right returning wall are fragments of a third procession approaching another draped figure of the goddess on her throne (placed at the angle opposite the bull on the pedestal) , the train being again brought up by a bull. ”

“ Hellenic ways and modes of thought begin to appear in the towns only in the later 2nd century. In the rustic parts a knowledge of Greek begins to spread in the 3rd century; but only in the 4th and 5th centuries, after the transference of the centre of government first to Nicomedia and then to Constantinople placed Galatia on the highway of imperial communication, was Hellenism in its Christian form gradually diffused over the country. (See also Ancyra; Pessinus; Gordium.)
II. The Roman province of Galatia, constituted 25 B.C., included the greater part of the country ruled by Amyntas, viz. ”

“ These ruins consist of a gateway and an approach enclosed by two lateral walls, 15 ft. long, from the outer end of which two walls return outwards at right angles, one to right and one to left. The gateway is flanked by two huge blocks, each carved in front into the shape of a sphinx, while on the inner face is a relief of a two-headed eagle with wings displayed. ”

“ Paphlagonia, to which was attached most of the old province Pontus; (2) Diospontus, re-named Helenopontus by Constantine, containing the rest of the province Pontus and the adjoining district, eight cities in all (including Sinope, Amisus and Zela) with Amasia as capital; (3) Pontus Polemoniacus, containing Comana, Polemonium, Cerasus and Trapezus with Neocaesarea as capital; and (4) Armenia Minor, five cities, with Sebasteia, as capital. ”

“ It lies opposite the village Pebi, a little north of the point where the Constantinople-Angora railway crosses the Sangarius. It is not to be confused with Gordiou-kome, refounded as Juliopolis, a Bithynian town on a small tributary of the Sangarius, about 47 m. in an air-line N.W. of Gordium. According to the legend, Gordium was founded by Gordius, a Phrygian peasant who had been called to the throne by his countrymen in obedience to an oracle of Zeus commanding them to select the first person that rode up to the temple of the god in a wagon. ”

“ It is shut off from the plateau by forest-clad mountains, a carriage road over the hills to Boiavad and thence by Vezir-Keupru to Amasia was begun about 20 years ago, but has never been completed even as far as Boiavad. Consequently the trade is small; the annual exports are about £80,000, and the imports £50,000. ”

“ The climate though subject to extremes of heat and cold is healthy; in winter the roads are often closed by snow. The population of 16,000 includes about 2500 Christians. Castamon became an important city in later Byzantine times. ”

“ Galater (1897) ; Perrot, De Galatia prov. Rom. (1867) ; Sir W. M. Ramsay, Histor. Geogr. (1890) , St Paul (1898) , and Introd. to Histor. Commentary on Galatians (1899) . For antiquities generally, Perrot, Explor. archéol. de la Galatie (1862) ; K. Humann and O. Puchstein, Reisen in Kleinasien (1890) ; Koerte, Athen. Mitteilungen (1897) ; Anderson and Crowfoot, Journ. of Hellenic Studies (1899) ; and Anderson, Map of Asia Minor (London, Murray, 1903) . (J. G. C. A.)
↑ In the unsettled state of this controversy, weight naturally attaches to the opinion of experts on either side ”