Bithynia was an ancient country in Asia Minor. It lay on the southern shore of the Black Sea. Its people originally came from Thrace, in what is now eastern Europe. The Greeks established colonies at Chalcedon and Heraclea. The Persians conquered Bithynia in the 600’s B.C. Bithynia was an independent kingdom from the time of Alexander the Great, in the 300’s B.C., until Rome annexed it in 74 B.C. It was governed by Pliny the Younger in the early A.D. 100’s. Pliny’s letter to Emperor Trajan about how the Christians were to be treated shows the strength of Christianity in Bithynia. The Bithynian city of Nicomedia became the eastern capital of the Roman Empire under Emperor Diocletian in the mid-280’s.
