The Mithridatic dynasty that ruled the Kingdom of Pontus did not rest its power on armies and treasure alone; it also built a religious order that placed the king in the same line of descent as the gods. Within that order stand side by side the official sacrifice offered to Zeus, enormous fires lit on mountaintops, coins stamped with the ivy-crowned head of a young god, and a hero shrine opened for the king on the island of Delos. The dynasty was of Persian origin, the coastal cities of the kingdom spoke Greek, and the villagers of the interior worshipped the old gods of Anatolia. The image of the sacred king was so intricate because it had to address these three worlds at once. What follows should be read in the light of modern research that approaches Pontic religion through coins, inscriptions and the lines of ancient authors, above all the assessments of Sergej Saprykin.

A Kingdom of Three Layers

Pontus was a Hellenistic kingdom on the southern shore of the Black Sea and in the northern interior of Anatolia. The dynasty claimed descent from the Persian Achaemenids, and in the early period of the kingdom the tradition of Persian satrapal rule was still alive. While the Greek cities on the coast looked to the sea trade, the broad interior behind the Pontic Alps was held by an Iranian-descended nobility, by great temple estates and by the Anatolian peasantry. In the third century BC Greek became the official language of the kingdom. When the dynasty moved its capital from Amaseia to Sinope, this process of Hellenization gathered speed.

The religious expression of this mixture is best seen not as a single system of belief but as three layers laid one upon another. The first consisted of Greek gods and heroes: Zeus, Apollo, Perseus, Heracles, Ares, Dionysos. The second was Phrygian and Anatolian, headed by Attis and the moon god Mên. The third was inherited from Iran: Ahura Mazda, Mithra, Omanes, Anadates. According to Saprykin, the Iranian layer was the one given the least prominence. Although the dynasty was half Persian by origin, it shrank from declaring itself descended from Mithra or Ahura Mazda. The name Mithridates means "given by Mithra", yet almost no trace of a Mithra cult has been found in Pontus, and this is a striking proof of that reluctance. The kings set themselves level with Greek and Phrygian gods and heroes, and Perseus served as a point of compromise between Greek belief and the Iranian core of the dynasty.

Zeus: Protector of the Dynasty

The backbone of the royal cult was Zeus. On the evidence of coinage, as Saprykin reads it, Zeus was already the official god of the dynasty under Mithridates III. On the coins that king struck Zeus Etaphoros sits enthroned, holding a sceptre and an eagle as symbols of spiritual and universal power. On the tetradrachms of Mithridates IV and his sister and wife Laodike, Zeus and Hera stand side by side as figures leaning on their sceptres. After her husband's death, when Laodike ruled alone for a time until Mithridates V came to power, only Hera remains on her coins. This pair was worshipped in Pontus from the third century BC and in the second century rose to particular prominence as the guardians of the dynasty.

To some degree this guardianship amounted to the deification of the ruler. The clearest example is a single stater issued in the name of Mithridates IV, which shows the king's portrait in a laurel wreath beside a standing Hera with sceptre, star and crescent. G. Kleiner interprets this coin as a commemorative issue struck by Laodike after the king's death. If that reading is right, Hera and with her Zeus were seen not merely as gods but as protectors of the members of the dynasty. The same line continued under Mithridates VI Eupator. The majority of the quasi-autonomous bronze coins struck in the cities of the kingdom bear Zeus and his attributes, a choice that is of course the product of a suggestion from the court.

The variety of Zeus in Anatolia had also prepared the ground for this official cult. In Paphlagonia and Pontus the god was known under epithets derived from place names such as Karzenos, Kimistenos and Bonitenos, as the guardian of villages and small communities. At Abonouteichos he was worshipped as Zeus Poarinos, patron of meadows and vegetation; in the region of Çorum as Zeus Epikarpios, giver of fertility; and at Zela he appears, again as Epikarpios, as the protector of the city. In the district of Amaseia offerings were made to Zeus Bobeomenos, who granted recovery and survival. The peasant who prayed for the protection of his field and flock and the commander defending his fortress turned to the same god under different epithets. The official cult drew on this widespread reverence, yet, as Saprykin stresses, these peasant devotions were mostly private in character, while the official dynastic cult was gathered around the warlike Zeus Stratios.

