When Pontus lost its independence to Rome's advance in the east, Amaseia ceased to be the capital of a dynasty and became one of the provincial cities of an empire. The change was less a destruction than a reorganisation. In the age of the kings the city had been a fortress-town of rock-cut cisterns, walls and royal tombs; in the Roman age it became an administrative centre spread across the valley floor, known for its bridges, its water channel and its right to strike coins. Few buildings from this period survive. Yet when Strabo's description, inscriptions, coins and excavation data on the water works are read together, the outline of Roman Amaseia becomes clear.

From Conquest to Provincial Order

Amaseia fell to Rome in 70 BC, after the Roman commander Lucullus defeated Mithridates VI. Lucullus pursued the king deep into Armenia, but Mithridates turned back to Pontus and inflicted a heavy defeat on the small Roman force left behind. It was Pompey who ended the war. In the winter of 65-64 BC, in an arrangement drawn up at Amisos (the Lex Pompeia), he attached the coastal part of Pontus to the province of Bithynia and began an intensive programme of urbanisation in the interior. Strabo reports that Pompey founded eleven city-states in the region. Amaseia was one of the cities that remained inside this order, and some sources add that it was granted the status of a "free city".

The arrangement did not last. During the Second Triumvirate Mark Antony, who held the east, dismantled Pompey's structure while preparing for his Parthian campaign and handed cities such as Neapolis, Neokaesareia and Amaseia to local kings. In 37 BC he gave most of the territory of Pontus to Polemon, who had helped him in the Parthian campaign. The region, known as Pontus Polemoniacus, included Pharnakeia, Diospolis, Neokaesareia, Magnopolis, Amaseia and Amisos. Strabo states the situation in a single sentence: Amaseia once belonged to kings, but is now a province. By the time the geographer, himself a native of Amaseia, wrote this, the city had again come under direct Roman rule.

Administrative Status and the Title of Metropolis

In 3/2 BC Amaseia was attached to the province of Galatia and became the centre of a sub-region called Pontus Galaticus. Some scholars place the attachment in 7 BC, while a provincial-government account says the region joined the province of Galatia that Augustus established in 25 BC. In this period the city stood at the head of the regional council (koinon) and bore the title "metropolis of Pontus" on its coins. Because Neokaesareia used the same title, the rivalry between the two cities continued throughout the imperial age.

In AD 64, under Nero, Pontus Polemoniacus was annexed directly to Roman territory. Under Vespasian, Pontus and Cappadocia were merged into a single province, and around AD 112 Trajan attached Pontus Galaticus to Cappadocia. As a result Neokaesareia became the capital of the new province, while Amaseia kept the title of metropolis as an honour. Second-century coins also show the titles "first city of Pontus" and "neokoros". In the reorganisation under Diocletian and Constantine, Amaseia became the metropolis of the province of Diospontus (Helenopontus). The provincial city was also a junction in the road network; the roads of Galatia and Cappadocia ended at Amasya.

The City That Strabo Saw

The most important text for understanding Roman-era Amaseia is the twelfth book of the Geography by Strabo, who was raised in the city. Strabo describes his native town as lying in a deep, broad valley through which the Iris (Yeşilırmak) flows, a place that serves as both city and fortress. A tall rock, sheer on every side, drops toward the river; where the city sits beside the water there is a wall, and other walls climb the slopes on either side. Two peaks, joined by a natural ridge, are fortified with towers. The palace and the monuments of the kings lie inside this circuit. Within the rock are water reservoirs fed by two channels, one opening toward the river and the other toward the ridge, so that the inhabitants cannot be deprived of water under siege.

One detail in Strabo's account reaches into the Roman age: two bridges, one linking the city to the suburb and the other linking the suburb to the land beyond. The valley widens from the river and forms the plain called Chiliocomum (Thousand Villages), followed by the districts of Diakopene and Pimolisene, all fertile land extending to the Halys. Strabo writes that his homeland was full of ruined fortresses and wide stretches of land left desolate by the Mithridatic war, yet wooded and good enough to pasture horses. He mentions the rock salt of Ximene and believes the river Halys took its name from it. One notable omission is that the stone channels bringing water to the city are never mentioned; this silence has been used as a clue in dating the water channel discussed below.

The Low Bridge

The four-arched stone bridge over the Yeşilırmak is regarded as the only bridge to survive from the Roman age. With its tall arches of neatly cut stone, it connected the castle, then the city centre, and its surroundings to the settlement on the opposite bank. Over the centuries the bed of the Yeşilırmak rose, the piers of the arches were buried, and only the upper parts of the arches remained exposed. Because the roadway sank to the level of the water, the bridge came to be known among the local people as Alçak Köprü, the Low Bridge. The arches are Roman; the present superstructure above them belongs to later periods.

