Every dynasty has a goal it pursues across generations; for the kings of Pontus that goal was gathered into the name of a single city: Sinope. To take this wealthy Greek city, which possessed the finest natural harbour on the southern shore of the Black Sea, had long been the ambition of the rulers who sat in Amaseia. Ever since the kingdom's founder, Mithridates I Ktistes, Pontus had lived as an inland state sheltering in the steep valley of the Yeşilırmak, able to reach the sea only by indirect means. The ruler who changed this at its root was the fifth king of the dynasty, Pharnaces I. Under his reign Sinope passed into Pontic hands, the face of the kingdom turned from the inland uplands towards the Black Sea, and Pontus for the first time entered into an open reckoning with the great powers of Anatolia and with Rome, which stood behind them.

Ancestry and Accession

Pharnaces was the son of Mithridates III, king of Pontus, and his wife Laodice. The dynasty traced its roots to the Persian nobility, yet through marriages with the Seleucid court it had also become firmly attached to the Greek world, and the blood of both inheritances ran in Pharnaces' veins. His mother Laodice is held to have come from the Seleucid house, though very little is known about her. Pharnaces had two siblings: Mithridates IV, who would later succeed him on the throne, and a sister who bore the name Laodice. The sources report that he was born and raised in Pontus, but the date of his birth is unknown.

The reign of his father, Mithridates III, is one of the darkest periods in the history of Pontus. The sources say almost nothing about this king, who is thought to have ruled at some point between 220 and 183 BC; some historians have even questioned his existence, but Appian's reckoning of Mithridates VI as the eighth king of the dynasty has made it necessary to count him as well. This silence also leaves the date of Pharnaces' accession uncertain. What is certain is that he was on the throne before 183 BC. His accession is given in some sources as around 190 BC and in others as about 185 BC.

The Capture of Sinope

Sinope was an old Greek city founded by settlers from Miletus, set against the neck of a peninsula on the southern coast of the Black Sea. The geographer Strabo, himself a native of Amaseia, describes it as the most noteworthy city on those shores: harbours and roadsteads on either side of the isthmus, celebrated fisheries for the pelamys tuna, ridged and hollowed rocks all around it, fertile gardens above the town, fine walls, a gymnasium, a marketplace and colonnades. According to Strabo, Sinope had long remained independent, had built its own naval station and held sway over the waters of the Black Sea, and had taken part in many of the struggles of the Greeks. With such a position the city was the key both to the trade routes and to sea power.

The reach of the Pontic kings towards Sinope had been felt before Pharnaces. His grandfather Mithridates II attacked the city in 220 BC, but was driven back thanks to the help the Sinopeans received from Rhodes. Pharnaces appears to have learned from this failed attempt. In Strabo's words, he took Sinope "by attacking it unexpectedly, all of a sudden". Most sources date the conquest to 183 BC, while some modern compilations give the year 182 BC. Strabo writes that the city was "enslaved" first by Pharnaces, then by the kings descended from him, and finally by the Romans who overthrew Eupator, a phrase that reflects the grief of a Greek city that had lost its independence.

The fall of Sinope echoed in the Aegean as well. The Rhodians, who had great interests in the Black Sea trade and who had protected Sinope more than thirty years earlier, sent an embassy to Rome to complain of this aggression. As Polybius relates, in 183 BC the Roman Senate heard, together with the envoys of Eumenes, of Pharnaces and of Philip of Macedon, the Rhodian envoys who had come about "the calamity that had overtaken Sinope". The Senate confined itself to announcing that it would send legates to inquire on the spot into the matter of Sinope and the disputes between the two kings. The initiative came to nothing, and Sinope remained in Pontic hands.

Pharnacia on the Eastern Coast

Pharnaces' activity on the coast was not confined to Sinope. To the east, coastal towns such as Cotyora, Cerasus and Trapezus also came under Pontic control during his reign, so that the greater part of the northern coast of Anatolia passed into the kingdom's hands. Strabo speaks of a fortified town called Pharnacia, settled with people brought from Cotyora. Many sources identify this town with Cerasus, on the site of present-day Giresun, and state that Pharnaces renamed it after himself once he had taken it, the name Pharnacia remaining in use until the 2nd century AD. Strabo, however, counts Cerasus as a separate settlement on the same coast, so the identification is disputed. Strabo notes that this was the place where the pelamys was first caught at sea, and that on land there were iron mines, while silver had also been mined there in earlier times.