Zeus Stratios and the Fire on the Mountaintop

Stratios is an epithet meaning "leader of armies". The sacrifice that the king offered with his own hands to Zeus under this title was the most visible ceremony of the Pontic royal cult. Appian describes the rite of Mithridates Eupator in detail. On a high hill, according to the custom of the country, the kings themselves first carry wood and make a great pile. Around it a smaller pile is laid. On the higher pile they pour milk, honey, wine, olive oil and various kinds of incense; on the lower they spread a banquet of bread and meat for those present. Then the wood is set alight. The flame is so high that it can be seen from a thousand stades away at sea, and because of the heat nobody can approach for several days. According to Appian, Mithridates performed this sacrifice during his war with Rome, according to the custom of his country. In 73 BC, before marching into Paphlagonia, he made a similar offering and at the same time had a pair of white horses thrown into the sea for Poseidon.

This description agrees with what is known of the practice of the Persian kings; Appian himself compares the rite to the royal sacrifices at Pasargadae. That the kings carried the sacrificial wood with their own hands and that fire held the central place in the ceremony are regarded as Iranian traces. Saprykin, however, draws attention to the fact that the kings offered the sacrifice not to Ahura Mazda but, in keeping with the Greek tradition, to Zeus under the title Stratios. The use of fire in sacrifice was also widespread in Greek cults, so the resemblance may be a coincidence, or it may be the result of a wish to imitate the Achaemenid ancestors. The view that Zeus Stratios was identified with Ahura Mazda is an old one and goes back to Franz Cumont. Even so, Saprykin concludes that the content of the cult was predominantly Greek and that the Iranian element remained limited to the ritual.

The sanctuaries of Zeus Stratios confirm that sacrifices were made on mountaintops. On a hill above Yassıçal near Amaseia the remains of a perimeter wall, fragments of pottery and three inscriptions mentioning Zeus Stratios have been found. One of these reads "The king, as a votive offering, to Zeus Stratios"; another belongs to a priest for life who recorded a gift made from the income of the temple; the third was set up by the college of archons on behalf of the people of Amaseia. In a dedication from Çatalkaya (Phazemonitis), two men, the Persian Kyros and the Greek Philetairos, made an offering to Zeus Stratios together. A sanctuary of the same god has also been identified in the neighbourhood of Gökçebağ. Cumont regarded Zeus Stratios as the protector of Amaseia, the first capital of Pontus. Devotion to the god long outlasted the kings: an altar at Çalıca dates to AD 239/240, and in Athens there is a dedication to Zeus Stratios by a group of citizens of Amaseia. The Imperial-period coins of Amaseia show a burning pyre, an eagle standing on the fire, a tree, a quadriga and a bull lying in the flames. Saprykin interprets these as the sacrifice offered to the god reflected on the coinage. Coins of Kabeira also show him within his temple.

A warrior god of a similar kind appears on a relief from Zougo, in the countryside of Amaseia. The figure carries a thunderbolt and a round shield, and although it was once taken as the forerunner of a local androgynous idol, Saprykin reads it as Zeus Stratios or as Zeus-Attis identified with him. The inscription on the relief records an offering of fourteen chalkoi to Gaia and Agdistis, and Zobe, the donor, is argued to be a woman's name rather than that of a goddess. On the same view, Zeus was also known in Pontus under the epithet Omanes. The Iranian god Omanes, who was worshipped in Cappadocia together with Anaitis, shared, according to Strabo, an altar with Anadates in the temple of Anaitis at Zela, and in a votive inscription from Amaseia he appears as Zeus Omanes, as an epithet of Zeus. The Sakaia festival held for these gods at Zela was a military holiday at which participants dressed like Scythian warriors, and it was directed by Persian commanders. In short, Zela was a centre where the royal cult was bound up with the neighbouring religions, and it may be mentioned here only briefly.

