The great kingdoms of the Hellenistic age bargained with one another in palace chambers as much as on battlefields. A princess sent as a bride to another dynasty could mean the recognition of a border, the sealing of an alliance, or the remote supervision of a throne. The Pontic dynasty, which made Amaseia its capital, enlarged the kingdom founded by Mithridates Ktistes in 281 BC in precisely this way. The dynasty was of Persian origin and descended from a family that had once ruled the city of Kios (Cius); the rock-cut palace and royal tombs at Amaseia are the traces of that family's settled power in the interior. The marriages and treaties described below show how a kingdom lying between inland Anatolia and the Black Sea found its place in the balance among the Seleucids, Pergamon, Cappadocia, Bithynia and Rome. Because most of the sources come not from Pontus's own archives but from outside ancient writers such as Polybius, Justin, Appian and Memnon, firm judgments about some dates and persons are impossible; these uncertainties are noted where they arise.

The Pontic Dynasty and Marriage Politics

Pontus was a kingdom that combined the Greek cities of the southern Black Sea coast with the interior valleys of the Yeşilırmak and the Kelkit. On the coast lay Greek cities such as Sinope and Amastris; inland lived native Anatolian peoples ruled by an aristocracy of Iranian origin. Greek had been the kingdom's official language since the third century BC, yet the dynasty never let its Persian ancestry be forgotten; the name Mithridates, borne by most of the kings, means "given by Mithra". This dual identity also shaped marriage politics. The Pontic kings sought a legitimate place within the Greek world by forming ties with Hellenistic dynasties, above all the Seleucids, while at the same time extending their sphere of influence by placing their own daughters and sisters on the thrones of neighboring Anatolian kingdoms.

Knowledge of the dynasty's first rulers is limited. After the brief reign of Ariobarzanes, son of Mithridates Ktistes, the throne passed to Mithridates II, who succeeded as a child. The date of his accession is unknown, though it was probably well before 240 BC, since Memnon says he was a child at his father's death and by 222 BC he had a daughter of marriageable age. With this ruler, marriage politics becomes an instrument of government.

Mithridates II and the Seleucid House

The reign of Mithridates II is placed roughly between 250 and 220 BC. The young king married Laodike of the Seleucid house, daughter of the Seleucid ruler Antiochus II and sister of Seleucus II Callinicus and Antiochus Hierax. According to some accounts, Mithridates also received the region of Phrygia as a dowry with this marriage. The bond drew Pontus into the quarrel within the Seleucid dynasty. In the war between Seleucus Callinicus and his brother Hierax, Mithridates took the side of Hierax, who was also supported by his own mother-in-law, Laodike I. The sources report that in the battle near Ankyra (around 235 BC) Seleucus suffered a heavy defeat, lost the greater part of his army and barely escaped himself. At the same time, Galatian raids were threatening Pontus as well, and the kingdom had appealed for help to Herakleia Pontike, which was likewise fighting the Galatians. Thus a small kingdom's marriage to a Seleucid princess made it a party to the civil war of a great empire.

The tie with the Seleucid court was continued in the second generation. In 222 BC Mithridates II gave his daughter Laodike (Laodike III) in marriage to the young Seleucid king Antiochus III. At about the same time another daughter, also named Laodike, was married to Achaeus, a kinsman of Antiochus and the Seleucid governor in Asia Minor. According to Polybius, this girl had been raised in the city of Selge in Pisidia under the care of a citizen named Logbasis. Achaeus later rebelled against Antiochus; when he was captured in 213 BC, Laodike held out for a time in the citadel of Sardis but was forced to surrender because of dissension among her own soldiers. The same dynasty thus produced, within a single generation, both the wife of the Great King and the wife of his most dangerous rebel. The limits of the security that kinship offered are visible here too: once interests diverged, blood ties protected no one.

Mithridates II was the maternal grandfather of Laodike IV, daughter of Antiochus III and Laodike III. Pontic blood, once mixed into the Seleucid house, returned to Pontus in later generations; marriages between the two dynasties ran in both directions for roughly a century and a half. Another diplomatic gesture of Mithridates II's reign was sending gifts to Rhodes, devastated by an earthquake around 227 BC, in rivalry with the other kings of Asia. It shows that Pontus also used material generosity to gain recognition in the Aegean world. By contrast, he failed in the war he opened against Sinope in 220 BC; the city passed into the hands of the Pontic kings only in 183 BC.

