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Greek city of Sinope in Paphlagonia
Bronze 28mm (18.80 grams) Struck under Mithradates VI the Great circa 105-90 B.C. or circa 90-85 B.C.
Reference: HGC 7, 416; Sear 3707; SNG Black Sea 1531-1535
Head of Athena right, wearing triple-crested helmet ornamented with Pegasus.
Perseus standing facing, holding harpa and head of Medusa, whose decapitated body lies at his feet; ΣIN – ΩΠΗΣ across field.
A colony of Miletos, founded in the 7th century B.C., Sinope rose to become the most important city on the southern coastline of the Black Sea. Sinope was the city of Mithradates VI’s birth.
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 Athena or Athene (Latin: Minerva), also referred to as Pallas Athena, is the goddess of war, civilization, wisdom, strength, strategy, crafts, justice and skill in Greek mythology. Minerva, Athena’s Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is also a shrewd companion of heroes and the goddess of heroic endeavour. She is the virgin patron of Athens. The Athenians built the Parthenon on the Acropolis of her namesake city, Athens, in her honour (Athena Parthenos). Athena’s cult as the patron of Athens seems to have existed from the earliest times and was so persistent that archaic myths about her were recast to adapt to cultural changes. In her role as a protector of the city (polis), many people throughout the Greek world worshiped Athena as Athena Polias (“Athena of the city”). Athens and Athena bear etymologically connected names.
In Greek mythology, Perseus, the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty of Danaans, was the first hero. His exploits in defeating various archaic monsters provided the founding myths of the Twelve Olympians. Perseus beheaded the Gorgon Medusa and saved Andromeda from the sea monster Cetus. Perseus was the son of the mortal Danaë and the god Zeus.
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.
Sinop is a city with a population of 36,734 on İnce Burun (İnceburun, Cape Ince), by its Cape Sinop (Sinop Burnu, Boztepe Cape, Boztepe Burnu) which is situated on the most northern edge of the Turkish side of Black Sea coast, in the ancient region of Paphlagonia, in modern-day northern Turkey, historically known as Sinope. It is the capital of Sinop Province.
History
Long used as a Hittite port which appears in Hittite sources as “Sinuwa” (J. Garstang, The Hittite Empire, p. 74), the city proper was re-founded as a Greek colony from the city of Miletus in the 7th century BC (Xenophon, Anabasis 6.1.15; Diodorus Siculus 14.31.2; Strabo 12.545). Sinope flourished as the Black Sea port of a caravan route that led from the upper Euphrates valley (Herodotus 1.72; 2.34), issued its own coinage, founded colonies, and gave its name to a red arsenic sulfate mined in Cappadocia, called “Sinopic red earth” (Miltos Sinôpikê) or sinople.
 Sinope escaped Persian domination until the early 4th century BC, and in 183 BC it was captured by Pharnaces I and became capital of the kingdom of Pontus. Lucullus conquered Sinope for Rome in 70 BC, and Julius Caesar established a Roman colony there, Colonia Julia Felix, in 47 BC. Mithradates Eupator was born and buried at Sinope, and it was the birthplace of Diogenes, of Diphilus, poet and actor of the New Attic comedy, of the historian Baton, and of the Christian heretic of the 2nd century AD, Marcion.
It remained with the Eastern Roman Empire or the Byzantines. It was a part of the Empire of Trebizond from the sacking of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 until the capture of the city by the Seljuk Turks of Rûm in 1214.
After 1261, Sinop became home to two successive independent emirates following the fall of the Seljuks: the Pervâne and the Candaroğlu. It was captured by the Ottomans in 1458.
In November 1853, at the start of the Crimean War, in the Battle of Sinop, the Russians, under the command of Admiral Nakhimov, destroyed an Ottoman frigate squadron in Sinop, leading Britain and France to declare war on Russia.
Sinop hosted a US military base that was important for intelligence during the cold war era. The US base was closed in 1992.
Explorer Bob Ballard discovered an ancient ship wreck north west of Sinop in the Black Sea and was shown on National Geographic.
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