Tium () was an ancient settlement, also known as Filyos (), on the south coast of the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

at the mouth of the river BillaeusAncient coinage of Bithynia
/ref> in present-day

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. Ancient writers variously assigned it to ancient Paphlagonia or

Bithynia Bithynia (; ) was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), adjoining the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, and the Black Sea. It bordered Mysia to the southwest, Paphlagonia to the northeast a ...

. Apart from ''Tium'', Latinized forms of the name are ''Teium'', ''Tieium'' and ''Tius'', corresponding to the Greek names Τεῖον (Teion), Τιεῖον (Tieion), Τῖον (Tion) and Τῖος (Tios).William Anderson, "Late Byzantine occupation of the castle at Tios" in ''Anatolia Antiqua'' XVII (2009), pp. 265-277
/ref>

History

The town was founded as a colony from the Greek city of

Miletus Miletus (Ancient Greek: Μίλητος, Mílētos) was an influential ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia, near the mouth of the Maeander River in present day Turkey. Renowned in antiquity for its wealth, maritime power, and ex ...

in the 7th century BCE. According to

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...

, the town was only remarkable as the birthplace of

Philetaerus Philetaerus (; , ''Philétairos'', c. 343 –263 BC) was the founder of the Attalid dynasty of Pergamon in Anatolia. Early life and career under Lysimachus Philetaerus was born in Tieium (Greek: ''Tieion''), a small town on the Black Sea co ...

, founder of the royal dynasty of

Pergamon Pergamon or Pergamum ( or ; ), also referred to by its modern Greek form Pergamos (), was a rich and powerful ancient Greece, ancient Greek city in Aeolis. It is located from the modern coastline of the Aegean Sea on a promontory on the north s ...

. At the beginning of the 3rd century BCE,

Amastrine Amastris (; c. 340/39–284 BC) also called Amastrine, was a Persian princess, and Tyrant-ruler of the city of Heraclea from circa 300 to her death. She was the daughter of Oxyathres, the brother of the Persian King Darius III. Arrian, '' Ana ...

(Amastris), the niece of the last Persian king

Darius III Darius III ( ; ; – 330 BC) was the thirteenth and last Achaemenid King of Kings of Persia, reigning from 336 BC to his death in 330 BC. Contrary to his predecessor Artaxerxes IV Arses, Darius was a distant member of the Achaemenid dynasty. ...

, who was the wife of

Dionysius The name Dionysius (; ''Dionysios'', "of Dionysus"; ) was common in classical and post-classical times. Etymologically it is a nominalized adjective formed with a -ios suffix from the stem Dionys- of the name of the Greek god, Dionysus, parallel ...

, tyrant of Heracleia, and after his death the wife of

Lysimachus Lysimachus (; Greek language, Greek: Λυσίμαχος, ''Lysimachos''; c. 360 BC – 281 BC) was a Thessaly, Thessalian officer and Diadochi, successor of Alexander the Great, who in 306 BC, became king of Thrace, Anatolia, Asia Minor and Mace ...

caused a

synoecism Synoecism or synecism ( ; , ''sunoikismos'', ), also spelled synoikism ( ), was originally the amalgamation of villages in Ancient Greece into ''poleis'', or city-states. Etymologically, the word means "dwelling together (''syn'') in the same h ...

of Sesamus, Cytorus, Cromna, all towns mentioned in the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...

'', and Tium after her separation from Lysimachus, to form the new community of Amastris. Tium, says Strabo, soon detached itself from the community, but the rest kept together, probably in 282 BCE, recovered its autonomous status. Tium was part of

Kingdom of Bithynia The Kingdom of Bithynia () was a Hellenistic kingdom centred in the historical region of Bithynia, which seems to have been established in the fourth century BC. In the midst of the Wars of the Diadochi, Zipoites assumed the title of king (''ba ...

, which on the death of King Nicomedes IV in 74 BC became a

Roman province The Roman provinces (, pl. ) were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman appointed as Roman g ...