From Amaseia to Sinope: The Shifting Centre of Gravity

The conquest of Sinope transformed the identity of Pontus at its root. Until then the centre of the kingdom had been the inland capital of Amaseia, in the narrow gorge carved by the Yeşilırmak. Strabo describes his native city as a high rock dropping sheer to the river, serving at once as a city and a fortress; within the circuit of its walls stood the palaces and the monuments of the kings. Reservoirs cut into the rock and two tube-like channels, one running down to the river and the other to the neck of the hill, ensured that the city could never be deprived of water. This strong citadel had been the dynasty's secure home for generations.

With Sinope the kingdom acquired real sea power. The port city in time became the new capital, and the dynasty's centre of gravity shifted towards the sea. The change did not remain merely a geographical relocation; Pontus added the wealth, the fleets and the trading networks of the Greek coastal cities to its own strength. Pharnaces' grandson, Mithridates VI Eupator, would be born and raised in Sinope and, in Strabo's account, would show the city special honour and treat it as the metropolis of his kingdom. Pharnaces thus passed into history as the ruler who transformed Pontus from an upland kingdom into a maritime state with a claim to mastery of the Black Sea.

War with Pergamon and Cappadocia

Pharnaces was an ambitious king and was not content with Sinope. At about the same time he fell into dispute with his powerful neighbour, Eumenes II, king of Pergamon. Eumenes, who after the Peace of Apamea in 188 BC was Rome's closest ally in Anatolia, had only just concluded his war with Prusias, king of Bithynia. The two rulers carried their cases to Rome one after another; envoys came and went, and meanwhile there were clashes here and there. Polybius writes that the commission sent by the Senate to investigate reported on its return that Eumenes had shown moderation in every matter, while Pharnaces had displayed rapacious and overbearing conduct. The Senate nonetheless, without entering into lengthy debate, merely announced that it would send new legates to examine the dispute between the two kings more carefully.

Pharnaces did not wait for Rome's decision. According to Polybius, once again defying the Roman verdict, he sent his general Leocritus in the winter months with ten thousand troops to lay Galatia waste, while he himself gathered his army to invade Cappadocia as soon as spring arrived. In the sources this move is described as a sudden attack in the spring of 181 BC, launched without even waiting for his ambassadors to return from Rome, against both Eumenes and Ariarathes IV, king of Cappadocia, together with an invasion of Galatia with a large force. Two Galatian chieftains, Cassignatus and Gaezatorix, had taken Pharnaces' side a year earlier. Another act of Leocritus during the war is related by Diodorus: the Pontic general had forced the mercenaries in the town of Tius to surrender after repeated assaults and had promised them safe conduct, but on Pharnaces' orders he fell upon them on the road and shot them all down with darts. These soldiers are said to have wronged Pharnaces at some earlier time.

The Campaign of Eumenes and Roman Mediation

Eumenes took the field against Pharnaces at the head of his army. At an earlier stage of the war the king had fallen ill, so that affairs were conducted by his brother Attalus, and a temporary peace had even been made with Pharnaces. Once recovered, Eumenes had sent all his brothers to Rome, where they accused Pharnaces in the Senate and asked that he receive the punishment he deserved. As Polybius relates, after Attalus and his brothers returned from Rome they entered Galatia together with Eumenes at the head of the army, and found that Leocritus was no longer there. Cassignatus and Gaezatorix, who had earlier joined Pharnaces, asked for protection and promised to obey every order, but the offer was rejected because of their previous infidelity. The army reached the Halys, the modern Kızılırmak, in four days and advanced the next day to Parnassus; there Ariarathes, king of Cappadocia, joined them with his own forces, and the combined army marched into the territory of Mocissus. Just as they were pitching camp there, news arrived that legates had come from Rome to arrange a peace.

