Expansion und Dynastische Politik in Pontos: Zwei neue Ären unter Pharnakes I.

Abstract

The most heated debates on early-Pontic history surround the treaty of alliance made between Pharnakes I and the citizens of Chersonesos in year 157 (IOSPE I2 402 = III3 103). About a half of the present generation of scholars are now inclined to identify the era as Seleukid (beginning in 312/11 BC), which would result in 155 BC. But it was never used in Pontos, and its popularity after Seleukid rule had ended in Anatolia (190-188 BC) cannot be sustained. A date closer to the Pontic Peace of 179 BC therefore provides a much better political context for the treaty. Probably, Pharnakes was inspired by his new royal residence Sinope (conquered in 184/83 BC) to adopt an era commemorating Alexander’s victory at the Granikos River in 334 BC. It is to be assumed that his ancestor Mithradates of Kios had found recognition by Alexander or his satrap Kalas in 334/33 BC. However, in or after 158 BC, Pharnakes preferred to accept the Seleukid model, basing his dynastic era on the establishment of Mithradates I Ktistes’ rule in Kimiata in 297/96 BC, just as Seleukos had chosen his arrival in Babylon in 312/11 BC. In 149/48 BC, the Pontic era was accepted by or perhaps inspired Nikomedes II of Bithynia (rather than that Mithradates V or VI copied a Bithynian year count). That the Bithynian cities returned to their earlier royal era beginning ca. 282/81 BC when they got under Roman rule seems to provide further support for the view that the Bithynian era introduced by Nikomedes II with the start year 297/96 BC was regarded as Mithradatic.