[SMARTY]

Right. The people from there call it ‘Pontu’ and emphasize the ‘u’ in pronunciation. It's where all my grandparents are from...the ‘old country’. Of course, when the Romans took it over, they Latinized the pronunciation to, ‘Pontus’.

I have read that, when Alexander the Great got there (about 300 BC), he met Greek-speaking people. So, I know they were there at least that long.

In the end, the Turks took over. Kemal Pasha (Ataturk) threw out all the Greeks and Armenians after WWI.

[Verginius Rufus]

Xenophon's Anabasis describes the journey of the 10,000 Greek mercenaries originally hired by Cyrus the Younger along the coast of the Black Sea. There were some Greek cities there along with various barbarian peoples. Very interesting reading. This was in 400 B.C., before Alexander the Great.