Apollas of Pontus was a Hellenistic historian of the 3rd century BCE. The epithet "Ponticus" indicates an origin from the Pontus region on the Black Sea. He is known solely as the author of a single historical work, and no further biographical details survive.
His only known work is On the Thessalians, a regional history or ethnography of Thessaly. The work is not extant and survives only in fragments preserved by later authors, primarily the geographer Strabo and the Byzantine compiler Stephanus of Byzantium.
Apollas of Pontus is a minor, fragmentary historian later used as a source. Thessalian myths, historical figures, and place names survive in the preserved fragments. He is representative of the Hellenistic local historians who compiled regional histories, which were later mined by compilers for antiquarian and geographical detail, illustrating the transmission of local traditions in this period.
Available Works
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