The Problem of Mithridates III

After the death of Mithridates II, Pontic history falls silent for a while. It is generally accepted that the throne passed to his son Mithridates III, for whom a wide span of roughly 220 to 185 BC is given, and the sources scarcely mention the kingdom in this period. Because of this silence some scholars consider even his existence doubtful. Appian's description of Mithridates VI as the eighth king of the dynasty and the sixth bearer of the name, however, requires that this king be counted. It is reported that Mithridates III also married a woman named Laodike from the Seleucid house and that from this marriage were born Pharnaces, Mithridates IV and a daughter. His wife's identity is uncertain; the sources call her "an obscure Seleucid princess". This uncertainty also reflects the thin documentation of the period.

Pharnaces I, Nysa and the Seleucid Connection

Under Pharnaces I the Pontic kingdom made concrete gains on the Black Sea coast. Pharnaces was the son of Mithridates III and Laodike and had come to the throne before 183 BC. In that year he captured Sinope; the Rhodians sent envoys to Rome to complain but achieved nothing. Coastal cities in the east such as Kotyora, Pharnakeia and Trapezus also joined the kingdom, and Pontus came to control most of the northern coast of Anatolia. After these moves, disputes arose with Eumenes II, king of Pergamon, and both sides repeatedly sent envoys to Rome. In the spring of 181 BC Pharnaces, without waiting for his envoys to return, attacked Eumenes and Ariarathes IV, king of Cappadocia, and invaded Galatia. A commission sent by the Roman senate halted the fighting for a time; negotiations at Pergamon yielded nothing, and when Rome judged Pharnaces's demands unreasonable the war resumed. The fighting continued with interruptions until the summer of 179 BC. At that point Pharnaces could not withstand the combined strength of Eumenes and Ariarathes and bought peace by giving up all his gains in Galatia and Paphlagonia; he was able to keep only Sinope. His brother Mithridates IV is named alongside him in this treaty, which points to the brother's sharing some part of the sovereignty. Polybius describes Pharnaces as arrogant and harsh in character, but it should be borne in mind that Polybius spoke from the same side as Eumenes and Rome and may therefore have been biased against him.

Pharnaces's marriage was a diplomatic move in contrast to this martial picture. The king married Nysa of the Seleucid house. The sources do not fully agree on Nysa's father: by one account she was the daughter of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and Laodike IV, by another she was born of Laodike IV's first marriage. By one version her father was a Seleucid prince named Antiochus. The date of the marriage is also disputed. Some sources give 172-171 BC; but the long Athenian inscription found on Delos honoring Pharnaces and Nysa is dated, by the year of the Athenian archon Tychandros, to 160 or 159 BC, and it is argued that the marriage took place in those years through the mediation of the Seleucid king Demetrius I Soter. In either case the marriage renewed the bond Pontus had with the Seleucid court. The couple had a son, Mithridates V, and a daughter, Nysa, who is called Laodike in some sources. The mother Nysa is thought to have died in childbirth, but the exact date is not known.

The documents that show Pharnaces's standing in the Greek world come from Athens and Delos. The king had made a benefaction to the Athenian people; its nature is unknown, probably a voluntary gift of money, and it dates to after 183 BC. In return the Athenians gave Pharnaces and Nysa a gold crown on Delos and set up bronze statues of the two. This is concrete evidence that Pontus, while conquering the Greek cities of the coast, also sought good relations with the Greek centers of the Aegean. Pharnaces also made alliances with Chersonesos on the Crimean peninsula and with cities such as Odessos on the Bulgarian coast in order to extend his influence to the north of the Black Sea; the kingdom thereby became the center of a network reaching beyond Anatolia in coastal trade and politics.

Mithridates IV and Laodike: A Sibling Marriage

Pharnaces's brother Mithridates IV is remembered as the king who began Pontus's policy of drawing close to Rome. His name first appears in the treaty of 179 BC. Around 155 BC he sent an auxiliary force to Attalus II, king of Pergamon, against Prusias II, king of Bithynia; this marks the beginning of a friendship between Pontus and Rome and Rome's allies that lasted until Mithridates VI. The king married his sister Laodike. Laodike is never mentioned by the ancient authors; she is known only from coins, statue bases and inscriptions. According to these documents she reigned beside her husband from around 162 BC into the 150s BC, and it is very likely that she was co-ruler. On the coins she struck alone only the title "Queen Laodike" appears; one type shows a veiled portrait and the figure of Hera, and another calls her "illustrious and sibling-loving". Such a marriage was a custom in the Hellenistic age among the Ptolemies of Egypt, and the Pontic coinage also followed a Ptolemaic model. On their double-portrait tetradrachms Zeus and Hera are depicted, and the inscription reads "of King Mithridates and Queen Laodike, Philadelphoi"; Philadelphoi means "sibling-loving". These coins are a political statement stressing the dynasty's Greek identity. The presence of Perseus on another coin of the same king shows that the Persian origin was not forgotten either; Perseus is a Greek hero, but the Persians regarded him as an Assyrian, and so he could serve as a bridge between the two cultures. There is no record that the couple had children. A gold treasure, including a royal crown, found by chance in Samsun (ancient Amisos) in 1995, is mostly ascribed to the reign of Mithridates IV.

