Pontica

Abstract

About forty-five miles in an air-line west-south-west of Samsun (Amisos) lies the town of Vezir Keupru, situated at the eastern edge of a rolling plain bounded towards the west by the Halys, on the south by the long ridge of Tavshan Dagh, and on the north by the mountain-rim of the plateau through which the Halys forces its way to the sea. This undulating tract is the extreme westerly part of the ancient Phazemonitis, over which passed the one great ‘through route’ from Constantinople across Paphlagonia to the Euphrates, following throughout its course a line curiously parallel to the coast. Though this road is not described in any ancient document, its importance for the Roman period is amply proved by a remarkably complete series of milestones, erected or re-erected by successive emperors between Nerva and Constantine, which we discovered last summer between the Halys and Neocaesareia. In modern times it cannot claim any such importance.