Mên Pharnakou and the King's Fortune

The second important pillar of the Pontic royal religion was the moon god Mên Pharnakou, who entered the dynastic cult with Pharnakes I. The god had a temple at Ameria, near Kabeira. Strabo links the traditional oath of the Pontic kings to this temple: the oath was sworn "by the king's Tyche and by Mên Pharnakou". The formula recognizes the ruler's fortune, that is, his personal luck and protective power, as a separate sacred being, so that the king appears to stand within a sort of belt of divine protection.

Saprykin notes that the name Pharnakes is connected with the Persian word farrukh ("happy, fortunate") and understands the divine name as "Mên who possesses fortune". The symbols that accompany Mên on coins show his kinship with Zeus, Dionysos and Attis. The thunderbolt belongs to Zeus, the bunch of grapes to Dionysos, the pine cone to Attis, the son of the Phrygian goddess Cybele. The cornucopia calls to mind abundance, the mounted figure his likeness to Mithra, and the double axe his link with Perseus. The cock was also sacred to Mên and was likewise a sacrificial bird in the Persian cult of Mithra. This broad assimilation allowed royal propaganda to present Mithridates as both Mên Pharnakou and Dionysos. On coins struck in the first quarter of the first century BC at the Bosporan cities of Pantikapaion, Phanagoreia and Gorgippia, Mithridates Eupator appears as Mên Pharnakou in a Phrygian helmet with a diadem, beside the statue of a standing Dionysos holding a bunch of grapes and a thyrsos.

Perseus and Apollo

The hero Perseus came forward as the legendary ancestor of the dynasty and took a place in the royal cult from Mithridates IV at the latest. For the Greeks he was the hero who killed the Gorgon Medusa; he was also regarded as the forefather of the Persians, and for the dynasty this double meaning was a convenience beyond price. The cult drew its greatest attention under Mithridates Eupator. On the king's tetradrachms and the bronze coins of the cities appear the portrait and statue of Perseus, with his sacred attributes, the Pegasus, the sickle-sword and the aegis with the Gorgon's head, accompanied by Athena.

Under Mithridates V Euergetes the kingdom had turned toward the Greek cities and tried to present the king as a protector of Hellenism on the northern Black Sea. Within this policy Perseus was linked with Apollo, who was greatly loved in the Greek cities of the Black Sea. Tetradrachms dated 128 BC and 125/124 BC show a statue of a naked god holding a bow and a small figure of Nike; the leather cap on his head, the kyrbasia, is also found on the portrait of the young Mithridates Eupator on the anonymous bronze coins of Pontus. From this similarity Saprykin concludes that Apollo-Perseus was endowed with the features of the young king. Because Apollo was regarded in the Persian world as the equivalent of Mithra, the Greeks could easily identify this figure with Helios, the sun god. This in turn opened the way to presenting the ruler as a sun god who brought light against darkness and evil.

The New Form of Dionysos: Mithridates Eupator

All the dynasty's claims of divine descent converged in the declaration by Mithridates VI Eupator that he was the new Dionysos. Saprykin explains the choice as follows. The king could not proclaim himself Zeus, because Zeus was the highest of all the Olympian gods and the protector of every sphere of life, and such a claim might have bred distrust, especially among the local population. To be Mithra or Ahura Mazda was more dangerous still, since it would have aroused suspicion among the king's Greek subjects, who were being asked to follow a pro-Hellenic, anti-Roman policy. One suitable solution remained: the king would be presented as a living Dionysos, the son of Zeus, who could easily be associated on one side with Attis and Mên, on another with Mithra and Perseus, and on a third with Heracles, Apollo, Helios and Ares. Dionysos spoke to the Greeks as the son of Zeus, to the Anatolian population because he could be merged with Attis and Mên, and to communities of Iranian origin through his closeness to Iranian and Cappadocian gods.

