Zela
ZELA (τὰ Ζῆλα), a town in the interior of Pontus, on the left bank of the Iris, towards the Galatian frontier, was believed to have been erected on a mound constructed by Semiramis. (Strab.12. p. 561, comp. pp. 512, 559.) It seems to have originally been a place consecrated to the worship of the goddess Anaitis, to whom a temple was built there by the Persians in commemoration of a victory over the Sacae. The chief priest of this temple was regarded as the sovereign of Zela and its territory (Ζηλῆτις). Notwithstanding this, however, it remained a small place until Pompey, after his victory over Mithridates, raised it to the rank of a city by increasing its population and extending its walls. Zela is celebrated in history for a victory obtained in its vicinity by Mithridates over the Romans under Triarius, and still more for the defeat of Pharnaces, about which Caesar sent to Rome the famous report Veni, Vidi, Vici.( Plin. Nat. 6.3; Appian, Mithrid. 89; Plut. Caes. 50; Dio Cass., where the place is erroneously called Ζέλεια; Hirt. Bell. Alex. 73, where it is called Ziela; Ptol. 5.6.10; Hierocl. p. 701; Steph. B. s. v.) Zela was situated at a distance of four days' journey (according to the Peut. Table 80 miles) from Tavium, and south-east of Amasia. The elevated ground on which the town was situated, and which Strabo calls the mound of Semiramis, was, according to Hirtius, a natural hill, but so shaped that it might seem to be the work of human hands. According to Hamilton (Researches, 1. p. 306), is a black-coloured isolated hill rising out of the plain, and is now crowned with a Turkish fortress, which still bears the name of Zilleh.
[L.S](τὰ Ζῆλα) or Ziēla. Now Zilleh; a city in the south of Pontus, not far south of Amasia. The surrounding district was called Zeletis or Zelitis. At Zela the Roman general Valerius Triarius was defeated by Mithridates; but the city is more celebrated for another great battle, that in which Iulius Caesar defeated Pharnaces, and of which he wrote his famous despatch to Rome—Veni, vidi, vici (Plut. Caes. 50; Mithr. 89; Bell. Alex. 73).
Some 57 km S of Amasya (Amaseia) on the old route to Sebasteia, where this was crossed by one of the Roman roads from Tavion to Neocaesarea. Under the Mithridatids Zela was a temple settlement with its own territory tilled by the temple serfs and governed by the priest of Anaitis. The Hellenized Persian cult of Anaitis, Omanos, and Anadatos was apparently established during the Persian occupation. Zela was a less important sanctuary than Comana Pontica, 67 km to the E, but it had special sanctity for making oaths. The precinct of Anaitis was defended by a wall. In Pompey's settlement of Pontus (64 B.C.) Zela, unlike Comana, received a civic constitution and a sizable territory. It was near here that Julius Caesar defeated Pharnakes II of Pontus (47 B.C.) and reported “Veni, vidi, vici.” Under Antony, Zela lost the E part of its territory to Comana and temporarily reverted to its previous status as a temple domain. A generation later it was in the hands of Pythodoris of Pontus, and it remained in the Pontic kingdom until its annexation by Rome in A.D. 64-65.
The site is a low hill rising from the fertile plain of Zile Ovasi, ca. 18 km from the Yeşil Irmak (Iris fl.). Byzantine and Turkish fortifications have replaced the temple precinct of Anaitis on the summit. On the NE flank a small theater was partly carved in the living rock, partly built up in masonry or timber. Nearby is a single rock-cut tomb.
BIBLIOGRAPHYF. & E. Cumont, Studia Pontica II (1906) 188-94; J.G.C. Anderson et al., Studia Pontica III.1 (1910) 233-42.
D. R. WILSON