Kingdom of Pontus

The Kingdom of Pontus was a Hellenistic state centered on the historical region of Pontus along the southern coast of the Black Sea in northern Anatolia, ruled by the Mithridatic dynasty of Persian origin. Mithridates I proclaimed the kingdom in 281 BC, and it reached its greatest extent under Mithridates VI, who conquered Colchis, Cappadocia, Bithynia and Greek colonies of the Tauric Chersonesos and briefly seized the Roman province of Asia. Greek became the kingdom's official language by the third century BC even as Persian and Anatolian cultural strands endured, and after prolonged war with Rome the kingdom fell in 63 BC, though its eastern remnant survived as a Roman client state until Emperor Nero formally annexed it in 62 AD.