Trapezus (Greek: Τραπεζοῦς) or Trebizond was a Greek city on the southern shore of the Black Sea, modern Trabzon. According to the Christian author Eusebius, writing more than a millennium after the event, Trapezus was founded in 756 BCE, in the country that was called Colchis. Its first settlers were from Sinope (Xenophon, Anabasis, 4.8), a Greek city on the southern shore of the Black Sea, about 400 kilometers to the west. Because this city was a daughter of Miletus, which in turn was believed to be a colony of Athens, the Trapezian scholar Cardinal Bessarion would still boast to be an Athenian in Renaissance times.
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Timeline
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756 BCEFounding of Trapezus.
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630 BCECimmerians destroy Trapezus.
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400 BCERemains of Cyrus the Younger's Persian army arrive in Trapezus.
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c. 75 BCETrapezus is part of the Pontic Kingdom of Mithradates VI.
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c. 50 CERome recognizes Trapezus as free city.
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257 CEVisigoths attack Trapezus.
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258 CESasanian Persians attack Trapezus.
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824 CETrapezus becomes capital of the military distric of Chaldia.