Mithridates V and the Encirclement of Cappadocia

Mithridates V Euergetes (roughly 150-120 BC), son of Pharnaces and Nysa, came to the throne after his uncle Mithridates IV and his aunt Laodike; the circumstances of his accession are not clear. He maintained friendship with Rome, supplying ships and a small auxiliary force in the Third Punic War and helping in the war against Aristonicus (Eumenes III). In return the Roman consul Manius Aquillius gave him the region of Phrygia. The senate annulled this decision on grounds of bribery, but it appears Mithridates held the region until his death. This king also continued kinship with the Seleucid house, marrying Laodike VI, daughter of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and Laodike IV. The couple had seven children: Laodike, who would become queen of Cappadocia, Mithridates VI, Mithridates Chrestus, a second Laodike, Nysa, Roxane and Statira. The sources write that Roxane and Statira were forced to kill themselves with poison after the fall of Pontus in 63 BC, and that Nysa was taken captive by the Romans and made to march in the triumphs of two Roman commanders. On the Seleucid origin of Laodike VI the sources are not unanimous; by one view she was the true daughter of Antiochus IV, by another an obscure relative connected with the claims surrounding Alexander Balas.

The most lasting diplomatic step of Mithridates V concerned Cappadocia. Earlier, Pharnaces's daughter Nysa (the sister of Mithridates V) had, after 160 BC, married Ariarathes V, king of Cappadocia. Nysa and Ariarathes were close to the cultural life of Athens; Nysa had made the city a gift or done it a service, and the guild of the Artists of Dionysus at Athens named the pair its patrons, set up a statue of Ariarathes in its shrine and celebrated the birthdays of both. After Ariarathes died in 130 BC, Nysa acted as regent for her young son Ariarathes VI until 126 BC; a coin of this period shows the portraits of the queen and the young king side by side, with Athena holding Nike on the reverse. According to the sources, Nysa poisoned her other five sons in order to keep power in her hands; in the end Cappadocians loyal to the dynasty had her killed. The king of Pontus wished to profit from this turmoil and moved toward invading Cappadocia. In the end Ariarathes VI agreed to marry Laodike, daughter of Mithridates. This marriage both averted the invasion and gave the Pontic king a means of controlling Cappadocia indirectly. As queen Laodike held considerable power and is presumed to have looked after her father's interests. The couple had a daughter, Nysa, and two sons, who later reigned as Ariarathes VII and Ariarathes VIII.

Mithridates VI and the Widening Network

Mithridates V was poisoned around 120 BC at a banquet he gave in Sinope. The regency initially fell to his wife Laodike VI. The sources report that this woman favored her younger son, Mithridates Chrestus, took bribes from Rome, lived in luxury and ran Pontus into debt. The young Mithridates VI went into hiding, returned between 116 and 113 BC, and imprisoned his mother and brother; both died in prison. Soon afterwards the king married his sister Laodike. One source says the aim was to preserve the purity of the blood, to secure his claim to the throne and to guarantee the succession of legitimate children. This account contains interpretation; the dynasty's real intention has not been proved by documents.

Mithridates VI carried marriage and kinship politics to a far wider scale than earlier generations. In Cappadocia his sister Laodike, after the murder of her first husband Ariarathes VI, acted as regent for her son Ariarathes VII. The sources report that Ariarathes VI was killed around 116 BC by the Cappadocian nobleman Gordios, at the wish of Mithridates. Whether Laodike knew of this murder is unknown; according to some scholars she probably did not. Nicomedes III, king of Bithynia, then entered Cappadocia and married Laodike. She may have done this to protect her son's throne and her own position. Mithridates, although he had set out to help his sister, sided with his nephew Ariarathes VII because of this marriage, drove out Nicomedes and placed the young king on the throne. After Ariarathes VII was killed in 101 BC, Mithridates put his eight-year-old son Ariarathes IX on the Cappadocian throne, with Gordios as regent. These events kept Cappadocia within the Pontic sphere of influence for a long time. The accounts are not neutral: the Roman sources are hostile to Mithridates, while Bithynia defends its own dynasty.

