Shielded by the Pontic Alps from the central Anatolian plateau the shore of the Pontos Euxinus (Black Sea) has often had a history separate from that of the rest of Anatolia. The name Pontos is geographical, not ethnic, in origin, and was first used to designate that part of Kappadokia which bordered on the "Pontos," as the Euxine was often termed. The configuration of the country included a beautiful but narrow, riparian margin, backed by a noble range of mountains parallel to the coast, while these in turn were broken by the streams that forced their way from the interior plains down to the sea; the valleys, narrower or wider, were fertile and productive, as were the wide plains of the interior such as the Chiliokomon and Phanaroea. The mountain slopes were originally clothed with heavy forests of beech, pine and oak of different species, and when the country was well afforested, the rainfall must have been better adequate than now to the needs of luxuriant vegetation. Between 2000 BC and 1800 BC, Assyrian merchants from northern Mesopotamia established a number of trading colonies in the central and eastern Anatolian cities, thereby drawing the region into wider Middle Eastern culture. The unification of Anatolia was achieved by the Hittites and this region became the center of power for the Hittites. As the Hittite power shrunk under the hammer blows of the Sea Peoples and other invaders hardy Greek adventurers appeared from the West sailing along the Euxine main in quest of lands to exploit and conquer and colonize. Miletus, sent out colonists through the Bosporus, and along the southern shore of the Black Sea. Greek culture by slow degrees took root along the coastal towns mixing with the local cultures and the later Persians. Following the Persian overthrow of Lydia, Pontos was loosely joined to the great Achaemenid Empire and rule was by Persian satraps.
During the domination of the Achaemenid Persian Empire eastern Asia Minor was colonized by the Persians. The uplands of Anatolia resembled those of Persia in climate and soil, and were especially adapted to the raising of horses. The main influence on the societies of Pontos had come from Persia with its temple priests and Persianized feudal nobles which ruled over villages inhabited by a heterogeneous population. Greek culture would have some influence but mostly superficially until later in the kingdoms history. In Kappadokia and even in Pontos the aristocracy who owned the soil belonged to the conquering Persians. Under the various governments which followed after the death of Alexander, those landlords would remain the real masters of the country. They retained their hereditary holdings throughout the political turmoil until the time of the Romans. This military and feudal aristocracy furnished Mithradates Eupator a considerable number of the officers who helped him in his long defiance of Rome, and later defended the threatened independence of Armenia against the enterprises of the Romans. These warriors worshiped Mithra as the protecting god of their arms, and this is the reason why Mithra always, even in the Latin world, remained the “invincible” god, the lord of armies, held in special honor by warriors. Alongside them were the native clan chieftains governing the districts where the Anatolian tribes held dominion. These tribes residing in the eastern part of Northern Anatolia were known to the Greeks as the Mossynoecians, Makrones, Tibarenians and Leucosyrians as well as the Chalybes or Chaldaei. The Tzanoi lived mainly in Pontic Alps, their range extending into the land of the Colchians or Kolchoi, to whom they are related and the Tibareni and Chaldaei, who also extend as far as Colchis. It is from these men that the bulk of the tribal levy is formed. Besides the Persian nobility a Persian clergy had also become established in the peninsula. It officiated in famous temples, at Zela in Pontos and Hierocaesarea in Lydia. The sacrifices of the fire priests which Strabo observed in Kappadokia recall all the peculiarities of the Avestan liturgy. The same prayers were recited before the altar of the fire while the priest held the sacred fasces and the same offerings were made of milk, oil and honey, and the same precautions were taken to prevent the priest's breath from polluting the divine flame. Recent discoveries of bilingual inscriptions have succeeded in establishing the fact that the language used, or at least written, by the Persian colonies of Asia Minor was not that of their ancient Aryan homeland, but rather Aramaic. Under the Achemenides this was the diplomatic and commercial language of all countries west of the Tigris. In Kappadokia and Armenia it remained the literary and probably also the liturgical language until it was slowly supplanted by Greek during the Hellenistic period.
Pontos had acquired nominal independence from Persia around 363 BC and was able to maintain it during the Macedonian period. Following the Anatolian conquests of Alexander the Great attempts were made to rule Kappadokia through a Macedonian appointed commander, but the ruling classes and people resisted and declared a Persian aristocrat, as king. Alexander had never conquered this country completely, and this last Persian satrap, a man named Ariarathes, had created a kingdom of his own. Kappadokia and Paphlagonia fell to Eumenes in the settlement of Babylon, who was charged with defending the region as far as Trapezus and with continuing hostilities against this Ariarthes, the only chieftain refusing alliance to Macedon. His claims were made good in 322 by the regent Perdikkas who crucified Ariarathes; but in the dissensions following Eumenes death, the son of Ariarathes recovered his inheritance and left it to a line of successors, who mostly bore the name of the founder of the dynasty. Pontos became a separate kingdom later in the 3rd Century, and here forges its own history separate from that of Kappadokia. In Pontos Mithradates I, was the son of a Persian satrap taking advantage of the confusion caused by the Wars of the Diadochi, came to Pontos with only six horsemen and was able to assume the title of king, he died in 266 after a reign of thirty-six years. The kings of Pontos, Persian by descent, formed close ties with Greece and from the beginning Hellenistic culture found an entrance into Pontos. Upon his death Mithridates' son Ariobarzanes succeeded him as king of Pontus. Ariobarzanes may have lacked the ambition of his father, but he made up for it with his competence and cool temperament. His reign was quiet and uneventful save for his acquiring of the city of Amastris, which was surrendered to him for reasons unknown. He dies somewhere between 258 and 240 BC and was succeeded by his young son Mithridates II. Mithridates II was only a minor when he ascended the throne, but later in his adult life he proved himself to be as ambitious as his grandfather and a competent general on the battlefield. Early in his reign his kingdom was invaded by a horde of Galatians (Gauls), which were eventually defeated and driven out by his forces. Later on he married the Seleucid princess Laodice, and was given the land of Phrygia as a