(AMASEA.)

A titular see and metropolis of Pontus in Asia Minor on the river Iris, now Amasiah. Its episcopal list dates from the third century ( Gams I, 442). It was the birthplace of the geographer Strabo, who has left us a striking description of his native city, in a deep and extensive gorge over which rose abruptly a lofty rock, "steep on all sides and descending abruptly to the river". It was famous in antiquity for its rock-cisterns, reached by galleries, of which some traces remain; also for the tombs of the ancient kings of Pontus hewn in the solid rock.

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