Bithynia in 218 B.C.

Bithynia — Spring 218 BC · The Proud Kingdom of the Strait.

The Kingdom of Bithynia, in the well-watered north-west corner of Anatolia, along the southern shore of the Propontis and the Asian side of the Bosphorus. The Bithynians are a people of Thracian stock who crossed into Asia in early times and who — proudly — never bowed to the Persians nor to Alexander. Their kings forged an independent realm: Zipoetes, who took the royal title, and Nicomedes I, who founded the capital Nicomedia and first invited the Gauls across into Asia. In 218 BC the king is Prusias I — able, aggressive and ambitious, married to Apama the sister of Philip V — hostile to Byzantium and its toll-gates on the strait, and the dread of the Galatian Gauls.

Bithynia is a kingdom that owes nothing to the great empires. Where the Persian and the Macedonian once swept all Anatolia before them, the Thracian Bithynians in their forests and lake-country were never subdued, and their kings rule as free men. In 218 BC that throne is held by Prusias I — son-in-law of no one less than Macedon, for he has married Apama, sister of Philip V, and he matches his royal house against the rich Greek cities of the strait. Two years ago, in the war over Byzantium’s tolls on the Pontus trade, he threw in with the Rhodians against Byzantium, seized the sanctuary of Hieron at the Bosphorus mouth and a strip of Byzantine ground in Asia, and forced the city to terms. He is no less hard upon the Gauls his forefathers brought over: the leaderless bands plundering the Hellespont cities he has met in the field and cut to pieces. A kingdom on the rise, holding the Asian door to the Bosphorus.