dowry by her brother Seleucus II Callinicus. Despite Seleucus' generosity and favor Mithridates attacked him during the "War of the Brothers" when Seleucus was fighting his brother Antiochus Hierax for control of the Seleucid territories in Anatolia. Soon after Mithridates inflicted a crushing defeat upon Seleucus killing nearly twenty thousand of his soldiers near the city of Ancyra. Many years later he gave his daughter Laodice III in marriage to a young Antiochus III shortly after he ascended the Seleucid throne. Following this he dedicated the last years of his reign unsuccessfully attempting to incorporate the great city of Sinope into his kingdom. He was succeeded by his son Mithridates III. The reign of Mithridates III is unfortunately shrouded in mystery. Its reasonable to assume that his reign was fairly quiet and peaceful given that the Seleucid Empire was dealt a telling blow by the Romans and reduced to impotence as far as Anatolia was concerned, and therefore no longer posed a threat to the Pontic kingdom. In its absence the Attalids of Pergamon emerged as the new overlords of Anatolia, but unlike the Seleucids they were content with simply upholding the status quo between the various kingdoms and city-states. Mithridates III was succeeded by his son Pharnaces I who quickly revealed himself to possess a lust for power and conquest far surpassing that of his grandfather. His reign, which began somewhere between 200 and 183 BC, was initially marked by his conquest of Sinope, a feat that not even his celebrated grandfather could accomplish. A few years later he went to war against both Eumenes II of Pergamon and Ariartahes IV of Cappadocia. This war raged on and off for two years before Pharnaces came to the realization that he could not defeat both kings alone, and so in return for peace he yielded all of the conquests he had made to the victors with the sole exception of Sinope. He reigned for somewhere between fifteen and twenty more years before he was succeeded by his brother Mithridates IV. Mithridates IV Philopater/Philadelphus (of brotherly/fatherly love) succeeded his brother as king somewhere in the 150's BC. Not much is know of his reign, save that he sent a body of troops to aid the Pergamene king Attalus II against forces Prusias II of Bithynia. This show of support marks the beginning of a period of friendship between the Pontic kings and the Roman Republic and her allies. Mithridates V Euergetes (Benefactor) was the son of Pharnaces I who ascended to the throne after the death of his uncle. Following the example set by his uncle he set out to strengthen his kingdoms alliance with the Romans by sending ships and soldiers to aid them in the Third Punic War, and in the war against Aristonicus of Pergamon who was a pretender or bastard successor to the Pergamene throne. Out of gratitude the Roman consul Manius Aquillius awarded him with the land of Phrygia, which, despite opposition from the Roman senate, remained in his possession until his death in 120 BC. Despite his political and territorial successes a conspiracy formed around him, fueled perhaps by his philroman and philhellenic tendencies. He was assassinated sometime in 120 BC by a combination of traitorous underlings and relatives. His son would prove to become the most illustrious and powerful ruler of Pontus, capable of challenging even Rome itself...
Mithrid
ates VI was surnamed Eupator and Dionysus to distinguish him from his father, Mithridates V Euergetes, who had been king of Pontus (northern Turkey) between 152/151 and 120. Euergetes was allied to Rome, which he supported during the Third Punic War (149-146). With this alliance, Euergetes could expand the power of Pontus from the shores of the Black Sea to central Anatolia, where he fought against king Ariarathes VI Epiphanes of Cappadocia
and forced the Paphlagonian ruler Pylaemenes to bequeath his realm to Pontus. His capital Sinope was home to a Hellenistic court, and Euergetes was willing to present himself in the Greek world as champion of Hellenism in Anatolia. In 120, he was murdered in Sinope, and left his kingdom to his wife, the Seleucid
princess Laodice, and their two sons, Mithridates Eupator and Mithridates Chrestus. Civil war was inevitable, but the boys were still young and their mother was able to postpone the conflict. Yet, in 116 (?), Mithridates Eupator was able to remove his mother from the throne, and not much later, his younger brother disappeared from the scene. Maybe the ruler of the Seleucid empire, Antiochus VIII Grypus, wanted to intervene on behalf of Laodice, but the Seleucids were involved in a civil war. In this way, Mithridates Eupator became sole ruler of Pontus. The young king continued his father's expansionist policy. In 115/114, he crossed the Black Sea and intervened in a conflict between the hellenistic kingdom at the Crimea (the "Bosporan kingdom") and its northern neighbor, the Scythians. The result of this intervention was that the Crimea was added to Pontus and a large part of the northern shore of the Black Sea became Mithridates' protectorate. New successes were to come. Paphlagonia was finally inherited and shared with the king of Bithynia, Nicomedes III Euergetes. In 104/103, Colchis (modern Georgia) was added and not much later, parts of western Armenia were conquered as well. Until now, the Roman Senate had not been really interested: after all, Anatolia was far away and besides, Rome was involved in wars against the Numidian king
Jugurtha and against the Germanic tribes of the Cimbri and Teutones. However, the conquest of Paphlagonia was not acceptable to the Senate, and the two kings had to evacuate the country they had seized. Mithridates was not deterred. Almost immediately, in 101, he intervened in Cappadocia and Galatia (in central Anatolia), but again, the Romans were not happy with this state of affairs, and their praetor Lucius Cornelius Sulla put a new king on the Cappadocian throne,
Ariobarzanes I Philoromaeus. Both men were to play a role in the next quarter of a century: Sulla became Mithridates' nemesis, and Ariobarzanes was to lose and regain his throne at least six times. The conflict with Rome that was to last for the rest of Mithridates' life became inevitable in 94, when Nicomedes III of Bithynia died and was succeeded by Nicomedes IV Philopator. The king of Pontus wanted to install Philopator's brother Socrates Chrestus in Bithynia, which was unacceptable to Rome: the Romans feared that Mithridates, whose empire consisted now of all countries surrounding the Black Sea, would become too powerful if a puppet would be king in Bithynia. The immediate cause, however, was Mithridates' attempt to replace Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia with his son
Ariarathes Eusebes. In 90, the Senate sent Manius Aquilius to the east, and he restored Nicomedes to Bithynia and Ariobarzanes to Cappadocia. The Roman leader also urged Nicomedes to raid Pontus, thinking that Mithridates would understand the lesson. However, the king of Pontus, learning that the Romans were now also involved in a civil war against their Italian allies, decided to retaliate, and in 89, war broke out.