The Roman legates asked the two kings to put an end to the war. Eumenes and Ariarathes said they were ready to do so, but asked if possible to be brought face to face with Pharnaces, so that his infidelity and cruelty would be exposed before the eyes of the Romans. Since the legates did not consider it proper for an army to remain in the field while peace talks were under way, Eumenes and Ariarathes broke camp the next day and withdrew towards Galatia. The Romans met Pharnaces and asked him to meet Eumenes, but Pharnaces would not agree. After long insistence he consented to send by sea to Pergamon representatives empowered to make peace on terms the legates would set. At the talks in Pergamon, however, the Pontic representatives objected on every point, went back on the agreements they had made and kept raising fresh demands. The Romans concluded that Pharnaces had no intention whatsoever of making peace; his demands were judged unreasonable and rejected, the legates left Pergamon, and the war flared up again.

The Widening Front

This war turned into a broad conflict that drew in almost every power in Anatolia. The coalition facing Pontus included, besides Eumenes II of Pergamon, Prusias, king of Bithynia, Ariarathes IV, king of Cappadocia, Artaxias, ruler of Greater Armenia, a prince named Acusilochus, the Sarmatian chief Gatalus, and Greek cities such as Heraclea, Mesembria, Chersonesus and Cyzicus. Pharnaces' only ally was a ruler named Mithridates, referred to as satrap of Lesser Armenia. Rome intervened by diplomatic means alone. Diodorus relates that the Seleucid king Seleucus IV advanced with a large army as if he meant to cross the Taurus to help Pharnaces, but held back when he recalled the terms of the treaty his father had made with the Romans. Eumenes' stationing of his fleet at the mouth of the Hellespont to prevent ships from passing into the Black Sea provoked the Rhodians; according to Polybius the Rhodians thwarted the king's project, and this episode marked the beginning of a grievance between the two sides that would last a long time.

The Peace of 179 BC

The war went on, with interruptions, until the summer of 179 BC. In the end Pharnaces realised that he could not hold out against the combined forces of Eumenes and Ariarathes. Polybius writes that Pharnaces, suddenly attacked by a large force, showed himself ready to entertain any proposals and sent envoys to Eumenes and Ariarathes. After the exchange of embassies had been repeated several times, peace was concluded. Pharnaces had to buy peace at a heavy price: he agreed to give back all the lands he had seized in Galatia and Paphlagonia. Yet he managed to keep his most precious gain; Sinope remained in his hands.

Polybius gives the text of the peace treaty in detail. Under its terms there was to be peace for all time between Eumenes, Prusias and Ariarathes on the one side and Pharnaces and Mithridates on the other. Pharnaces was not to invade Galatia on any pretext, and all the treaties he had previously made with the Galatians were declared void. He was to withdraw from Paphlagonia, restore to their homes the inhabitants he had deported, and return their weapons, missiles and material of war. He was to hand back to Ariarathes all the places he had taken from him in the condition in which he had found them, and to return the hostages. He was also to give up the coastal town of Tius; Eumenes shortly afterwards gladly presented this town to Prusias, who had asked for it. All prisoners of war were to be returned without ransom, and all deserters handed over.

The financial terms of the treaty were heavy too. Pharnaces was to pay the kings concerned nine hundred talents for the money and treasure he had carried off from Morzius and Ariarathes, and in addition to give Eumenes three hundred talents towards the costs of the war. Mithridates, satrap of Armenia, who had broken his treaty with Eumenes by making war on Ariarathes, was also fined three hundred talents. Among the Anatolian rulers Artaxias and Acusilochus were included in the treaty, along with Gatalus the Sarmatian from Europe and the cities of Heraclea, Mesembria, Chersonesus and Cyzicus. The last clause concerned the number of hostages Pharnaces was to give. When the hostages arrived, the armies dispersed. The Mithridates named alongside Pharnaces in the treaty is thought to be his brother and successor, Mithridates IV; the wording suggests that he shared power to some degree at that time.

Pharnaces through the Eyes of Polybius

Foremost among the ancient sources on Pharnaces is Polybius, and his portrait is anything but charitable. The Greek historian depicts Pharnaces as an arrogant and violent ruler; in one fragment he says that Pharnaces "surpassed all previous kings in his contempt for laws". In this harsh judgement Polybius clearly adopts the viewpoint of Eumenes of Pergamon and of the Romans. Polybius was a historian who lived in Rome's inner circle, and he was describing a period in which Pergamon was Rome's chief ally in Anatolia. It is therefore not easy to separate the negative characterisations of Pharnaces from the outlook of the opposing side. On the other hand, episodes such as the massacre at Tius show that he did not shrink from ruthless methods in war.

