Pontus, Diocese of
Substate | Defunct
548 CE to 660 CE
The Diocese of Pontus is a diocese of the later Roman Empire, incorporating the provinces of northern and northeastern Asia Minor up to the border with the Sassanid Empire in Armenia.
The diocese is established after the reforms of Diocletian, and its vicarius, headquartered at Amaseia, is subordinate to the Praetorian prefecture of the East.
Its military forces, facing the Sassanid threat, are commanded by the dux Ponti et Armeniae until the middle of the fifth century, and by two separate duces afterwards, until Justinian I institutes a new magister militum per Armeniam for the Armenian frontier.
Justinian's reforms also abolish the diocese in 535, and its vicar is made into the governor of Galatia I.
The results however are not satisfactory, and the diocese is reestablished in 548, continuing to function until replaced by the themata of Armeniakon and Opsikion in the later seventh century.
On the north east shore of the Black Sea, the cities Nitike, Pitiyus, and Dioscurias are part of the diocese until the seventh century.
The diocese includes twelve provinces: Bithynia, Honorias, Paphlagonia, Helenopontus, Pontus Polemoniacus, Galatia I and Galatia II (Salutaris), Cappadocia I and Cappadocia II, Armenia I, Armenia II, Armenia Maior and the autonomous Armenian principalities (Satrapiae) in the area of Sophene.
In 536, Armenia III and Armenia IV are created.
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The alliance between the Persians and the Western Turks has, inevitably, become a source of possible friction, and the Western Turks have sometimes acted as an ally of Constantinople in the war that had begun in 572.
The Turks, angered by the Romans’ treaty with the Avars, not only break off their alliance with Constantinople in 576 but also seize a Roman stronghold in the Crimea.
The Roman-Persian war that had begun five years earlier ends in 576 with Persia’s defeat at Melitene.
Western elements of the Göktürks have crossed the Cimmerian Bosporus into the Crimea, besieging, without success, Chersonesos Taurica in 581; their cavalry will continue to roam the steppes of Crimea until 590.
Maurice, after a victory at Constantina over Adarmahan and Tamkhosrau in 582, in which the latter is killed, is acclaimed emperor following the death of Tiberius II Constantine.
The advantage gained at Constantina is lost later in the year when his successor as magister militum of the East, John Mystacon, is defeated on the river Nymphios by Sassanid general Kardarigan.
Kardarigan had first appeared as commander of the Persian forces in northern Mesopotamia in late 582, when he opposed a Byzantine invasion of Arzanene under John Mystacon and defeated him at a battle at the river Nymphius.
In the campaign of 583, he laid siege to the fort of Aphumon, but had abandoned the siege to help repel an imperial attack on the newly constructed fort of Akbas.
While he was preparing an incursion into Byzantine territory in autumn 584, he had been forced to turn east to counter an imperial invasion under Philippicus.
In 585, while Philippicus falls ill, Kardarigan goes on the offensive, besieging the imperial base of Monocarton.
The siege fails, and he then marches north to …
…Martyropolis, Philippicus's base; after sacking a monastery near the city, however, he returns to Persian territory.
Maurice rejects a peace proposal of the Persians in exchange for renewed payments in gold in spring 586.
Kardarigan attacks the army of Philippicus at Solachon in summer 586, commanding the central division of the Persian army in person.
The battle ends in a heavy defeat, and although Kardarigan himself escapes, the survivors of his army suffer greatly because of his decision to destroy his army's water supplies before the battle, in an attempt to harden his men's resolve.
In addition, the surviving Persians are refused entry into Dara since, according to Simocatta, Persian custom forbade entrance to fugitives.
Simocatta also narrates that many Persians died of thirst or from water poisoning when they drank too much water from wells after their ordeal.
Nevertheless, while Philippicus proceeds to attack the fortress of Chlomaron, Kardarigan manages to assemble an improvised force, mostly composed of peasant levies.
He then marches to Chlomaron and unites his army with its defenders, forcing the imperial general to raise the siege.
Kardarigan thus escapes, although his men suffer further casualties in the process, up to a thousand according to Simocatta, from imperial patrols.
Maurice, seeing an opportunity to end the prolonged war to the advantage of Constantinople, assists Khosrau II to regain the Persian throne.
He sends an imperial army of thirty-five thousand men under Narses into Mesopotamia through Syria.
At the same time a five thousand-man expeditionary force in Armenia advanced through Caucasian Iberia into Media (modern Azerbaijan).
Bahram retreats to Azerbaijan but is finally defeated at the Battle of Blarathon by a combined army led by John Mystacon, Narses, and Khosrau II.
Bahram, fleeing to the Turks in Central Asia, settles in Ferghana, but will be murdered some time after by a hired assassin sent by Khosrau II.