Greek city of Amisos in Pontus
Bronze 20mm (8.09 grams) Struck under Mithradates VI the Great circa 100-95 B.C. or circa 90-80 B.C.
Reference: HGC 7, 243; Sear 3640; B.M.C. 13.18, 53-4; SNG Black Sea 1200-1209
Head of Dionysus right, wearing mitra and wreathed with ivy.
AMIΣOY, Thyrsos leaning against cista mystica draped with panther skin.

In mythology, Amisos was believed to be the original settlement of the Amazons. It was originally founded by Greeks from the cities of Phokaia and/or Miletos in circa 560 B.C. It was a flourishing Greek city on the Black Sea coast commanding an important trade route to the south. Amisos was under the control of the Achaemenid Empire, then re-settled by Athenians in the following century and they renamed the place Peiraeus. In subsequent times it played important historical roles as a city of the Kingdom of Bosporus. It was given the status of a free city under the Romans. 

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Dionysus is the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theatre and religious ecstasy in Greek mythology. Alcohol, especially wine, played an important role in Greek culture with Dionysus being an important reason for this life style. His name, thought to be a theonym in Linear B tablets as di-wo-nu-so (KH Gq 5 inscription), shows that he may have been worshipped as early as c. 1500-1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks; other traces of the Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, others as Greek. In some cults, he arrives from the east, as an Asiatic foreigner; in others, from Ethiopia in the South. He is a god of epiphany, “the god that comes”, and his “foreignness” as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults. He is a major, popular figure of Greek mythology and religion, and is included in some lists of the twelve Olympians. Dionysus was the last god to be accepted into Mt. Olympus. He was the youngest and the only one to have a mortal mother. His festivals were the driving force behind the development of Greek theatre. Modern scholarship categorises him as a dying-and-rising god.

The earliest cult images of Dionysus show a mature male, bearded and robed. He holds a fennel staff, tipped with a pine-cone and known as a thyrsus. Later images show him as a beardless, sensuous, naked or half-naked androgynous youth: the literature describes him as womanly or “man-womanish”. In its fully developed form, his central cult imagery shows his triumphant, disorderly arrival or return, as if from some place beyond the borders of the known and civilized. His procession (thiasus) is made up of wild female followers (maenads) and bearded satyrs with erect penises. Some are armed with the thyrsus, some dance or play music. The god himself is drawn in a chariot, usually by exotic beasts such as lions or tigers, and is sometimes attended by a bearded, drunken Silenus. This procession is presumed to be the cult model for the human followers of his Dionysian Mysteries. In his Thracian mysteries, he wears the bassaris or fox-skin, symbolizing a new life. Dionysus is represented by city religions as the protector of those who do not belong to conventional society and thus symbolizes everything which is chaotic, dangerous and unexpected, everything which escapes human reason and which can only be attributed to the unforeseeable action of the gods.

Also known as Bacchus, the name adopted by the Romans and the frenzy he induces, bakkheia. His thyrsus is sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey. It is a beneficent wand but also a weapon, and can be used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. He is also called Eleutherios (“the liberator”), whose wine, music and ecstatic dance frees his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subverts the oppressive restraints of the powerful. Those who partake of his mysteries are possessed and empowered by the god himself. His cult is also a “cult of the souls”; his maenads feed the dead through blood-offerings, and he acts as a divine communicant between the living and the dead.

In Greek mythology, he is presented as a son of Zeus and the mortal Semele, thus semi-divine or heroic: and as son of Zeus and Persephone or Demeter, thus both fully divine, part-chthonic and possibly identical with Iacchus of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Some scholars believe that Dionysus is a syncretism of a local Greek nature deity and a more powerful god from Thrace or Phrygia such as Sabazios or Zalmoxis.

Mithridates VI or Mithradates VI (Greek: Μιθραδάτης), from Old Persian Mithradatha, “gift of Mithra”; 134-63 BC, also known as Mithradates the Great (Megas) and Eupator Dionysius, was king of Pontus and Armenia Minor in northern Anatolia (now Turkey) from about 120-63 BC. Mithridates is remembered as one of the Roman Republic’s most formidable and successful enemies, who engaged three of the prominent generals from the late Roman Republic in the Mithridatic Wars: Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Lucullus and Pompey. He was also the greatest ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus.

Samsun is a city in northern Turkey, on the coast of the Black Sea, with a population of over 1 million. It is the capital city of Samsun Province and an important port. Samsun was founded as the colony Amisos (alternative spelling Amisus, Eis Amison – meaning to amisos took the name Samsunta or Samsus (Eis Amison – Samson – Samsounta) as in Greek + ounta “Greek toponomical suffix”. ) by settlers from Miletus in the 7th century BC.

 History

Samsun’s original name was Enete (from Hitits.) Samsun’s ideal combination of fertile ground and shallow waters attracted numerous traders. Greek colonists settled in the 6th century BC and established a flourishing trade relationship with the ancient peoples of Anatolia. At that time, Samsun was part of the Greek colony of Amisus. In the 3rd century BC, Samsun came under the expanded rule of the Kingdom of Pontus. The Kingdom of Pontus had been part of the empire of Alexander the Great. However, the empire was fractured soon after Alexander’s death in the 4th century BC. At its height, the kingdom controlled the north of central Anatolia and mercantile towns on the northern Black Sea shores.

The Romans took over in 47 BC, and were replaced by the Byzantines after the fall of Rome. In 1200 Samsun was captured by the Seljuks, to be later taken over by the İlhanlılar. Samsun was incorporated into the network of Genoese trading posts and was taken by the Ottomans in the beginning of the 15th century. Before leaving, the Genoese razed the town.

Atatürk founded the Turkish republic movement at Samsun and it served as its base during the Turkish War of Independence.

For more details on this topic, see Turkish War of Independence.

The city is both an Eastern Orthodox and a Roman Catholic titular see.

 Geography

Samsun is situated between two river deltas which jut into the Black Sea. It is located at the end of an ancient route from Cappadocia: the Amisos of antiquity lay on the headland northwest of the modern city. To Samsun’s west, lies the Kızılırmak (“Red River”, the Halys of antiquity), one of the longest rivers in Anatolia and its fertile delta. To the east, lie the Yeşilırmak (“Green River”, the Iris of antiquity) and its delta.