The later fate of the bridge is documented. In 1865 the governor (mutasarrıf) Ziya Pasha, thinking the low arches might be dangerous, had an eleven-pier wooden bridge built on top; it was swept away in the flood of 1881. Under the governor Atıf Bey a new bridge was again set on the arches, this time using the stones of a disused church. This second bridge was reinforced in 1965 and has survived to the present.

The Water Channel That Fed the City: The Ferhat Channel

The largest engineering work attributed to Roman-period Amasya is the Ferhat Water Channel, which popular tradition ties to the tale of Ferhat and Şirin. According to the description of the provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, the channel belongs to the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman periods; rock was cut away to open tunnels, walls were built in places, and the work followed the slope of the land according to a levelling system. The part easily visible from outside is a stretch of about two kilometres alongside the highway at the locality of Ferhatarası; the visible and traceable length is given as six kilometres in all. The channel takes its name from lying at the foot of Mount Ferhat and has been identified with Ferhat's piercing of the mountain for Şirin in the folk tale. In the story, the ruler Mehmene Banu, unwilling to give up her sister Şirin, set Ferhat the condition of boring through Mount Elma and bringing water to the city. The tale is not counted as a document of the channel's origin; it is the name local people gave to the structure.

Construction Technique

In the Ferhatarası section a stretch of about 675 metres was cleared of rubble and stone; surveys were drawn before excavation, and chemical and geological analyses were made of the channel's rock, plaster and mortar. These studies showed that the channel was cut into the limestone bedrock according to a water-levelling system and approached the city in meanders, like the Yeşilırmak itself. The rock-cut sections average 87-97 centimetres in width and 120 centimetres in internal height including the vault. At 80 centimetres above the floor, small rock ledges 20 centimetres wide were left on either side of the channel; these are the seats for the springers of the vault that covers it. The vault was built by compressing rubble stones in a corbelling technique, with a lime-and-sand mortar scattered between them. On the floor a layer three centimetres thick, containing brick dust, was uncovered; it is understood to have prevented water loss through cracks in the rock. Centuries of flowing water left travertine deposits on the side walls up to a height of 90 centimetres. It has also been observed that wedges and nails driven diagonally were used to work the rock.

Source and Length

There are two assessments of where the channel began. Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, author of Amasya Tarihi, writes that it emerged at the locality of Şahin Kayası, south of the village of Akyazı, reached Amasya about 22 kilometres later and ended at the locality of Kibrithane in the Beyazıtpaşa quarter. Later surveys identified a channel of the same character, built with the same old technique, at Kırkgöz on the Çekerek stream, and judged that the water route was about 24 kilometres long in all, with its source in the Kırkgöz spring, which yields 40-50 litres per second. The average gradient of the channel has been calculated at 0.07 per cent, a value that matches the bed gradient of the Yeşilırmak and the Çekerek. No evidence has been found of where or how the channel crossed the Yeşilırmak on entering the city. This is the main reason researchers call for excavation to continue.

The Dating Debate

The channel is placed in the Roman age on two separate grounds. The first is construction technique: the closed, gallery-like form of the channel running underground points to construction in the first and second centuries AD and to repair in the third. The second ground is indirect. The researcher who studied the channel took Strabo's failure to mention a rock-cut water route, while describing the city's citadel and royal tombs, as a sign that the channel was built after Strabo. In his view such construction was also impossible between 86 and 63 BC, when the wars between Rome and Pontus were under way. These inferences cannot be treated as firm proof; the fact that an author does not mention a structure does not show that it did not exist. Indeed, records of the provincial culture and tourism directorate take the channel back to the end of the Late Hellenistic period.

The finds from the Ferhatarası excavations show the channel's long life and its end. Among grave rubble, arrowheads of the early Roman period and vessels and pottery sherds of the Byzantine period were found, along with a grave that cut the channel vertically and was covered with a terracotta slab. The excavation also uncovered the apse of a small twelfth-century chapel with a geometric tessera mosaic on its floor. These finds suggest that the channel ceased to function after the twelfth century and that the area was opened to settlement. The literature of classical archaeology also records the remains of a water channel cut into the rock of Ferhatkaya beside the main road about one kilometre south of Amasya.

The Age of Hadrian

The emperor Hadrian (117-138) was the first emperor after Augustus to come to Anatolia without the threat of war, and he is known for having had temples, baths, agoras and water channels built in the cities he visited. He is thought to have come to Anatolia four times. Whether Amaseia lay on his route is uncertain. Modern researchers suggest that the emperor may have travelled west from Sebastia (Sivas) and Neokaesareia (Niksar) through the Lykos valley toward Amaseia; since the sources give too little information, this journey rests on conjecture. Magie links the adoption of the name "Hadriane" by Nikapolis, Neokaesareia and Amaseia to the emperor's visit to these cities and places the visit in AD 129.

