Silver pendant with ancient Amisos coin, Mithradates VI

Mithradates VI Eupator, ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus from 120 - 63 BC and one of Rome's most formidable and determined opponents.He was an effective, ambitious and ruthless ruler who sought to dominate Asia Minor and the Black Sea region, waging several wars (the Mithridatic Wars) in an attempt to break Roman dominion over Asia and the Hellenic world. He has been called the greatest ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus. He cultivated an immunity to poisons by regularly ingesting sub-lethal doses; this practice, now called mithridatism, is named after him. After his death, he became known as Mithridates the Great.

Amisos, otherwise known as Samsunta by the Greeks, is today's Samsun, a city situated on the shoreline of the historic region of Pontus, in today's Turkey.

The city was colonised in the 8th century BC and because of its strategic location it played an important political and economical role during the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine period.

Amisos was a rich commercial center under the kings of Pontus, a royal residence and fortress of Mithridates, and is sometimes considered as the home of the fabled Amazons.

People from Miletus settled there around 760-750 BC and established a flourishing trade relationship with the ancient peoples of Anatolia. Amisos came under the rule of the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great's Macedonian Empire, and then the Kingdom of Pontus. The Romans took control in 47 BC and Amisos remained within the Byzantine Empire after the fall of Rome. In 1200 AD the city was captured by the Seljuks, to be later taken over by the Ilhanlilar.