Rome was unprepared. It had insufficient manpower to overcome its rebellious allies, and in 90, one of the consuls, Lucius Julius Caesar, had proposed to do concessions to the rebels. There were not enough Roman troops in Asia to protect this province; the fact that Aquilius had left the retaliatory raid against Pontus to Nicomedes IV of Bithynia suggests as much. As a consequence, Mithridates started the war spectacularly successful. Within weeks, he conquered all of Rome's Asian possessions, hardly encountering resistance. In the spring of 88, he ordered the execution of all Romans and Italians in the conquered area. According to our sources, about 80,000 were killed. Any possibility to reach a compromise was now blocked. In the summer, Mithridates was invited by the Athenians to liberate them from the Romans, and he sent his armies across the Aegean. In Athens, a man named Aristion became tyrant, and elsewhere Mithridates' general Archelaus was successful. Things would have gone terribly wrong for Rome, had not Quintus Braetius Sura, the deputy (
pro quaestore) of the governor of Macedonia, offered resistance. Only parts of Greece were lost; Macedonia remained under Roman control, although another Pontic army was active in the north and captured Amphipolis. At the same time, the Romans and their allies had finally ended their conflict, and the Romans sent their consul Sulla to the east. However, his appointment had been contested by his rival Gaius Marius, and Sulla had not been able to leave until he had marched on Rome and won a brief civil war. It was 87 when he finally crossed the Adriatic Sea, landed in Epirus, marched with five legions on Athens and started to besiege Aristion. At the same time, he tried to take Piraeus, the Athenian port, which was defended by Archelaus. The war was, even for ancient standards, harsh and bitter. The Mithridatic forces had already looted the sanctuary of Delos to obtain money to hire mercenaries; with the same purpose, the Romans looted Delphi. This was unusual. After a long siege, Athens and Piraeus fell. The columns of the temple of Zeus Olympius were sent to Rome, where they were used to decorate the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter. Mithridates' general Archelaus managed to escape and joined the army that had been operating in the north, which had by now reached Thessaly. Sulla immediately marched against the united troops, and defeated them at Chaeronea and Orchomenus. This was the end of the invasion of Europe by Mithridates' armies, and Sulla, who still was involved in a civil war at home and was in a hurry, started negotiations. At this moment, the situation became really complex. In Rome, the adherents of Sulla had suffered several setbacks, and the adherents of Marius' successor Cinna had reorganized the state. They had also sent an army against Mithridates, commanded by Lucius Valerius Flaccus and Gaius Flavius Fimbria, and Sulla wanted to receive the surrender of the king of Pontus before the latter would negotiate with Flaccus and Fimbria. Even worse (for Sulla) was that Fimbria invaded Asia itself and defeated Mithridates on the banks of the river Rhyndacus. Although beaten, the king was for some time able to play off Sulla against Fimbria, until Sulla arrived in Asia too. In the summer of 85, Mithridates and Sulla concluded the Peace of Dardanus. The king of Pontus surrendered a part of his fleet, evacuated all conquered territories, and was forced to pay a moderate indemnity of a mere 2,000 talents. Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia and Nicomedes of Bithynia were restored. Having achieved something that was essentially nothing but an armistice, Sulla could return to Italy, where he was able to overthrow the government, become dictator, and reorganize the republic. Mithridates had survived.
The Second Mithridatic War was a brief intermezzo of the Peace of Dardanus, based on a misunderstanding. The first war had been expensive and several parts of Mithridates' empire had become restless. Therefore, the king started to recruit soldiers. The Roman governor of Asi
a, Lucius Licinius Murena, thought that the king wanted to avenge himself and prepared for war. He invaded Pontus but was defeated. The conflict could have escalated, but Sulla, who was now sole ruler of Rome, ordered Mithridates to desist, which he did. He had restored his prestige. In the next years, he was able to restore his army too. He also allied himself to king Tigranes II the Great of Armenia, the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, the Roman rebel Sertorius in Hispania, Thracian tribes, and the notorious Cilician pirates. When war finally broke out, he even negotiated with the rebellious slave leader Spartacus. Moreover, his troops had been trained by a Roman officer, who had been sent to him by Sertorius. The immediate cause of the Third Mithridatic War was the death of king Nicomedes IV Philopator of Bithynia in 75/74. In his will, he bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans. Mithridates declared this will to be a falsification, occupied Bithynia, and installed a pretender, Nicomedes IV. The Senate replied that this man was a bastard, and war was declared. Rome was involved in several other dangerous wars (against Sertorius and Spartacus), but Mithridates had to discover that his enemies could be dangerous even when they were occupied in other theaters of war. The war was officially conducted by the Roman general Marcus Aurelius Cotta, who arrived in 73, was repelled by Mithridates, and found himself under siege at Calchedon. Far more dangerous was the governor of Asia and Cilicia,
Lucius Licinius Lucullus, who easily outwitted the king at Calchedon and Cyzicus, and forced him back from Bithynia to Pontus. The war could by now have been ended in a compromise, but Lucullus was confident that he could achieve more if he invaded Pontus, and Mithridates was confident that in Pontus, he could overcome his opponent. So in 72, the theater of war was transferred to the east. Fortress after fortress was besieged and taken by the Romans, the king had to retreat, and in 70, Lucullus had occupied all Mithridates' territories west of the river Euphrates
, including Sinope, the capital of Pontus. The defeated king fled to Armenia, where he hoped to find support from his son-in-law, king Tigranes the Great. Lucullus immediately sent envoys to ask for the king's extradition, and in the meantime reorganized the Asian provinces of the Roman empire, lowering the taxes and interest rate. This made him a lot of enemies in Rome, where many wealthy people had shares in tax-farming companies and saw their profits reduced. When king Tigranes II the Great of Armenia refused to extradite Mithridates, Lucullus launched a bold attack on Armenia. In 69, he crossed the Euphrates, proceeded through Mesopotamia, reached the Upper Tigris valley, defeated his enemies, besieged Tigranes' capital Tigranocerta, and finally took it after what had been -in spite of the fact that Tigranes had been able to escape- one of the most brilliant campaigns in ancient history. On his return to Mesopotamia, Lucullus also took Nisibis, and in 68, he invaded eastern Armenia, where he reached Artaxata (modern Yerevan). However, his enemies in Rome managed to secure his recall before he could achieve something. Even worse, Mithridates had been able to return to Pontus with an army that had been given to him by Tigranes. He invaded his own country, and overcame Lucullus' deputies (67). At the same time, the Cilician pirates were becoming increasingly dangerous towards the Romans, who decided to send their best commander, Pompey the Great, to deal with them. In a swift campaign, he overcame them, and in 66, he was allowed to finish the Third Mithridatic War as well. He allied himself to the Parthian king Phraates III, who invaded Armenia while Pompey was invading Pontus. Mithridates was again forced to flee to Armenia, but this time, his ally was unable to help him. Pompey finally defeated Mithridates at a place named Dasteira, which was later called
Nicopolis, "City of victory". But still, Mithridates was not dispirited. Early in 65, he reached his possessions north of the Black Sea, which were governed by his son Machares. The latter was not willing to take up arms against the Romans -after all, Lucullus had recognized him- and was therefore killed by his father, who was still hoping to build an army of Scythian and Thracian horsemen, and wanted to invade Rome's possessions on the Balkans. However, his luck was now running out. His son Pharnaces revolted and gained support of the last soldiers that were loyal to Mithridates. He committed suicide, and was later buried in Sinope, the capital of the kingdom he had lost. The three Mithridatic wars had important consequences. The eastern part of the Mediterranean world consisted of an unequal mix of Greek, Iranian, and other cultures. They could have been united in a large hellenistic empire that could rival with Rome; in fact it had been attempted before by the Seleucid kings Seleucus I Nicator and Antiochus III the Great. Mithridates was the third to try. Once his failure was understood, all countries east of the Euphrates fell to Rome: Pontus, Cilicia, the remains of the Seleucid empire, Judaea, and Crete. They became new provinces of the Roman empire, and had close ties to the center of power, being protected by powerful politicians like Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompey.
