Listed 2 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "TIOS Ancient city TURKEY".
City in Pontos or Bithynia, 23 km NE of Zonguldak. A Milesian colony
at the mouth of the Filyos Cayi, the ancient Billaios. In the mid 4th c. Tios
was a dependency of its neighbor Herakleia, and was later incorporated by Amastris
in the city which she founded under her own name. Following a period of independence
after 280 B.C. Tios was restored to Herakleia by Nikomedes of Bithynia. In 189
B.C. it was given to Eumenes of Pergamon, and after some further vicissitudes
was captured by Mithridates VI (Strab. 541). Under Pompey's settlement of the
region Tios seems to have acquired some measure of autonomy. The coinage begins
in the 4th c. B.C. and extends to the 3d c. A.D.
Although Strabo (543) regarded Tios as an undistinguished town, its
ruins are considerable; they date, however, after Strabo's time and at present
are much overgrown. The acropolis, the original place of settlement, is on a headland
N of the site; it carries a mediaeval fortification based on ancient defense lines;
two Hellenic towers are recognizable. The inhabited town lay below the acropolis
on the S; in the hillside facing W is the theater, judged in the late 19th c.
to be among the best preserved in Asia Minor. Today this cannot be said, but parts
of the cavea and stage building can still be made out among the dense overgrowth.
To the S of the theater are the ruins of a rectangular building of regular ashlar,
parts of which still stand to a considerable height. Other buildings include one
with apse and peristyle, in regular bossed ashlar, with numerous doors. A fragment
of an aqueduct, with three or four arches remaining, extends towards the shore,
where some traces of the ancient harbor are visible. The necropolis spread over
the NE slope of the acropolis; the finds were chiefly much damaged sarcophagi.
G. E. Bean, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Tius or Tium (Tios or Tion: Eth. Tianos), a town on the coast of Bithynia, or, according to others, belonging to Paphlagonia. It was a Greek town situated at the mouth of the river Billaeus, and seems to have belonged to Paphlagonia until Prusias annexed it to Bithynia. (Memnon, 17-19; Pomp. Mela, i. 19; Marcian, p. 70; Arrian, Peripl. P. E. p. 14; Anon. Peripl. P. E. p. 2.) In Strabo's (xii. pp. 542, 543, 565) time, Tius was only a small place but remarkable as the birthplace of Philetaerus, the founder of the royal dynasty of Pergamum. (Comp. Plin. vi. 1.) There are coins of Tius as late as the reign of Gallienus, on which the ethnic name appears as Tianoi, Teioi, and Teianoi. (Sestini, p. 71; Eckhel, ii. p. 438.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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