Trabzon

Trabzon is a city on the Black Sea coast of northeastern Turkey and the capital of Trabzon Province. Historically known as Trebizond, the city was founded in 756 BC as Trapezous by colonists from Miletus. It was added into the Achaemenid Empire by Cyrus the Great and was later part of the independent Kingdom of Pontus that challenged Rome until 68 BC. Thenceforth part of the Roman and later Byzantine Empire, the city was the capital of the Empire of Trebizond, one of the successor states of the Byzantine Empire after the Fourth Crusade in 1204. In 1461 it came under Ottoman rule. During the early modern period^[when?], Trabzon, because of the importance of its port, again became a focal point of trade to Persia and the Caucasus. Today Trabzon is the second largest city and port on the Black Sea coast of Turkey with a population of almost 300,000. The urban population of the city is 330,836 (Ortahisar), with a metropolitan population of 822,270. Trabzon has 18 districts in total.

The Turkish name of the city is Trabzon. The first recorded name of the city is the Greek Tραπεζοῦς (Trapezous), referencing the table-like central hill between the Zağnos (İskeleboz) and Kuzgun streams on which it was founded (τράπεζα meant "table" in Ancient Greek; note the table on the coin in the figure). In Latin, Trabzon is called Trapezus, which is a latinization of its ancient Greek name. Both in Pontic Greek and Modern Greek, it is called Τραπεζούντα (Trapezounta). In Ottoman Turkish and Persian, it is written as طربزون. During Ottoman times, Tara Bozan was also used. In Laz it is known as ტამტრა (T'amt'ra) or T'rap'uzani, in Georgian it is ტრაპიზონი (T'rap'izoni) and in Armenian it is Տրապիզոն (Trapizon). The 19th-century Armenian travelling priest Byjiskian called the city by other, native names, including Hurşidabat and Ozinis. Western geographers and writers used many spelling variations of the name throughout the Middle Ages. These versions of the name, which have incidentally been used in English literature as well, include: Trebizonde (Fr.), Trapezunt (German), Trebisonda (Sp.), Trapesunta (It.), Trapisonda, Tribisonde, Terabesoun, Trabesun, Trabuzan, Trabizond and Tarabossan.

In Spanish the name was known from chivalric romances and Don Quixote. Because of its similarity to trápala and trapaza, trapisonda acquired the meaning "hullabaloo, imbroglio".

Before the city was founded as a Greek colony the area was dominated by Colchians (west Georgian) and Chaldian (Anatolian) tribes. The Hayasa, who had been in conflict with the Central-Anatolian Hittites in the 14th century BC, are believed to have lived in the area south of Trabzon. Later Greek authors mentioned the Macrones and the Chalybes as native peoples. One of the dominant Caucasian groups to the east were the Laz, who were part of the monarchy of the Colchis, together with other related Georgian peoples.

The city was founded in classical antiquity in 756 BC as Tραπεζούς (Trapezous), by Milesian traders from Sinope. It was one of a number (about ten) of Milesian emporia or trading colonies along the shores of the Black Sea. Others included Abydos and Cyzicus in the Dardanelles, and nearby Kerasous. Like most Greek colonies, the city was a small enclave of Greek life, and not an empire unto its own, in the later European sense of the word. As a colony, Trapezous initially paid tribute to Sinope, but early banking (money-changing) activity is suggested to have occurred in the city already in the 4th century BC, according to a silver drachma coin from Trapezus in the British Museum, London. Cyrus the Great added the city to the Achaemenid Empire, and was possibly the first ruler to consolidate the eastern Black Sea region into a single political entity (a satrapy).

Trebizond's trade partners included the Mossynoeci. When Xenophon and the Ten Thousand mercenaries were fighting their way out of Persia, the first Greek city they reached was Trebizond (Xenophon, Anabasis, 5.5.10). The city and the local Mossynoeci had become estranged from the Mossynoecian capital, to the point of civil war. Xenophon's force resolved this in the rebels' favor, and so in Trebizond's interest.

Up until the conquests of Alexander the Great the city remained under the dominion of the Achaemenids. While the Pontus was not directly affected by the war, its cities gained independence as a result of it. Local ruling families continued to claim partial Persian heritage, and Persian culture had some lasting influence on the city; the holy springs of Mt. Minthrion to the east of the old town were devoted to the Persian-Anatolian Greek god Mithra. In the 2nd century BC, the city with its natural harbours was added to the Kingdom of Pontus by Pharnaces I. Mithridates VI Eupator made it the home port of the Pontic fleet, in his quest to remove the Romans from Anatolia.

After the defeat of Mithridates in 66 BC, the city was first handed to the Galatians, but it was soon returned to the grandson of Mithradates, and subsequently became part of the new client Kingdom of Pontus. When the kingdom was finally annexed to the Roman province of Galatia two centuries later, the fleet passed to new commanders, becoming the Classis Pontica. The city received the status of civitas libera, extending its judicial autonomy and the right to mint its own coin. Trebizond gained importance for its access to roads leading over the Zigana Pass to the Armenian frontier or the upper Euphrates valley. New roads were constructed from Persia and Mesopotamia under the rule of Vespasian. In the next century, the emperor Hadrian commissioned improvements to give the city a more structured harbor. The emperor visited the city in the year 129 as part of his inspection of the eastern border (limes). A mithraeum now serves as a crypt for the church and monastery of Panagia Theoskepastos (Kızlar Manastırı) in nearby Kizlara, east of the citadel and south of the modern harbor.