Paphlagonia was an ancient region on the Black Sea coast of north-central Anatolia, situated between Bithynia to the west and Pontus to the east. Paphlagonia was named for Paphlagon, a son of Phineus, and the region was inhabited by the Kaskians during the Bronze Age. The Paphlagonians, led by King Pylaemenes, allied themselves to Troy during the Trojan War of 1193-1183 BC, during which the Paphlagonians controlled the towns of Astacos and Cytoros. The Enetoi Paphlagonians were expelled from their homeland during a revolution and joined forces with the Trojan prince Antenor in settling in the northern Adriatic in a region which would come to be known as Venetia. The Paphlagonians were later conquered by King Croesus of Lydia, and, as subject peoples of Achaemenid Persia, the Paphlagonians contributed soldiers to Xerxes I during the Greco-Persian Wars. Paphlagonia later passed under Hellenistic control before being conquered by Pontus and thereafter by the Romans. Paphlagonia was a theme of the Byzantine Empire from 820 to the Battle of Manzikert in 171 and again from the campaigns of John II in the 1130s until the fall of Paphlagonia to the Ottoman Turks in 1380.
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