Pharnaces II was the last true king of the great dynasty to rule Pontus. Following his father's death he made several overtures to Pompey Magnus to bring peace to his exhausted kingdom, including sending the body of his father as proof of his sincerity. Content wit this display, Pompey agreed to a peace treaty and awarded Pharnaces with the Bosporan kingdom as an appendage to his own. Fourteen years later during the civil war between Pompey and Caesar, and having perhaps lost his fear of the Romans, Pharnaces broke the peace treaty and conquered Colchis and parts of Armenia with an overwhelming army. He later defeated an inexperienced Roman army sent against him, but his temperament quickly changed when he found out that Caesar himself was marching against him. His attempts to buy time for his army to recover from their recent conquests failed, and he was swiftly defeated by Caesar at the Battle of Zela after a mere five-day campaign leading to the famous quote "Veni, vidi, vici". Following this he fled to the Bosporus and managed to muster a small army made up of Scythians and Sarmatians before he was killed in battle. After his death his son Darius was placed as a puppet king of Pontus by Marc Antony. His daughter would be placed upon the Bosporan Throne, and her descendents would continue to rule the Crimea until the 4th Century CE IOTL. Darius' reign would be short, and he would be succeeded by his brother Arsaces, who would reign just as briefly. In 36 BCE the Mithridatic Dynasty would be replaced by that of Polemon I's, an Anatolian Greek Aristocrat with ties to Mark Antony. In 36 BC, Polemon assisted Antony in his military campaign against Parthia. The Parthians defeated Antony and Polemon. Polemon was captured and taken prisoner by the Parthian King. After a ransom was allowed, Polemon was released. By this time, Polemon was ruling from Iconium (modern Konya) in Lycaonia. In 35 BC, Polemon assisted Antony in making an alliance with Artavasdes I of Media Atropatene with Rome, whom the Median King was an ally to Parthia. Both Antony and Polemon, succeeded in this alliance to happen. During the naval Battle of Actium in 31 BC, Polemon had sent Antony an auxiliary force. Before Actium, Polemon made peace with the triumvir Octavian and became his ally. After the death of Antony, Octavian became the Roman emperor Augustus. Augustus early in his reign had acknowledged and recognized Polemon as a Roman Client King and the Client Kingdoms he ruled. Augustus awarded Polemon with an ivory scepter; an embroidered triumphal robe and he greeted Polemon as
king, ally and friend. This recognition was a tradition, which recognises and awards the allies to Rome. As King of the Bosporan, he extended the Kingdom as far to the river Tanais. Polemon reigned as a long and prosperous king. In 8 BC, Polemon engaged in a military campaign against the Aspurgiani, a nomad tribe that lived above the mountains of Phanagoria. Polemon was defeated by them, taken as their prisoner and was put to death. His stepson Aspurgus succeeded him in the Bosporus, and his second wife, Pythodorida, succeeded him in Pontus. She married King Archelaus of Cappadocia afterwards and reigned also as Queen of Cappadocia until his death in 17 CE, which Rome turned into a province hereafter. In later years her son, Polemon II assisted his mother in the administration of the kingdom. When Pythodorida died, Polemon II succeeded her. Pythodorida was a friend and contemporary to the Greek geographer
Strabo. Strabo is said to have described Pythodorida as a woman of virtuous character. Strabo considered her to have a great capacity for business and considered that under Pythodorida’s rule, Pontus had flourished.
Polemon II is the current King of Pontus and IOTL the final King, getting deposed by Nero in 62 CE so Pontus could become a Roman Province. The Pontic royal family was of mixed Anatolian Greek and Roman origin. His paternal grandmother is unknown; however his paternal grandmother could have been named Tryphaena, while his paternal grandfather was Zenon, a prominent orator and aristocrat, who was an ally to Roman Triumvir Mark Antony. His maternal grandparents were Pythodoros of Tralles, a wealthy Greek and friend of Pompey, and Antonia. Polemon II was the namesake of his parents and his maternal grandparents. Through his maternal grandmother he was a direct descendant of Mark Antony and his second wife Antonia Hybrida Minor. Antony and Antonia Hybrida were first paternal cousins. He was Antony’s second born great grandson and great grandchild. Polemon II is the only known male descendant of Mark Antony that carries his name. The other male descendant of Mark Antony who carries a form of his name
Antonius was the consul Quintus Haterius Antoninus. Through Antony, his great maternal aunt was Queen Cleopatra Selene II of Mauretania. Through Antony, he was a distant cousin to Roman Client King Ptolemy of Mauretania and the princesses named Drusilla of Mauretania. Through Antony, he was also a distant cousin to Roman emperors Caligula, Claudius and Nero and Roman empresses Valeria Messalina, Agrippina the Younger and Claudia Octavia. Polemon II’s father died in 8 BC. His mother then married King Archelaus of Cappadocia, and the family had moved to Cappadocia, where Polemon II was raised, along with his siblings, at the court of his stepfather. Archelaus died in 17, whereupon Polemon II and his mother moved back to Pontus. From 17 until 38, Polemon II lived as a private citizen in Pontus and assisted his mother in the administration of their realm. When his mother died in 38, Polemon II succeeded his mother as the sole ruler of Pontus, Colchis and Cilicia. According to an honorary inscription at Cyzicus in 38, Polemon II participated in celebrating the local games in the city, honoring Julia Drusilla, the late sister of Caligula; in this way Polemon II expressed his loyalty to the emperor and the Roman state. Polemon II with another Roman Client King Antiochus IV of Commagene, held athletic games in honor of Claudius in Cilicia in 47. Antiochus IV with Polemon II had showed favor towards Claudius in which they offered significant services to him. Around 50, Polemon II was attracted to the wealth and beauty of the Judean princess Julia Berenice, whom he had met in Tiberias during a visit to King Agrippa I. Berenice in turn wanted to marry Polemon II to end rumors that she and her brother were committing incest. Berenice was previously widowed in 48 when her second husband, her paternal uncle Herod of Chalcis, died. She had two sons by him, Berenicianus and Hyrcanus. Berenice however set the condition that Polemon II had to convert to Judaism, which included undergoing the rite of circumcision, before marriage. Polemon II assented, and the marriage went ahead. It did not last long however, and Berenice left Pontus with her sons and returned to the court of her brother. Polemon II abandoned Judaism and, according to the legend of Bartholomew the Apostle, he accepted Christianity, but only to become a pagan again. At an unknown date perhaps after the early 50s, Polemon II married a princess called Julia Mamaea who was from the Syrian Roman Client Emesene Kingdom. Mamaea was of Assyrian, Armenian, Greek and Median ancestry. Polemon II married Mamaea as his second wife and the circumstances that lead Polemon II to marry her are unknown. Through Mamaea’s marriage to him, she became a Roman Client Queen of Pontus, Colchis and Cilicia. The relationship between Polemon II and Mamaea is unknown. Mamaea marrying Polemon II is only known through surviving evidence. Her name and identity is revealed from surviving bronze coinage. Surviving coinage that was issued from Polemon II and Mamaea is extremely rare, as only three specimens are known. On surviving coinage, shows her royal title in Greek (
of Julia Mamaea the Queen) (
of Queen Julia Mamaea). These coins can be dated from the second half of Polemon II’s reign from 60 until 74. She bore Polemon II two sons who were Polemon and Rheometalces. Her sons that she bore to Polemon II are known from a restored surviving inscription from Amphipolis Greece, that is commemorating Polemon II, Polemon and Rheometalces is dated from the second half of the 1st century. Polemon II renamed the town Fanizan and named the town after himself to Polemonium (modern Fatsa Turkey). In 62, Nero induced Polemon II to abdicate the Pontian throne, and Pontus, including Colchis, became a Roman province. From then until his death, Polemon II only ruled Cilicia IOTL. Perhaps Brittanicus shall be kinder to the fate of his realm, and keep it's client status like Armenia...