Relations with the Northern Black Sea and the Greek World

The peace of 179 BC set a limit to Pharnaces' appetite for expansion in Anatolia, but the king tried to carry his influence in other directions. Seeking to extend his reach northwards, Pharnaces formed alliances with the city of Chersonesus in the Crimea and with other Black Sea cities such as Odessus on the coast of present-day Bulgaria. Pontus, looking out from the harbour of Sinope, thus began to forge links with the far shores of the Black Sea as well. This orientation may be counted among the first traces of the dominion that his grandson Mithridates VI would establish a century later over the Crimea and the Bosporan Kingdom.

Pharnaces also took care to cultivate good relations with the cultural centres of the Greek world. He made a benefaction to the people of Athens; its nature is unknown, but it is thought to have been a voluntary gift of money made soon after 183 BC. A lengthy honorific inscription set up by the Athenians on the island of Delos in honour of Pharnaces and his wife Nysa has survived. According to this inscription, the king and queen were presented with a golden crown, and bronze statues of the two were erected on Delos. The inscription is dated to the year of the Athenian archon Tychandros, which is now generally accepted as 160 or 159 BC. A bronze shield made in the name of Pharnaces is also held in the collection of the Getty Villa in Los Angeles.

Pharnaces' coins reflect this Greek face as well. His silver tetradrachms bear the Greek legend "ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΦΑΡΝΑΚΟΥ", meaning "of King Pharnaces". The Pontic dynasty was a family that knew how to show a Greek face to the Greek cities and a face of Persian descent to the native and Iranian elements of inner Anatolia. Strabo's account of the temple of Men of Pharnaces at Ameria also sheds light on the religious world of the dynasty. He writes that the kings revered this temple so greatly that the "royal oath" was sworn "by the Fortune of the king and by Men of Pharnaces". Who the Pharnaces in the temple's name was is uncertain; some commentators link the name to a Pharnaces who founded the temple, but there is no evidence that he was Pharnaces I of the dynasty.

Marriage and Family

Pharnaces married the Seleucid princess Nysa, daughter of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes and Queen Laodice IV. Nysa's parents were Pharnaces' first cousins; the marriage signified the continuation and strengthening of Pontus' pro-Seleucid foreign policy. It came about through the diplomatic efforts of the Seleucid king Demetrius I Soter, Nysa's half-brother on her mother's side. The date of the marriage is given differently in the sources: some compilations point to 172 or 171 BC, others to 160 or 159 BC. Given that Demetrius I came to the throne in 161 BC, a marriage arranged through him would seem to fit the later date.

Nysa bore Pharnaces two children. Their son was Mithridates V Euergetes, who would later ascend the Pontic throne. Their daughter Nysa, also known as Laodice, formed a marriage tie with the Cappadocian dynasty. The date of Queen Nysa's death is unknown; she is believed to have died at some point in the 2nd century BC, most probably in childbirth. Very little is known about the role she played as queen. The son of Mithridates V was Mithridates VI Eupator, famed for his long wars against Rome; Pharnaces, in other words, was the grandfather of the most celebrated king of Pontus.

The End of His Reign and His Successors

How long Pharnaces continued to reign after the peace of 179 BC is unknown. An incidental reference in Polybius shows that he was still on the throne in 170 BC. By 154 BC he was certainly dead, for in that year his brother Mithridates IV is mentioned as king. The end of his reign is therefore given in various ways in the sources; some compilations suggest around 170 BC, others 160 BC, and others about 155 BC. The dating of the Delos inscription to 160 or 159 BC suggests that he lived at least until those years.

