Heraclea Pontica - Clickable Map of the Roman Empire - First Century AD

Heraclea
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Ancient Heraclea (Modern name is Karadeniz Ereğli). Greek city and seaport on the coast of Bithynia in Asia Minor, situated on the mouth of the river Lycus. full name Heraclea Pontica.

Heraclea Pontĭca (Ἡράκλεια Πόντου). A city on the coast of Bithynia, about twelve stadia from the river Lycus. It was founded by a colony of Megareans, strengthened by some Tanagreans from Boeotia; the numbers of the former, however, so predominated that the city was in general considered as Doric. This place was famed for its naval power and its consequence among the Asiatic States. Memnon composed a history of the tyrants who reigned at Heraclea during a space of eighty-four years; but we have only now the abridgment of Photius, which is confirmed by incidental notices contained in Aristotle (Polit. vi. 5). - Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers.

Heraclea Pontica (Greek: Ηράκλεια Ποντική Hērakleia Pontikē; modern day Karadeniz Ereğli, in the Zonguldak Province of Turkey, on the Black Sea), an ancient city on the coast of Bithynia in Asia Minor, at the mouth of the river Lycus. It was founded by the Greek city-state of Megara[1] c.560-558 and was named after Heracles who the Greeks believed entered the underworld at a cave on the adjoining Archerusian promontory (Cape Baba). The colonists soon subjugated the native Mariandynians but agreed to terms that none of the latter, now helot-like serfs, be sold into slavery outside their homeland. Prospering from the rich, fertile adjacent lands and the sea-fisheries of its natural harbor, Heraclea soon extended its control along the coast as far east as Cytorus (Gideros, near Cide), eventually establishing Black Sea colonies of its own (Cytorus, Callatis and Chersonesus.) The prosperity of the city, rudely shaken by the Galatians and the Bithynians, was utterly destroyed in the Mithridatic Wars. It was the birthplace of the philosopher Heraclides Ponticus. The Greek historical author Memnon of Heraclea (fl. 1c. A.D.) wrote a local history of Heraclea Pontica in at least sixteen books. The work has perished, but Photius's Bibliotheca preserves a compressed account of books 9-16, seemingly the only ones extant in his day. These books run from the rule of the tyrant Clearchus (c. 364-353 B.C.) to the later years of Julius Caesar (c. 40 B.C.) and contain many colorful accounts including the Byzantine introduction of the barbarian Gauls into Asia where they first allied themselves with the Heracleans and later turned violently against them. At present, it is the Turkish city of Karadeniz Ereğli. - Wikipedia

Heraclea Surnamed Pontica, on the coast of Phrygia, in the country of the Mariandyni, was a colony of the Megarians, in conjunction with Tanagraeans from Boeotia. (Paus. 5.26.6; Just. 16.3.) Strabo (xii. p.542) erroneously calls the town a colony of Miletus. It was situated a few miles to the north of the river Lycus, and had two excellent harbours, the smaller of which was made artificially. (Xen. Anab. 6.2. 1; Diod. 14.31; Arrian, Peripl. p. 15; Memnon, p. 52.) Owing to its excellent situation, the town soon rose to a high degree of prosperity, and not only reduced the Mariandyni to subjection, but acquired the supremacy of several other Greek towns in its neighbourhood; so that, at the time of its highest prosperity, it ruled over the whole territory extending from the Sangarius in the west to the Parthenius in the east. A protracted struggle between the aristocracy and the demos (Aristot. Pol. 5.5) at last obliged the inhabitants to submit to a tyrannis. In the reign of Dionysius, one of these tyrants, who was married to a relation of Darius Codomannus, Heracleia reached the zenith of its prosperity. But this state of things did not last long; for the rising power of the Bithynian princes, who tried to reduce that prosperous maritime city, and the arrival of the Galatians in Asia, who were instigated by the kings of Bithynia against Heracleia, deprived the town gradually of a considerable part of its territory. Still, however, it continued to maintain a very prominent place among the Greek colonies in those parts, until, in the war of the Romans against Mithridates, it received its death blow; for Aurelius Cotta plundered and partly destroyed the town (Memnon, 100.54). It was afterwards indeed restored, but remained a town of no importance ( �oppidum,� Plin. Nat. 6.1; comp. Strab. xii. p.543; Scylax, p. 34; Ptol. 5.1.7; Marcian. pp. 70, 73; Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. 2.748, ad Nicand. Alex. 13; Eustath. ad Dionys. Per. 791). [1.1050] Heracleia, which was the birthplace of Heraclides Ponticus and his disciple Dionysius Metathemenus, still exists under the name of Herakie or Erekli. For the history of this important colony see Justin, 16.3-5; Polsberw, de Rebus Heracleae, Brandenburg, 1833, 8vo. (Niebuhr, Lect. on Anc. Hist. iii. pp. 113, fol.)  - Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, William Smith, LLD, Ed.