Part II - The Breadbasket of The Steppe - The Kingdom of Cimmerian Bosporus
The Bosporan Kingdom (also known as the
Kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus) was an ancient state located in eastern Crimea and the Taman Peninsula, on the shores of the Cimmerian Bosporus (now known as the Strait of Kerch). It was named after the Bosphorus, also known as Istanbul Strait, a different strait that divides Asia from Europe. The Bosporan Kingdom was the longest surviving Roman client kingdom IOTL. It was a Roman province from 63 to 68, under Emperor Nero. The 1st and 2nd centuries BCE saw a period of renewed golden age of the Bosporan state. In the end of the 2nd century, the King Sauromates II inflicted a critical defeat to the Scyths and included all the territories of the Crimea in the structure of his state. The prosperity of the Bosporan Kingdom was based on the export of wheat, fish and slaves.The profit of the trade supported a class whose conspicuous wealth is still visible from newly discovered archaeological finds, excavated, often illegally, from numerous burial barrows known as
kurgans. The once-thriving cities of the Bosporan left extensive architectural and sculptural remains, while the kurgans continue to yield spectacular Greco-Sarmatian objects, the best examples of which are now preserved in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. These include gold work, vases imported from Athens, coarse terracottas, textile fragments and specimens of carpentry and marquetry. The whole area was dotted with Greek cities: in the west, Panticapaeum (Kerch)—the most significant city in the region, Nymphaeum and Myrmekion; on the east Phanagoria (the second city of the region), Kepoi, Germonassa, Portus Sindicus and Gorgippia. These Greek colonies were originally settled by Milesians in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE. Phanagoria (c. 540 BCE) was a colony of Teos, and the foundation of Nymphaeum may have had a connection with Athens; at least it appears to have been a member of the Delian League in the 5th century. Spartocus founded a dynasty which seems to have endured until c. 110 BCE, known as the
Spartocids. The Spartocids left many inscriptions, indicating that the earliest members of the house ruled under the titles of archons of the Greek cities and kings of various minor native tribes, notably the Sindi (from central Crimea) and other branches of the Maeotae. Surviving material (texts, inscriptions and coins) do not supply enough information to reconstruct a complete chronology of kings of the region. Satyrus (431 – 387 BCE), successor to Spartocus, established his rule over the whole region, adding Nymphaeum to his kingdom and besieging Theodosia, which was wealthy because, unlike other cities in the region, it had a port which was free of ice throughout the year, allowing it to trade grain with the rest of the Greek world, even in winter. Satyrus' son Leucon (387 – 347 BCE) would eventually take the city. He was succeeded jointly by his two sons, Spartocus II, and Paerisades; Spartocus died in 342, allowing Paerisades to reign alone until 310. After Paerisades' death, a civil war between his sons Satyrus and Eumelus was fought. Satyrus defeated his younger brother Eumelus at the Battle of the River Thatis in 310 BCE but then was killed in battle, giving Eumelus the throne. Eumelus' successor was Spartocus III (303 – 283 BCE) and after him Paerisades II. Succeeding princes repeated the family names, so it is impossible to assign them a definite order. The last of them, however, Paerisades V, unable to make headway against increasingly violent attacks from nomadic tribes in the area, called in the help of Diophantus, general of King Mithridates VI of Pontus, leaving him his kingdom. Paerisades was killed by a Scythian named Saumacus who led a rebellion against him.
The house of Spartocus was well known as a line of enlightened and wise princes; although Greek opinion could not deny that they were, strictly speaking, tyrants, they are always described as dynasts. They maintained close relations with Athens, their best customer for the Bosporan grain exports: Leucon I of Bosporus created privileges for Athenian ships at Bosporan ports. The Attic orators make numerous references to this. In return the Athenians granted Leucon Athenian citizenship and made decrees in honour of him and his sons. After his defeat by Roman General Pompey in 63 BCE, King Mithridates VI of Pontus fled with a small army from Colchis (modern Georgia) over the Caucasus Mountains to Crimea and made plans to raise yet another army to take on the Romans. His eldest living son, Machares, regent of Cimmerian Bosporus, was unwilling to aid his father, so Mithridates had Machares killed, acquiring the throne for himself. Mithridates then ordered the conscriptions and preparations for war. In 63 BCE, Pharnaces, the youngest son of Mithridates, led a rebellion against his father, joined by Roman exiles in the core of Mithridates's Pontic army. Mithridates VI withdrew to the citadel in Panticapaeum, where he committed suicide. Pompey buried Mithridates VI in the rock-cut tombs of his ancestors in Amasia, the capital of the Kingdom of Pontus. After the death of Mithridates VI (63 BCE), Pharnaces II (63 – 47 BCE) suplicated to Pompey, and then tried to regain his dominion during Julius Caesar's Civil War, but was defeated by Caesar at the Zela and was later killed by his former governor and son-in-law Asander. Before the death of Pharnaces II, Asander had married Pharnaces II’s daughter Dynamis. Asander and Dynamis were the ruling monarchs until Caesar commanded a paternal uncle of Dynamis, Mithridates II to declare war on the Bosporan Kingdom and claimed the kingship for himself. Asander and Dynamis were defeated by Caesar’s ally and went into political exile. However, after Caesar’s death in 44 BCE, the Bosporan Kingdom was restored to Asander and Dynamis by Caesar’s great nephew and heir Octavian. Asander ruled as an archon and later as king until his death in 17 BCE. After the death of Asander, Dynamis was compelled to marry a Roman usurper called Scribonius, but the Romans under Agrippa intervened and established Polemon I of Pontus (16 – 8 BCE) in his place. Polemon married Dynamis in 16 BCE and she died in 14 BCE. Polemon ruled as king until his death in 8 BCE. After the death of Polemon, Aspurgus, the son of Dynamis and Asander, succeeded Polemon.
