The colonists soon subjugated the native Mariandynians[2] but agreed to terms that none of the latter, now helot-like serfs, be sold into slavery outside their homeland.

Prospering from the rich, fertile adjacent lands and the sea-fisheries of its natural harbor, Heraclea soon extended its control along the coast as far east as Cytorus (Gideros, near Cide), eventually establishing Black Sea colonies of its own (Cytorus, Callatis and Chersonesus).

The prosperity of the city, rudely shaken by the Galatians and the Bithynians, was utterly destroyed in the Mithridatic Wars.

1st century AD) wrote a local history of Heraclea Pontica in at least sixteen books.

The work has perished, but Photius's Bibliotheca preserves a compressed account of books 9–16, seemingly the only ones extant in his day.