Editing Trabzon (section)

===Byzantine period===
{{Main|Chaldia}}
{{multiple image
| direction         = vertical
| align             = right
| width1            = 220
| width2            = 220
| image1            = Hagia Anna Trabzon.JPG
| caption1          = [[Saint Anne Church, Trabzon|Saint Anne Church]], to the east of the walled city, is the oldest church in the city, possibly dating back to the 6th or 7th century.
| image2            = Trabzon,Ortahisar1.jpg
| caption2          = The 10th-century cathedral Panaghia Chrysokephalos (now [[Fatih Mosque, Trabzon|Fatih Mosque]]), the most impressive Byzantine building in the city
}}

By the time of [[Justinian]], the city served as an important base in his Persian Wars, and Miller notes that a portrait of the general [[Belisarius]] "long adorned the church of St. Basil."<ref name=Miller-11>Miller, ''Trebizond'', p. 11</ref> An inscription above the eastern gate of the city, commemorated the reconstruction of the civic walls at Justinian's expense following an earthquake.<ref name=Miller-11/> At some point before the 7th century the university (Pandidakterion) of the city was reestablished with a [[quadrivium]] curriculum. The university drew students not just from the [[Byzantine Empire]], but from Armenia as well.<ref>Calzolari, V. "The Armenian translation of the Greek Neoplatonic Works" in ''Greek Texts and Armenian Traditions: An Interdisciplinary Approach'', 2016, p. 51</ref><ref> History of Trebizond, Virtual Genocide Memorial [https://virtual-genocide-memorial.de/region/the-black-sea-marmara-and-aegean-littorals-eastern-thrace-and-central-anatolia/trabzon-trapezounta-trebizond-vilayet-province/] </ref>

The city regained importance when it became the seat of the theme of [[Chaldia]]. Trebizond also benefited when the trade route regained importance in the 8th to 10th centuries; 10th-century Muslim authors note that Trebizond was frequented by Muslim merchants, as the main source transshipping [[Byzantine silk]]s into eastern Muslim countries.<ref>R.B. Serjeant, ''Islamic Textiles: material for a history up to the Mongol conquest'', 1972, pp 63, 213, noted by David Jacoby, "Silk Economics and Cross-Cultural Artistic Interaction: Byzantium, the Muslim World, and the Christian West", ''Dumbarton Oaks Papers'' '''58''' (2004:197–240)  p. 219 note 112.</ref> According to the 10th century [[Arabs|Arab]] geographer [[Abu'l-Fida|Abul Feda]] it was regarded as being largely a [[Lazica|Lazian]] port. The Italian maritime republics such as the [[Republic of Venice]] and in particular the [[Republic of Genoa]] were active in the Black Sea trade for centuries, using Trebizond as an important seaport for trading goods between Europe and Asia.<ref name="latorio">{{cite book|author=William Miller |title=The Latin Orient |year=2009 |pages=51–54 |publisher=Bibliobazaar LLC|isbn=978-1-110-86390-7}}</ref> Some of the [[Silk Road]] caravans carrying goods from Asia stopped at the port of Trebizond, where the European merchants purchased these goods and carried them to the port cities of Europe with ships. This trade provided a source of revenue to the state in the form of custom duties, or ''kommerkiaroi'', levied on the goods sold in Trebizond.<ref>Speros Vryonis, ''The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century'' (Berkeley: University of California, 1971), p. 16</ref> The Greeks protected the coastal and inland trade routes with a vast network of garrison forts.<ref>Robert W. Edwards, "The Garrison Forts of the Pontos: A Case for the Diffusion of the Armenian Paradigm", ''Revue des Études Arméniennes'' 19, 1985, pp.181–284.</ref>

Following the [[Byzantine]] defeat at the [[Battle of Manzikert]] in 1071, Trebizond came under [[Seljuk Turks|Seljuk]] rule. This rule proved transient when an expert soldier and local aristocrat, [[Theodore Gabras]] took control of the city from the Turkish invaders, and regarded Trebizond, in the words of [[Anna Comnena]], "as a prize which had fallen to his own lot" and ruled it as his own kingdom.<ref>Miller, ''Trebizond'', p. 12</ref> Supporting Comnena's assertion, [[Simon Bendall]] has identified a group of rare coins he believes was minted by Gabras and his successors.<ref>Bendall, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/42666585  "The Mint of Trebizond under Alexius I and the Gabrades"], ''Numismatic Chronicle'', Seventh Series, '''17''' (1977), pp. 126–136</ref> Although he was killed by the Turks in 1098, other members of his family continued his de facto independent rule into the next century.