SINOPE: A PORT ON THE BLACK SEA

Let us end with a more modest city, yet one with a distinguished and fascinating history: Sinope (modern Sinop), on the south coast of the Black Sea. Founded by colonizers from Miletus in the late seventh century BC, according to the match of literary testimony with the earliest datable finds of Greek pottery, Sinope is located on a dramatic peninsula that juts out to the east like a hook, offering a protected harbor on its south side. The tip of the peninsula rises high like an island; Sinope, ancient and modern, lies on the isthmus just to the west (Figure 18.15). The city’s hinterland, a narrow coastal strip, allows for some agriculture; olive oil was a significant export. Other valuable resources included timber from the mountains and sinoper or miltos, a type of red ochre used in paints and in shipbuilding. In addition, fishing has always been an important element in the economy. to the great rivers that pour into the western and northern Black Sea — the Danube, Dnieper, and Don — the Black Sea has been an excellent environment for fish, although in modern times industrial pollution carried by these same rivers has caused damage.

Ancient Sinope owed its prosperity to its geographical location, centrally placed on the Black Sea’s southern coast, propitious for trade and communication by sea with other communities in the Black Sea basin. Land connections, however, were poor. The Pontic mountains that run east-west across northern Turkey are high and close at hand, preventing easy contact with the plateau to the south. The coastal strip itself is broken periodically by mountains that descend to the sea. The easiest method of communication was by boat, a situation that changed only in the mid - to late twentieth century when asphalted roads were blasted through. Sinope did, however, pay attention to the coastal region. Itself a foundation, it founded in turn its own colonies along the coast, all contributing to its prosperity during Greek and Roman antiquity, into the early

Fourth century AD. The three main colonies to the east — Kotyora, Kerasous, and Trebizond, modern Ordu, Giresun, and Trabzon — are still today prominent cities of the region.

Geographically close to the Crimean peninsula to the north, the city benefited also from currents in the sea, which allowed for an easy passage across the middle of the Black Sea. Indeed, it was this location, the connection with Greek cities in the Crimea and elsewhere in the north, that allowed this port to flourish as the main shipping center for the Black Sea during classical antiquity and even later, in medieval times. In the nineteenth century, though, technological developments led to its isolation. The steamship, not dependent on winds and currents, permitted direct communication between Constantinople, Odessa, the Crimea, and Trabzon, the thriving mercantile centers of the time.

Sinope figures regularly in the historical texts of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Autonomous through the rule of the Persians and during the early Hellenistic period, Sinope was captured in 183 BC by Pharnaces I, king of Pontus. The Kingdom of Pontus had been established around 300 BC in north central Asia Minor, straddling the Pontic mountains, one of the many states that emerged in the conflicts following the death of Alexander the Great. After 183 BC, Sinope would serve as a new capital of this kingdom, along with Amaseia, in the interior. As such, it became a target during the bitter struggle between Mithridates VI and the Romans in the first half of the first century BC. After capturing and sacking Sinope in 70 BC, the Romans soon resurrected the city, granting it autonomous status. As a designated Roman colony, Colonia Julia Felix Sinopen-sis, a status arranged by Julius Caesar in 47 BC, it would prosper through the imperial centuries.

Little remains from the ancient city. The geographer Strabo, himself a native of Amaseia, described the city as follows: “The city itself is beautifully walled, and is also splendidly adorned with gymnasium and marketplace and stoas” (Bryer & Winfield 1985: 69). These well-built walls still survive, giving a good sense of the area of the ancient city (Figure 18.15). They may date originally to the second century BC, when Sinope became the capital of Pontus. The western section includes a citadel, used in modern times (1887—1997) as a high security prison, but now open to the public. As for the layout of the city, a grid plan seems to have been applied, if the modern street plan can be considered a reflection of the ancient. Hippodamus, the fifth century BC city planner, was from Miletus; it has been conjectured by Bryer and Winfield that this Milesian spirit had influence here, in this colony of Miletus, even several centuries after the initial connection. Other ancient remains include foundations of a temple attributed to Serapis, dated to the second century BC, and traces of the mole in the southern harbour. Of Strabo’s gymnasium, marketplace, and stoas, nothing remains.

A new perspective on Hellenistic Sinope has been given in recent years by the exploration of amphorae workshops. Conducted in the 1990s by French teams in cooperation with the Sinop Museum, these excavations revealed the active production in Sinope and vicinity of ampho-ras, ceramic storage jars that would be filled with olive oil and wine and shipped throughout the Black Sea, especially to communities on the northern shores. The remains of kilns and the finds of wasters (pieces of pottery that were broken, misshapen, or over-fired) have clarified the manufacturing process. The dating of the workshops comes in particular from finds of stamped amphora handles (see above, Chapter 17). At Sinope, the stamp indicated the name of the annual magistrate, the name of the manufacturer, and an emblem related to the official or the producer. Specialists can date these stamps to within a range of ten years. Some 20,000 stamp impressions from vases originating in Sinope have been discovered, mostly in the Black Sea area, a valuable source of information concerning the commercial networks crucial for the economy of the city.