It has also been argued that building activity took place in Amasya under Hadrian and the city was rebuilt, and that the settlement on the right bank of the river became dense in the second and third centuries. The same approach holds that in the period when bridges linked the two banks the city had a large population, with an agora, a stadium and a boule (council) building, that is, the fabric of a classical city. However, no direct excavation data have been published for each of these structures, so they should be read as inferences from the city's status.

Some publications attach more concrete details to the Hadrianic period: terracotta water pipes said to carry a record pointing to the second year of the emperor's reign, and a monumental fountain structure (nymphaeum) in the agora. We could not verify these claims in a primary publication. A nymphaeum, in Greek and Roman architecture, is a monumental fountain dedicated to the water nymphs, decorated with niches, statues and columns; in the imperial age it was typically built near public buildings such as the agora, theatre and baths, along streets, and at the point where the water route reached the city. The location and remains of such a structure at Amaseia are not documented.

Coins and the Identity of the City

Amaseia struck civic coins over a period running from Domitian to Severus Alexander; some listings take the series back to Tiberius. On Hellenistic coins the name of the city is written ΑΜΑΣΣΙΑΣ, while on Roman coins the form ΑΜΑCΙΑC appears. Coins of Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus, Commodus, Septimius Severus, Caracalla, Geta and Severus Alexander carry the same name. Most of these coins are today in the collection of the Amasya Museum.

The images on the coins show that the Pontic past lived on in the Roman age. On coins of Hadrian and Septimius Severus appear images linked to the cult of Zeus Stratios (god of armies), the protector of the Pontic dynasty: a festival fire, an eagle with outspread wings, a tree and a four-horse chariot (quadriga). The origin of this cult goes back to Ahura Mazda, the protective god of the Achaemenid dynasty that the Pontic kings took as their model. The sanctuary of Zeus Stratios was found about ten kilometres east of the city, on a mountain slope along the Taşova road, where three inscriptions mentioning the god were recovered. An inscription on a coin of Septimius Severus shows that Hermes was regarded as the founder of the city. The name of the city is also most likely associated with the Mother Goddess Mâ, the local goddess of Pontus and Cappadocia, and has been interpreted as "the city of the Mother Goddess Mâ".

The Rise of Christianity

From the third century Amaseia was a Christian episcopal seat. When it became the capital of the province of Helenopontus in late Roman times, it also became the seat of a metropolitan archbishop, with the sees of Amisos, Andrapa, Euchaitae, Ibora, Sinope, Zaliche and Zela subordinate to it. According to Christian sources, a Christian named Theodore was arrested for setting fire to the temple of Cybele in the city and was burned alive; he was later remembered as one of the great saints of the Eastern Church. Another well-known figure of the city was Bishop Asterius, known for sermons dated to around AD 400.

A more recent find is a Christian mosaic of 24 square metres, belonging to the floor of a chapel, uncovered in 2013 near an area where an illicit excavation had been attempted. The mosaic shows apples, an apple tree, partridges and geometric motifs. From the eighth century the city was among the fortresses of the Armeniakon theme, one of the military provinces of Byzantium, and it remained under Byzantine rule until the late eleventh century, when the Turks entered Anatolia.

Chronology

70 BC: After Lucullus's victory Amaseia passes to Rome.

65-64 BC: Pompey reorganises Pontus (Lex Pompeia).

38-37 BC: Mark Antony leaves Amaseia and its surroundings to local kings; the rule of Polemon begins.

3/2 BC: Amaseia is attached to the province of Galatia and becomes the metropolis of Pontus Galaticus.

AD 64: Pontus Polemoniacus is annexed directly to Roman territory.

c. AD 112: Trajan attaches Pontus Galaticus to Cappadocia; Amaseia keeps the title of metropolis.

AD 117-138: Reign of Hadrian; the city's building activity and the adoption of the name "Hadriane" are linked to this period.

3rd century AD: Amaseia is a Christian episcopal seat; repair of the Ferhat Water Channel is dated to this century.

AD 222-235: Reign of Severus Alexander; the latest known civic coins of the city belong to these years.

Sources

Primary sources

  • Doğancı, Kamil - Altın, Recep. "Strabon'a Göre Antikçağda Amaseia ve Çevresi." Karadeniz Araştırmaları XV/58 (Summer 2018): 1-25.
  • Strabo. Geography (Geographika), XII.3.39.

Other sources

  • Akşar, A. "İmparator Hadrianus ve Anadolu Gezileri: Seyahatlerinin Amacı ve Güzergahı." 2019.
  • Özden, Dursun. "Amasya Ferhat Su Kanalı / Kehrizler." Documentary project on Anatolian underground water works, 2013.
  • Stillwell, R. - MacDonald, W. L. - McAllister, M. H. (eds.). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton, 1976, entry "Amaseia".
  • Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism. Records on the Ferhat Water Channel and the Low Bridge (Turkish Culture Portal).
  • Amasya Governorate. "Roma Dönemi" and "Amasya Adının Kökeni" pages.
  • Livius.org. "Amasia" (J. Lendering). livius.org

Online sources