The throne passed not to Pharnaces' son but to his brother Mithridates. Bearing the title Philopator Philadelphus, Mithridates IV married his sister Laodice and reigned jointly with her, following a peaceful, pro-Roman course entirely different from Pharnaces' aggressive policy. His dispatch of an auxiliary force in 154 BC to aid Attalus II of Pergamon, Rome's ally, against Prusias II of Bithynia is regarded as the beginning of a period of friendship between Pontus and Rome and her allies that would last until Mithridates VI. The repair and enlargement of the walls of Sinope is also attributed to his reign. After Mithridates IV, the throne passed to Pharnaces' son, Mithridates V Euergetes.

The Royal Tombs on Harşena

Today in Amasya the name of Pharnaces is most often recalled together with the royal rock tombs on the southern slope of Mount Harşena. Once Amaseia became the capital of the Kingdom of Pontus, monumental tombs began to be cut into the limestone rock at the foot of the mountain. In the part of Harşena Castle known as Kızlar Sarayı lie the rock tombs of five kings who reigned from the founder, Mithridates I Ktistes, to Pharnaces I. These tombs were carved in a U-shape, separated from the bedrock by galleries, and are counted among the most monumental rock tombs in Anatolia. Some twenty-one tombs, large and small, are known along the Yeşilırmak valley, but only a few of them have survived intact. Mount Harşena and the Rock Tombs of the Pontic Kings were placed on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List in 2015.

The largest of the royal rock tombs is the last one to the west, reached by galleries and steps. It is about 15 metres high, 8 metres wide and 6 metres deep, and the entrance to its burial chamber opens higher than the doorways of the other tombs. Known also as the "Great King's Tomb", the monument has suffered heavy damage to its facade over time. By tradition this largest tomb belongs to Pharnaces I, and it has almost the grandeur of a temple. This attribution, however, rests on no firm document; it is an interpretation based on the order and size of the tombs, and which tomb belonged to which king is not known for certain.

Pharnaces also represents the end of a tradition. Because the conquest of Sinope shifted the centre of the kingdom to the sea, the tradition of royal rock tombs at Amaseia is considered to have come to an end with him; the sequence of monumental tombs at Kızlar Sarayı does not continue after him. Later kings preferred burial in the city by the sea rather than on the slope of Harşena. The sources are not entirely clear on this point: it is known that Pompey had the body of Mithridates VI buried beside his ancestors, but whether those tombs were at Sinope or at Amaseia is reported differently in the sources. Even so, the name of Pharnaces, as the king who both opened and closed an era, continues to be linked with the last great monument of the dynasty's history inscribed on the rocks of Amaseia.

The later history of the tombs is noteworthy as well. At certain periods the rock tombs were used as a prison and a place of punishment; according to local tradition, Mithridates VI confined Roman envoys who had made difficulties during peace negotiations in the tomb just above the railway passage. It is also related that Melik Ahmed Gazi of the Danishmendids, who took Amasya in 1075, had the Pontic-period burials removed from the tombs, and that in the same period Christian monks withdrew into these caves in seclusion. Pharnaces' rock-cut tomb thus became a structure bearing the traces of different peoples and faiths over the centuries.

Chronology

220 BC: Pharnaces' grandfather Mithridates II attacks Sinope and is driven back with the help of Rhodes.

c. 190–185 BC: Pharnaces succeeds his father Mithridates III on the Pontic throne; the date is not certain.

183 BC: Pharnaces takes Sinope in a sudden attack (182 BC in some compilations). The Rhodians complain to Rome; the Senate announces it will send legates.

After 183 BC: Benefaction to Athens; Cerasus takes the name Pharnacia and is settled with people from Cotyora.

Winter 182–181 BC: Leocritus lays Galatia waste with ten thousand troops.

Spring 181 BC: Without waiting for his ambassadors to return, Pharnaces attacks Eumenes II and Ariarathes IV and invades Galatia. Talks opened at Pergamon through Roman mediation come to nothing.

Summer 179 BC: Peace treaty. Pharnaces gives up his gains in Galatia and Paphlagonia and the town of Tius, and pays war indemnities; he keeps Sinope.

172–171 or 160–159 BC: Marriage to the Seleucid princess Nysa (two different dates in the sources).

170 BC: Pharnaces is evidently still on the throne.

160–159 BC: Athenian inscription on Delos honouring Pharnaces and Nysa.

154 BC: His brother Mithridates IV is mentioned as king; Pharnaces has died before this date.

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