Mithridates also tried an alliance with Bithynia. Together they divided Paphlagonia, and the king, probably in honor of this alliance, used the Bithynian era on his coins; this era begins in 297 BC with the first Bithynian king Zipoites I and was in use in Pontus by 96 BC. But Nicomedes's drift toward Rome broke the alliance. The king's most important eastern ally was Tigranes the Great, king of Armenia, who married Mithridates's daughter Cleopatra. This bond proved useful when Tigranes invaded Cappadocia around 90 BC and when the two kings supported each other in the wars against Rome. His daughter Athenais married Ariobarzanes II of Cappadocia. The king's other wives were also part of his politics: his second wife Monime and his third wife Berenice of Chios were Greek, and his fourth wife Stratonike bore him a son, Xiphares. The sources also mention a relationship with the Galatian princess Adobogiona, and report that he gave some of his sons Persian royal names such as Cyrus, Xerxes and Darius. These names show that the dynasty had not abandoned its Persian past.

The diplomacy of Mithridates was not confined to Anatolia. The cities of Chersonesos in Crimea asked him for help against the Scythians; he sent 6,000 soldiers under his general Diophantos and ended up controlling the whole peninsula. He also formed trade ties with cities on the western Black Sea coast. In the wars against Rome he allied himself with the Cilician pirates and with Quintus Sertorius, who was resisting Rome in Spain. Appian reports that before Mithridates's death two of his daughters, Mithridatis and Nysa, who were betrothed to Ptolemy XII of Egypt and to his brother in Cyprus, insisted on drinking the poison before their father. The account suggests that the king wished to forge a link with the Ptolemaic house through marriage as well; yet the betrothal is mentioned only in accounts of this kind, and its outcome on the Egyptian side is not documented.

The Limits of Treaties and Marriages

Marriages were not the only instrument. The Pontic kings also gained power through treaties signed after wars, alliances with coastal cities, and gifts to Greek cities outside the kingdom. The treaty of 179 BC under Pharnaces I is a clear example: through Roman intervention it forced the expanding kingdom to give back its gains, yet it secured the retention of Sinope. At the same time Pontus's powerful neighbors, Pergamon, Cappadocia and Rome, were always in a position to demand that the kingdom withdraw.

Marriage alliances did not always bring solid results either. Seleucid ties gave Pontus recognition, but once the Seleucid Empire lost the lands west of the Taurus after the Treaty of Apamea in 188 BC and the dynasty sank into internal quarrels, the practical value of this kinship declined. The bonds with Cappadocia led to murders, regencies and invasions; Rome became directly involved in these conflicts, and Cappadocia eventually became one of the main arenas of the struggle between Pontus and Rome.

Chronology

281 BC: Mithridates I Ktistes proclaims the kingdom.

Around 250-220 BC: Under Mithridates II, marriage to a Seleucid princess and war with Seleucus II; the attempt on Sinope in 220 BC fails.

222 BC: Laodike III, daughter of Mithridates II, marries Antiochus III; another daughter is married to Achaeus.

183 BC: Pharnaces I captures Sinope.

181-179 BC: Pharnaces's war with Pergamon and Cappadocia; the treaty of 179 BC in which his gains in Galatia and Paphlagonia are given up.

160 or 159 BC: By the date of the Delos inscription, the marriage of Pharnaces and the Seleucid princess Nysa (172-171 BC in some sources).

155 BC: Mithridates IV sends an auxiliary force to the king of Pergamon.

Around 130 BC: Laodike, daughter of Mithridates V, marries Ariarathes VI of Cappadocia.

Around 120 BC: Mithridates V is poisoned at Sinope.

116 BC onward: Murder of Ariarathes VI; contest over Cappadocia among Pontus, Bithynia and Rome.

63 BC: The Pontic kingdom collapses before Pompey.

Sources

Primary sources

  • Ancient sources (through the citations in the modern entries above): Polybius, Histories; Justin, Epitome; Appian, Mithridatic Wars; Memnon, History of Herakleia; Strabo, Geography XII.

Books

  • McGing, B. C., The Foreign Policy of Mithridates VI Eupator, King of Pontus, Brill, 1986.
  • Grainger, J. D., A Seleukid Prosopography and Gazetteer, Brill, 1997.
  • Mayor, Adrienne, The Poison King, Princeton University Press, 2009.
  • Erciyas, D. B., Wealth, Aristocracy and Royal Propaganda under the Hellenistic Kingdom of the Mithradatids, Brill, 2006.

Other sources

  • Entries on Kingdom of Pontus, Mithridates II of Pontus, Pharnaces I of Pontus, Mithridates IV of Pontus, Mithridates V Euergetes, Laodice of Cappadocia, Laodice (sister-wife of Mithridates IV of Pontus), Nysa of Cappadocia and Nysa (wife of Pharnaces I of Pontus), Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org). en.wikipedia.org
  • Pharnaces I of Pontus, World History Edu (worldhistoryedu.com).

Online sources