Arsaces of Pontus: A Brief Hellenistic King in the Kingdom of Pontus – Historical and Archaeological Insights

Introduction

Arsaces of Pontus was a late Hellenistic prince and briefly a king in the Kingdom of Pontus during the 1st century BC. A member of the Mithridatic line, he was of Iranian and Greek Macedonian descent and was raised in Pontus and the Bosporan realm. He was the younger brother of Darius and the brother of Dynamis. As a youth he and Darius were sheltered by a rebel leader also called Arsaces while that leader held a fortress besieged by Polemon I and Lycomedes of Comana.

Arsaces succeeded his brother Darius in 37 BC and was installed as king by the Roman triumvir Mark Antony. Contemporary reporting preserved in Strabo presents his short reign as marked by assertive action against Roman oversight; he assumed royal authority and fomented rebellion without the approval of the Roman prefect. His rule was brief, ending with his death in 37 BC or possibly 36 BC. Mark Antony then placed Polemon I on the Pontic throne.

In surviving sources Arsaces is remembered chiefly for his fleeting tenure and for attempting independent policies that brought him into conflict with Roman interests, rather than for long-term reforms or institutions.