. Emperor

Theodosius I Theodosius I ( ; 11 January 347 – 17 January 395), also known as Theodosius the Great, was Roman emperor from 379 to 395. He won two civil wars and was instrumental in establishing the Nicene Creed as the orthodox doctrine for Nicene C ...

(379–392) incorporated it into Honorias, when he carved out this new province from portions of Bithynia and

Paphlagonia Paphlagonia (; , modern translit. ''Paflagonía''; ) was an ancient region on the Black Sea coast of north-central Anatolia, situated between Bithynia to the west and Pontus (region), Pontus to the east, and separated from Phrygia (later, Galatia ...

and named it after his younger son

Honorius Honorius (; 9 September 384 – 15 August 423) was Roman emperor from 393 to 423. He was the younger son of emperor Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla. After the death of Theodosius in 395, Honorius, under the regency of Stilicho ...

. In 535, the Emperor

Justinian Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...

united Honorias with Paphlagonia in a decree that expressly mentioned Tium among the cities that were affected. There are coins of Tium as late as the reign of

Gallienus Publius Licinius Egnatius Gallienus (; – September 268) was Roman emperor with his father Valerian from 253 to 260 and alone from 260 to 268. He ruled during the Crisis of the Third Century that nearly caused the collapse of the empire. He ...

, on which the ethnic name appears as Τιανοί, Τεῖοι, and Τειανοί. Its site is located near Filyos (formerly Hisarönü), Asiatic Turkey.

Bishopric

Tium was a bishopric from at least the 4th century, a

suffragan A suffragan bishop is a type of bishop in some Christian denominations. In the Catholic Church, a suffragan bishop leads a diocese within an ecclesiastical province other than the principal diocese, the metropolitan archdiocese; the diocese led ...

of Claudiopolis, capital and

metropolitan see Metropolitan may refer to: Areas and governance (secular and ecclesiastical) * Metropolitan archdiocese, the jurisdiction of a metropolitan archbishop ** Metropolitan bishop or archbishop, leader of an ecclesiastical "mother see" * Metropolitan ...

of Honorias.

Le Quien Michel Le Quien (8 October 1661, Boulogne-sur-Mer – 12 March 1733, Paris) was a French historian and theologian. Biography Le Quien studied at , Paris, and at twenty entered the Dominican convent in Faubourg Saint-Germain, where he made ...

(''Oriens christianus'', I, 575) mentions among its bishops:Michel Lequien
''Oriens christianus in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus''
Paris 1740, Tomus I, coll. 575-576] *Apragmonius at the

First Council of Ephesus The Council of Ephesus was a council of Christian bishops convened in Ephesus (near present-day Selçuk in Turkey) in AD 431 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius II. This third ecumenical council, an effort to attain consensus in the church th ...

in 431; *Andrew in 518; *Eugenius in 536; *Longinus at the

Sixth General Council The Third Council of Constantinople, counted as the Sixth Ecumenical Council by the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches, and by certain other Western Churches, met in 680–681 and condemned monoenergism and monothelitism as heretical a ...

in 681; *Michael at the Seventh General Council in 787; *Constantine, at the Eighth General Council in 869, and author of an account of the transfer of the relics of St. Euphemia of Chalcedon (''

Acta Sanctorum ''Acta Sanctorum'' (''Acts of the Saints'') is an encyclopedic text in 68 folio volumes of documents examining the lives of Christian saints, in essence a critical hagiography, organised by the saints' feast days. The project was conceived and ...

'', September, V, 274-83). This see figures in all the ''

Notitiae episcopatuum The ''Notitiae Episcopatuum'' (singular: ''Notitia Episcopatuum'') were official documents that furnished for Eastern countries the list and hierarchical rank of the metropolitan and suffragan bishoprics of a church. In the Roman Church (the mos ...

''.

References

{{coords, 41.561257, N, 32.023112, E, display=title, format=dms, source:http://dare.ht.lu.se/places/21424 Catholic titular sees in Asia Greek colonies in Bithynia Milesian colonies Populated places in Bithynia Populated places in ancient Paphlagonia Former populated places in Turkey History of Zonguldak Province Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Turkey