Cius (; Kios) was an Ancient Greek city bordering the Propontis (now known as the Sea of Marmara), in ancient Bithynia and in ancient Mysia (in modern northwestern Turkey). The city was later renamed to Prusias after King Prusias I of Bithynia, who once restored the city.
Etymology
According to the Greek Geographer
Strabo in his book
Geographica, the eponym of the city is, according to a
Origin myth, a companion of
Heracles who is also the founder of the city.
Greek author Apollonius of Rhodes provided another origin, in
Argonautica, that the city of Cius was named after a nearby river and was founded by the
Argonauts Polyphemus.
History
During the
Ionian Revolt (499–493 BC), Cius was captured by the Persians under their general Hymaees on their counter-offensive against the Ionians that had marched on the capital of the Persian Satrapy of Lydia,
Sardis, during the Ionian rebellion.
Sometime during the Cretan War (205–200 BC), King Philip V of Macedon put Cius, that was then a member of the
Aetolian League, under siege. He then razed the city down and ceded it to King Prusias I of Bithynia, who assisted him in capturing Cius. Prusias later restored it under the name
Prusias.
According to numismatist Katja I. L. Sommer, during the Roman rule, Cius issued a revert back from the name Prusias around the reign of Roman emperor Claudius () at the latest, possibly in order to gain autonomy, and was later renamed back to Prusias during the Flavian dynasty. It was a member of the Delian League.[ Athenian Tribute Lists] It was an important chain in the ancient Silk Road and became known as a wealthy town.
Geography
Cius was strategically placed at the head of a gulf in the Propontis, called the Gulf of Cius, or
Cianus Sinus. Historians Herodotus and Xenophon both reverred to it as
Cius in Mysia.
Naturalist Pliny the Elder reports that Cius was a
Miletus colony.
It was at the foot of Mount Arganthonius, which Strabo claimed as the place where
Hylas was kidnapped by the
Nymph in a myth.
Pliny mentioned the rivers Hylas and Cius here, one of which reminds us of the name of the youth who was stolen by the nymphs, and the other of the mythical founder.
The Cius may be the channel by which the lake Ascania (currently known as Lake Iznik) discharges its waters into the gulf of Cius; though Pliny speaks of the Ascanium flumen as flowing into the gulf, and we must assume that he gives this name to the channel which connects the lake and the sea. If the river Cius is not identical with this channel, it must be a small stream near Cius. As Ptolemy speaks of the outlets of the Ascanius,
Coins
There are coins of Cius, with the legend Κιανων, belonging to the Roman imperial period; and there are coins of Prusias with the epigraph, "Προυσιεων των προς θαλασσαν".
Ecclesiastical History
Cius became an early Christian
bishopric. Its bishop, Cyrillus, took part in the First Council of Nicaea in 325, and Theosebius attended the Council of Ephesus. The names of many of his successors in the first millennium are known from extant contemporary documents. At first a
suffragan of
Nicomedia, it soon became an autocephalous
archdiocese, being listed as such in
Notitiae Episcopatuum from the 7th century onward.
[Michel Lequien, Oriens christianus in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus, Paris 1740, Vol. I, coll. 631-636][Raymond Janin, v. Cius, in Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie ecclésiastiques, vol. XII, Paris 1953, coll. 1024-1026][Pius Bonifacius Gams, Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae, Leipzig 1931, p. 443] No longer a residential bishopric, Cius is today listed by the
Catholic Church as a
titular see.
[ Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ), p. 870]
Modern history
Following the population exchange in 1923, the
Greeks refugees from Cius established the town of
Nea Kios, in
Argolis,
Greece and the village of Paralia, in Pieria,
Greece. There are only few remnants of the ancient town and its harbour today. Somewhat more to the west, the town of
Gemlik is enstablished.
See also
-
List of ancient Greek cities
Books and Journals
Bibliography
External links