The firmest evidence for dating is provided by coins and inscriptions. In the decree of Chersonesos honouring Diophantos, dated to 110-107, the king's epithet Dionysos does not yet appear. The inscription of the priest Helianax in the Mithridatic heroon on Delos is dated 102/101 BC and shows that the epithet was by then in use. The king's early tetradrachms carry no ivy wreath; since ivy-crowned coins reach back to 96 BC, Kleiner was led to take 102/101 BC as the date at which the epithet was officially adopted. From that moment the king began to style himself Mithridates Eupator Dionysos. Saprykin adds that the epithet may have been taken after 106 BC, when the expansion in Asia Minor began, as the first step in the later struggle with Rome.

The propaganda spread also to the king's own cities. On the coins of Sinope, Amisos, Komana, Laodikeia, Kabeira and Dia the head of the young Dionysos with an ivy wreath is seen together with the cista mystica, the thyrsos and the panther; F. de Callataÿ dates the series to 100-85 BC. At the same period the terracotta workshops of Amisos produced a great number of masks and figurines of Dionysos, Satyrs and Silenus, which spread as far as the northern Black Sea and Colchis. In the Bosporan cities, from 100 BC, Dionysos appears on coins beside traditional gods such as Apollo and Artemis, and on some coins the features of the king can be made out in the face of the young Dionysos. Temples of Dionysos were also opened in Pantikapaion and at Vani in Colchis.

After the victory at Pergamon in 88 BC, according to Cicero and Plutarch, the king was received as Dionysos. From that date, Saprykin notes, the king's statues, busts and coin portraits took on the idealized look of a new god. This image rested on that of the deified Alexander the Great, who bore the features of Dionysos, and on gods and immortal heroes such as Mên, Helios, Ares, Perseus and Heracles. What all of them shared was a link with Zeus Stratios. The idea that governed the deification was rebirth and protection. The king was being presented as a saviour, a Soter, invincible against the enemy, against death and against darkness.

Claims of ancestry point the same way. Mithridates asserted that he descended from Cyrus the Great and from Darius I, and he was also linked with Antigonus and Seleucus Nicator, generals of Alexander the Great. His giving his sons Persian royal names such as Cyrus, Xerxes, Darius and Artaphernes is the reflection of the same claim within the family. The same ruler appeared in the Greek world as the protector of Hellenism and in the East as the heir of the Persian and Anatolian tradition; keeping the balance between this Greek face and the Iranian-Anatolian one was the basic concern of the royal cult.

The Heroon on Delos and International Recognition

The image of the divine king was carried beyond the kingdom. On the sacred island of Delos in the Aegean there stood a heroon, a hero shrine, in the name of Mithridates Eupator; the inscription of the priest Helianax relates to this building. The dynasty's connection with Delos was older. Mithridates IV and Laodike had close ties with the island, friends of Mithridates among the Greeks made offerings to Apollo, Artemis and Leto, and Eupator also had a temple built on the island. This is why some coins of Amisos and Sinope show Apollo and a tripod. In some publications Delian dedications of 94/93 BC are also cited as an offering made by Athenians and Romans in the name of King Mithridates Eupator Dionysos; I have not been able to verify this detail from the primary text before me. Even so, that a Pontic king was honoured as a hero on Delos shows that he was accepted as a divine figure in one of the holiest centres of the Greek world.

Komana and the Warrior Goddesses

In choosing official cults for the Pontic kings the criterion was a god's connection with military affairs, with victory and with superiority over death. Among the official cults Saprykin lists, besides Zeus, Heracles, Perseus, Apollo, Mithra and Dionysos, Ma-Bellona at Komana, Athena Polias and Nikephoros, and Artemis. In the temple of Ma at Komana Pontica the goddess had a statue with a shield; the shield is seen on the coins of Komana and indicates that Ma-Enyo-Bellona was also worshipped in Pontus as Thea Nikephoros and Athena. Anaitis at Zela, a goddess of nature and love, nevertheless shared an altar with the Persian war heroes Omanes and Anadates. This selective cult policy aimed to promote the male gods who would support the image of the deified king, while also tying the popular reverence for the female deities to the dynasty's conception of the army.

