Kingdom of Bithynia

The Kingdom of Bithynia was a Hellenistic kingdom centred on Bithynia in north-west Anatolia, on the shores of the Propontis and the Black Sea. Its people are thought to have been of Thracian origin, and the native prince Bas is said by Memnon of Heraclea to have defeated Alexander the Great's general Calas in battle around 330 BC. In the wars of the Diadochi his son Zipoites I assumed the Greek title of basileus, king, in 297 BC, and his successor Nicomedes I founded Nicomedia on the site of Astacus, which soon grew rich. Under the long reigns of Prusias I, Prusias II and Nicomedes II, Bithynia prospered and had real weight among the small monarchies of Anatolia, minting coins whose royal portraits were engraved in accomplished Hellenistic style. Prusias I brought the kingdom into its first dealings with Rome, and Bithynia stayed neutral in the war of Rome and Antiochus the Great between 192 and 188 BC. The last king, Nicomedes IV, could not hold his own against Mithridates VI of Pontus; the Senate restored him to the throne, and by his will he offered the kingdom to the Roman republic in 74 BC, when it became the province of Bithynia and Pontus.