Bolu

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Bolu (Greek Bithynion, Latin Bithynium or Claudiopolis) is a town in Turkey, and administrative center of the Bolu Province. The town is located at 40°44′N 31°36′E, at the highway from Istanbul to Ankara, which presently has to climb Bolu Mountain, until 2006 when the Bolu Tunnel is planned to be opened. The town has 84,565 inhabitants (census 2000). Abant Izzet Baysal University is located in Bolu.

1 History
2 Catholic bishopric
3 Culture
4 Sources and external links

[edit] History

2000 b.c.: Becomes part of the Hittite kingdoms.
500 BC: Becomes one of the leading city of the Kingdom of Bithynia.

Strabo (XII, 4, 7) mentions a hellenistic town, Bithynium (Claudiopolis), celebrated for its pastures and cheese. According to Pausanias (VIII, 9) it was founded by Arcadians from Mantinea. As is shown by its coins, it was commonly called Claudiopolis after Emperor Claudius. It was the birthplace of Antinous, the posthumoyusly deified favourite of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who was very generous to the city; afterwards his name was added to that of Claudius on the coins of the city. Emperor Theodosius II (408-50) made it the capital of a new province, formed at the expense of Bithynia and Paphlagonia, and called by him Honorias in honour of the Emperor Honorius.

Since the 1325 conquered by the Ottomans, it becomes part of the emerging empire under the present Turkish name (sometimes called Bolou or Boli) and the chief town of a sanjak in the vilayet (province) of Castamouni, with 10,000 inhabitants (700 Greeks, 400 Armenians, few Catholics).

[edit] Catholic bishopric

As Claudiopolis it remains a titular see of Bithynia, in Asia Minor. It was the religious metropolis of the province (so in all "Notitiae episcopatuum"). Lequien (I, 567) mentions twenty titulars of the see to the thirteenth century; the first is St. Autonomus, said to have suffered martyrdom under Diocletian; we may add Ignatius, a friend and correspondent of Photius. The town is on the Filias Sou (River Billaeus).