Cults Carried to the Northern Black Sea

The official cults also steered private worship outside the kingdom. Saprykin draws attention to the god figurines found on the northern shore of the Black Sea, mostly from the Mithridatic period and after: Mên on a cock, Mên-Attis on a galloping horse, figures of Mithra in the dress of Attis slaying a bull, and Dionysian masks made at Amisos and in local workshops. The terracotta "warrior" figures of the Bosporos, dated from the late second to the early first century BC, are considered in the same context. Most of these figures turn up in graves and household shrines, and they are thought to have been protective and saving in nature rather than mere ornament. Saprykin connects them with the spread of the cults of Zeus Stratios, Dionysos, Perseus-Apollo and Mithra-Mên-Attis, and says they were widespread among the soldiers and mercenaries who served in the Pontic army. Thus the deification of the ruler reached the religious life of the armies and distant colonies as well as that of the palace and the cities.

Afterward: The Roman Period and What Remains

After the defeat of Mithridates Eupator the kingdom broke up. By order of Pompey the king's body was buried beside his ancestors; some sources give the burial place as Sinope, others as Amaseia. The religious legacy of the dynasty was not wiped out quickly. In the Bosporos, according to Saprykin, traces of Pontic cults continued from the end of the first century BC until the middle of the third century AD. Reverence for Zeus Stratios lived on at Amaseia and in its surroundings in the Roman Imperial period; the coins and inscriptions of that age show that devotion to the god did not end with the disappearance of the kings. The royal rock tombs on the Harşena mountain at Amasya are likewise structures that give concrete form to the dynasty's wish to make itself sacred even after death.

The Pontic royal cult was the product of a deliberate political design. To hold together a many-tongued and many-godded kingdom, the dynasty created a common language in which every community could see the king in its own god. Zeus stood at the centre of it, Mên made the bond with the Anatolian people, Perseus tied the Iranian origin to Greek legend, and Dionysos, at the point where all these lines crossed, set the king himself in the lineage of the gods. The chief difficulty in studying this structure arises from the scarcity of written documents and the reliance on the interpretation of coins and inscriptions, so that many aspects of what has been described above are still disputed among scholars.

Chronology

3rd century: Zeus and Hera appear on coins as the official guardians of the dynasty; Greek becomes the official language of the kingdom.

183-179: The war in which Pharnakes I was defeated ends; the dynasty turns to a pro-Hellenic policy.

128 and 125/124: Apollo-Perseus types are struck on the tetradrachms of Mithridates V Euergetes.

110-107: The decree of Chersonesos honouring Diophantos does not yet mention the king's epithet Dionysos.

102/101: The inscription from the Mithridatic heroon on Delos uses the king's epithet Dionysos.

100-85: Dionysos coins are struck in the cities of Pontus and the Bosporos.

96: An ivy wreath appears on the king's own coins.

88/87: After the victory at Pergamon the king is received as the new Dionysos.

73: Before marching into Paphlagonia, Mithridates offers a fire sacrifice to Zeus Stratios and has white horses thrown into the sea for Poseidon.

63: Mithridates Eupator dies; his burial place is reported as Sinope or Amaseia.

AD 239/240: The altar at Çalıca shows that devotion to Zeus Stratios continued after the kingdom.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Strabo, Geographika, 11.8.4, 12.3.31, 15.3.15 (the oath of Mên Pharnakou, Anaitis, Omanes and Anadates).
  • Anderson, J. G. C., F. Cumont and E. Cumont. Recueil des inscriptions grecques et latines du Pont et de l'Arménie (Studia Pontica 3). Bruxelles, 1910.

Academic studies

Other sources

Online sources