After the death of Polemon I, Aspurgus succeeded his stepfather. Little is known on Aspurgus’ reign; however he seemed to have been a strong and capable ruler. Due to previous dynastic conflicts during the Roman Republic and around the period of Asander’s death, the first Roman Emperor Augustus and the Roman Senate finally in 14, accepted Aspurgus as the legitimate Bosporan King. Aspurgus adopted the Roman names "Tiberius Julius", because he received Roman citizenship and enjoyed the patronage of Augustus and his heir Tiberius. He was succeded by his son Mithridates III in 38 CE. Mithridates was the first son of Roman Client Monarchs Aspurgus and Gepaepyris. His younger brother was prince and future King Cotys I. He was a prince of Greek, Iranian and Roman ancestry. He was the first grandchild and grandson of Bosporan Monarchs Asander and Dynamis and Roman Client Rulers of Thrace, Cotys VIII and Antonia Tryphaena. Through his maternal grandmother Antonia Tryphaena, he was a descendant of Roman triumvir Mark Antony. Tryphaena was the first great granddaughter born to the triumvir. Through Tryphaena, Mithridates was also related to various members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Through Aspurgus, Mithridates was a descendant of the Greek Macedonian Kings: Antigonus I Monophthalmus, Seleucus I Nicator and Regent, Antipater. These three men served under King Alexander the Great. Mithridates was named in honor of his ancestor King Mithridates VI of Pontus. Mithridates VI was the paternal grandfather, of his paternal grandmother Dynamis. Little is known on the early life of Mithridates. When Aspurgus died in 38, Mithridates had become joint ruler with his mother, Gepaepyris. Sometime before 45, the Roman Emperor Claudius, had given Mithridates the whole Bosporan Kingdom to rule. Claudius recognised and appointed him as the legitimate Bosporan King. In 45 for unknown reasons Claudius, deposed Mithridates from the Bosporan throne and replaced him with his younger brother Cotys I. Claudius had withdrawn the Roman garrison under Aulus Didius Gallus from the Bosporan Kingdom and a few Roman cohorts were left with the Roman Knight Gaius Julius Aquila in the Bosporan. Mithridates despised the situation. He mistrusted Cotys I, Aquila and attempted to regain his throne. Mithridates was able to entice the leaders of the local tribes and deserters into his allies. He was able to seize control of the local tribes and collect an army to declare war on Cotys I and Aquila. When Cotys I and Aquila heard news of this war, they feared that the invasion was imminent. Both men knew they had the support of Claudius. Mithridates with his army, engaged in war with Cotys I’s army and Aquila’s battalions, in a three-day war, which Cotys I and Aquila won unscathed and triumphant at the Don River. Mithridates knew that resistance was hopeless and considered an appeal to Claudius. Mithridates turned to a local tribesman called Eunones, to help him. Eunones, sent envoys to Rome to Claudius with a letter from Mithridates. In Mithridates’ letter to the Emperor, Mithridates greeted and addressed him with great honor and respect from one ruler to another ruler. Mithridates asked Claudius for a pardon and to be spared from a triumphal procession or capital punishment. Claudius wasn’t sure how to punish or deal with Mithridates. Mithridates was captured and brought to Rome as a prisoner. He was displayed as a public figure beside the platform in the Roman Forum along with his guards and his expression remained undoubted. Claudius was impressed with Mithridates’ mercy from his letter and allowed Mithridates to live. He was spared from any capital punishment and was exiled. Mithridates lived as a destitute exiled monarch until his death. He never married nor had children. The current Bosporan King is his brother Cotys I, rulings since 46 CE. Little is known on the life of Cotys I. When Aspurgus died in 38, his brother had become joint rulers with his mother. Sometime before 45, the Roman Emperor Claudius, had given his brother the whole Bosporan Kingdom to rule. Claudius recognised and appointed Mithridates as the legitimate Bosporan King. In 45 for unknown reasons Claudius, deposed Mithridates from the Bosporan throne and Claudius replaced Mithridates with him. Claudius had withdrawn the Roman garrison under Aulus Didius Gallus from the Bosporan Kingdom and a few Roman cohorts were left with the Roman Knight Gaius Julius Aquila in the Bosporan. Cotys I’s brother despised the situation and mistrusted him and Aquila. Mithridates attempted to regain his throne. Mithridates was able to entice the leaders of the local tribes and deserters into his allies. He was able to seize control of the local tribes and collect an army to declare war on Cotys I and Aquila. When Cotys I and Aquila heard news of this war, they feared that the invasion was imminent. Both men knew they had the support of Claudius. Mithridates with his army, engaged in war with Cotys I’s army and Aquila’s battalions, in a three-day war, which Cotys I and Aquila won unscathed and triumphant at the Don River. Mithridates was forced by Claudius to surrender. Mithridates was captured and taken to Rome as a prisoner. He was displayed as a public figure beside the platform in the Roman Forum along with his guards and his expression remained undoubted. Mithridates appealed to the Emperor for mercy to be spared from a triumphal procession or capital punishment. Claudius was impressed with Mithridates’ mercy from his letter and allowed Mithridates to live. He was spared from any capital punishment and was exiled. Cotys I’s brother lived as a destitute exiled monarch until his death. From 45 until 63, Cotys I reigned as Roman Client King of the Bosporan Kingdom. Sometime during his reign, Cotys I had married a Greek noblewoman called Eunice, through whom had a son called Tiberius Julius Rhescuporis I. Cotys I named his son, after Rhescuporis II, a Thracian prince and king, who was a paternal uncle of his maternal grandfather. The prosperity of his kingdom now lies in the hands of the new Emperor Brittanicus...
