Strabo, Geography

The whole of the country around is held by Pythodoris, to whom belong, not only Phanaroea, but also Zelitis and Megalopolitis. Concerning Phanaroea I have already spoken. As for Zelitis, it has a city Zela, fortified on a mound of Semiramis, with the temple of Anaïtis, who is also revered by the Armenians.¹ Now the sacred rites performed here are characterized by greater sanctity; and it is here that all the people of Pontus make their oaths concerning their matters of greatest importance. The large number of temple-servants and the honors of the priests were, in the time of the kings, of the same type as I have stated before, but at the present time everything is in the power of Pythodoris. Many persons had abused and reduced both the multitude of temple-servants and the rest of the resources of the temple. The adjacent territory, also, was reduced, having been divided into several domains—I mean Zelitis, as it is called (which has the city Zela on a mound); for in, early times the kings governed Zela, not as a city, but as a sacred precinct of the Persian gods, and the priest was the master of the whole thing. It was inhabited by the multitude of temple-servants, and by the priest, who had an abundance of resources; and the sacred territory as well as that of the priest was subject to him and his numerous attendants.² Pompey added many provinces to the boundaries of Zelitis, and named Zela, as he did Megalopolis, a city, and he united the latter and Culupene and Camisene into one state; the latter two border on both Lesser Armenia and Laviansene, and they contain rock-salt, and also an ancient fortress called Camisa, now in ruins. The later Roman prefects assigned a portion of these two governments to the priests of Comana, a portion to the priest of Zela, and a portion to Ateporix, a dynast of the family of tetrarchs of Galatia; but now that Ateporix has died, this portion, which is not large, is subject to the Romans, being called a province (and this little state is is a political organization of itself, the people having incorporated Carana into it, from which fact its country is called Caranitis), whereas the rest is held by Pythodoris and Dyteutus.