Part III - Venerating the Hanukkah and Crucifix - The Herodian Client Kingdom of Judea
Israel and Judah were related Iron Age kingdoms of the ancient Levant. The Kingdom of Israel emerged as an important local power by the 9th century BCE before falling to the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 722 BCE. Israel's southern neighbor, the Kingdom of Judah, emerged in the 8th century and enjoyed a period of prosperity as a client-state of first Assyria and then Babylon before a revolt against the Neo-Babylonian Empire led to its destruction in 586 BCE. Following the fall of Babylon to the Persian king Cyrus the Great, 539 BCE, some Judean exiles returned to Jerusalem, inaugurating the formative period in the development of a distinctive Judahite identity in the Persian province of Yehud. Yehud was absorbed into the subsequent Hellenistic kingdoms that followed the conquests of Alexander the Great, but in the 2nd century BCE the Judaeans revolted against the Hellenist Seleucid Empire and created the Hasmonean kingdom. This, the last nominally independent Judean kingdom, came to an end in 63 BCE with its conquest by Pompey of Rome. The eastern Mediterranean seaboard – the Levant – stretches 400 miles north to south from the Taurus Mountains to the Sinai desert, and 70 to 100 miles east to west between the sea and the Arabian desert. The coastal plain of the southern Levant, broad in the south and narrowing to the north, is backed in its southernmost portion by a zone of foothills, the Shephelah; like the plain this narrows as it goes northwards, ending in the promontory of Mount Carmel. East of the plain and the Shephelah is a mountainous ridge, the "hill country of Judah" in the south, the "hill country of Ephraim" north of that, then Galilee and the Lebanon mountains. To the east again lie the steep-sided valley occupied by the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and the wadi of the Arabah, which continues down to the eastern arm of the Red Sea. Beyond the plateau is the Syrian desert, separating the Levant from Mesopotamia. To the southwest is Egypt, to the northeast Mesopotamia. The location and geographical characteristics of the narrow Levant made the area a battleground among the powerful entities that surrounded it. Canaan in the Late Bronze Age was a shadow of what it had been centuries earlier: many cities were abandoned, others shrank in size, and the total settled population was probably not much more than a hundred thousand. Settlement was concentrated in cities along the coastal plain and along major communication routes; the central and northern hill country which would later become the biblical kingdom of Israel was only sparsely inhabited although letters from the Egyptian archives indicate that Jerusalem was already a Canaanite city-state recognising Egyptian overlordship. Politically and culturally it was dominated by Egypt, each city under its own ruler, constantly at odds with its neighbours, and appealing to the Egyptians to adjudicate their differences. The Canaanite city-state system broke down at the end of the Late Bronze period, and Canaanite culture was then gradually absorbed into that of the Philistines, Phoenicians and Israelites. The process was gradual rather than swift: a strong Egyptian presence continued into the 12th century BCE, and, while some Canaanite cities were destroyed, others continued to exist in Iron I. The name Israel first appears in the stele of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah c. 1209 BCE, "Israel is laid waste and his seed is no more." This "Israel" was a cultural and probably political entity of the central highlands, well enough established to be perceived by the Egyptians as a possible challenge to their hegemony, but an ethnic group rather than an organised state; Archaeologist Paula McNutt says: "It is probably ... during Iron Age I [that] a population began to identify itself as 'Israelite'," differentiating itself from its neighbours via prohibitions on intermarriage, an emphasis on family history and genealogy, and religion. In the Late Bronze Age there were no more than about 25 villages in the highlands, but this increased to over 300 by the end of Iron I, while the settled population doubled from 20,000 to 40,000. The villages were more numerous and larger in the north, and probably shared the highlands with pastoral nomads who left no remains. Archaeologists and historians attempting to trace the origins of these villagers have found it impossible to identify any distinctive features that could define them as specifically Israelite – collared-rim jars and four-room houses have been identified outside the highlands and thus cannot be used to distinguish Israelite sites, and while the pottery of the highland villages is far more limited than that of lowland Canaanite sites, it develops typologically out of Canaanite pottery that came before. Israel Finkelstein proposed that the oval or circular layout that distinguishes some of the earliest highland sites, and the notable absence of pig bones from hill sites, could be taken as a marker of ethnicity, but others have cautioned that these can be a "common-sense" adaptation to highland life and not necessarily revelatory of origins. Other Aramaean sites also demonstrate a contemporary absence of pig remains at that time, unlike earlier Canaanite and later Philistine excavations. Modern scholars therefore see Israel arising peacefully and internally in the highlands.
Unusually favourable climatic conditions in the first two centuries of Iron Age II brought about an expansion of population, settlements and trade throughout the region. In the central highlands this resulted in unification in a kingdom with the city of Samaria as its capital, possibly by the second half of the 10th century BCE when an inscription of the Egyptian pharaoh Shoshenq I, the biblical Shishak, records a series of campaigns directed at the area. Israel had clearly emerged by the middle of the 9th century BCE, when the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III names "Ahab the Israelite" among his enemies at the battle of Qarqar (853). At this time Israel was apparently engaged in a three-way contest with Damascus and Tyre for control of the Jezreel Valley and Galilee in the north, and with Moab, Ammon and Damascus in the east for control of Gilead; the Mesha stele (c. 830), left by a king of Moab, celebrates his success in throwing off the oppression of the "House of Omri" (i.e., Israel). It bears what is generally thought to be the earliest extra-biblical Semitic reference to the name
Yahweh (YHWH), whose temple goods were plundered by Mesha and brought before his own god Kemosh. French scholar André Lemaire has reconstructed a portion of line 31 of the stele as mentioning the "House of David". The Tel Dan stele (c. 841) tells of the death of a king of Israel, probably Jehoram, at the hands of a king of Aram Damascus. A century later Israel came into increasing conflict with the expanding neo-Assyrian empire, which first split its territory into several smaller units and then destroyed its capital, Samaria (722). Both the biblical and Assyrian sources speak of a massive deportation of people from Israel and their replacement with settlers from other parts of the empire – such population exchanges were an established part of Assyrian imperial policy, a means of breaking the old power structure - and the former Israel never again became an independent political entity. Judah emerged somewhat later than Israel, probably during the 9th century BCE, but the subject is one of considerable controversy. There are indications that during the 10th and 9th centuries BCE, the southern highlands had been divided between a number of centres, none with clear primacy. During the reign of Hezekiah, between c. 715 and 686 BCE, a notable increase in the power of the Judean state can be observed. This is reflected in archaeological sites and findings, such as the Broad Wall; a defensive city wall in Jerusalem; and Hezekiah's Tunnel, an aqueduct designed to provide Jerusalem with water during an impending siege by the Assyrians led by Sennacherib; and the Siloam Inscription, a lintel inscription found over the doorway of a tomb, has been ascribed to comptroller Shebna. LMLK seals on storage jar handles, excavated from strata in and around that formed by Sennacherib's destruction, appear to have been used throughout Sennacherib's 29-year reign, along with Bullae from sealed documents, some that belonged to Hezekiah himself and others that name his servants; King Ahaz's Seal is a piece of reddish-brown clay that belonged to King Ahaz of Judah, who ruled from 732 to 716 BCE. This seal contains not only the name of the king, but the name of his father, King Yehotam. In addition, Ahaz is specifically identified as "king of Judah." The Hebrew inscription, which is set on three lines, reads as follows: "l'hz*y/hwtm*mlk*/yhdh", which translates as "belonging to Ahaz (son of) Yehotam, King of Judah." In the 7th century Jerusalem grew to contain a population many times greater than earlier and achieved clear dominance over its neighbours. This occurred at the same time that Israel was being destroyed by Assyria, and was probably the result of a cooperative arrangement with the Assyrians to establish Judah as an Assyrian vassal controlling the valuable olive industry. Judah prospered as an Assyrian vassal state (despite a disastrous rebellion against Sennacherib), but in the last half of the 7th century BCE Assyria suddenly collapsed, and the ensuing competition between the Egyptian and Neo-Babylonian empires for control of Palestine led to the destruction of Judah in a series of campaigns between 597 and 582.
Babylonian Judah suffered a steep decline in both economy and population and lost the Negev, the Shephelah, and part of the Judean hill country, including Hebron, to encroachments from Edom and other neighbours. Jerusalem, while probably not totally abandoned, was much smaller than previously, and the town of Mizpah in Benjamin in the relatively unscathed northern section of the kingdom became the capital of the new Babylonian province of Yehud Medinata. (This was standard Babylonian practice: when the Philistine city of Ashkalon was conquered in 604, the political, religious and economic elite [but not the bulk of the population] was banished and the administrative centre shifted to a new location). There is also a strong probability that for most or all of the period the temple at Bethel in Benjamin replaced that at Jerusalem, boosting the prestige of Bethel's priests (the Aaronites) against those of Jerusalem (the Zadokites), now in exile in Babylon. The Babylonian conquest entailed not just the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, but the liquidation of the entire infrastructure which had sustained Judah for centuries. The most significant casualty was the state ideology of "Zion theology," the idea that the god of Israel had chosen Jerusalem for his dwelling-place and that the Davidic dynasty would reign there forever. The fall of the city and the end of Davidic kingship forced the leaders of the exile community – kings, priests, scribes and prophets – to reformulate the concepts of community, faith and politics. The exile community in Babylon thus became the source of significant portions of the Hebrew Bible: Isaiah 40–55; Ezekiel; the final version of Jeremiah; the work of the priestly source in the Pentateuch; and the final form of the history of Israel from Deuteronomy to 2 Kings. Theologically, the Babylonian exiles were responsible for the doctrines of individual responsibility and universalism (the concept that one god controls the entire world) and for the increased emphasis on purity and holiness. Most significantly, the trauma of the exile experience led to the development of a strong sense of Hebrew identity distinct from other peoples, with increased emphasis on symbols such as circumcision and Sabbath-observance to sustain that distinction. The concentration of the biblical literature on the experience of the exiles in Babylon disguises the fact that the great majority of the population remained in Judah; for them, life after the fall of Jerusalem probably went on much as it had before. It may even have improved, as they were rewarded with the land and property of the deportees, much to the anger of the community of exiles remaining in Babylon. The assassination around 582 of the Babylonian governor by a disaffected member of the former royal House of David provoked a Babylonian crackdown, possibly reflected in the Book of Lamentations, but the situation seems to have soon stabilised again. Nevertheless, those unwalled cities and towns that remained were subject to slave raids by the Phoenicians and intervention in their internal affairs by Samaritans, Arabs, and Ammonites.
When Babylon fell to the Persian Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE, Judah (or Yehud medinata, the "province of Yehud") became an administrative division within the Persian empire. Cyrus was succeeded as king by Cambyses, who added Egypt to the empire, incidentally transforming Yehud and the Philistine plain into an important frontier zone. His death in 522 was followed by a period of turmoil until Darius the Great seized the throne in about 521. Darius introduced a reform of the administrative arrangements of the empire including the collection, codification and administration of local law codes, and it is reasonable to suppose that this policy lay behind the redaction of the Jewish Torah. After 404 the Persians lost control of Egypt, which became Persia's main rival outside Europe, causing the Persian authorities to tighten their administrative control over Yehud and the rest of the Levant. Egypt was eventually reconquered, but soon afterward Persia fell to Alexander the Great, ushering in the Hellenistic period in the Levant. Yehud's population over the entire period was probably never more than about 30,000 and that of Jerusalem no more than about 1,500, most of them connected in some way to the Temple. According to the biblical history, one of the first acts of Cyrus, the Persian conqueror of Babylon, was to commission Jewish exiles to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple, a task which they are said to have completed c. 515. Yet it was probably not until the middle of the next century, at the earliest, that Jerusalem again became the capital of Judah. The Persians may have experimented initially with ruling Yehud as a Davidic client-kingdom under descendants of Jehoiachin, but by the mid–5th century BCE, Yehud had become, in practice, a theocracy, ruled by hereditary high priests, with a Persian-appointed governor, frequently Jewish, charged with keeping order and seeing that taxes (tribute) were collected and paid. According to the biblical history, Ezra and Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem in the middle of the 5th century BCE, the former empowered by the Persian king to enforce the Torah, the latter holding the status of governor with a royal commission to restore Jerusalem's walls. The biblical history mentions tension between the returnees and those who had remained in Yehud, the returnees rebuffing the attempt of the "peoples of the land" to participate in the rebuilding of the Temple; this attitude was based partly on the exclusivism that the exiles had developed while in Babylon and, probably, also partly on disputes over property. During the 5th century BCE, Ezra and Nehemiah attempted to re-integrate these rival factions into a united and ritually pure society, inspired by the prophesies of Ezekiel and his followers. The Persian era, and especially the period between 538 and 400 BCE, laid the foundations for the Jewish and Christian religions and the beginning of a scriptural canon. Other important landmarks in this period include the replacement of Hebrew as the everyday language of Judah by Aramaic (although Hebrew continued to be used for religious and literary purposes) and Darius's reform of the empire's bureaucracy, which may have led to extensive revisions and reorganizations of the Jewish Torah. The Israel of the Persian period consisted of descendants of the inhabitants of the old kingdom of Judah, returnees from the Babylonian exile community, Mesopotamians who had joined them or had been exiled themselves to Samaria at a far earlier period, Samaritans, and others.
The Hasmonean Dynasty was the ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during classical antiquity. Between c. 140 and c. 116 BC, the dynasty ruled semi-autonomously from the Seleucids in the region of Judea. From 110 BC, with the Seleucid empire disintegrating, the dynasty became fully independent, expanded into the neighbouring regions of Galilee, Iturea, Perea, Idumea and Samaria, and took the title "basileus". Some modern scholars refer to this period as an independent kingdom of Israel. In 63 BC, the kingdom was conquered by the Roman Republic, broken up and set up as a Roman client state. The Kingdom had survived for 103 years before yielding to the Herodian Dynasty in 37 BC. Even then, Herod the Great tried to bolster the legitimacy of his reign by marrying a Hasmonean princess, Mariamne, and planning to drown the last male Hasmonean heir at his Jericho palace. The dynasty was established under the leadership of Simon Maccabaeus, two decades after his brother Judas the Maccabee ("Hammer") defeated the Seleucid army during the Maccabean Revolt. According to historical sources, including 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees and the first book of
The Wars of the Jews by OTL Jewish historian Josephus (AD 37–c. 100), after Antiochus IV's successful invasion of Ptolemaic Egypt was turned back by the intervention of the Roman Republic, Antiochus instead moved to assert strict control over Israel, sacking Jerusalem and its Temple, suppressing Jewish religious and cultural observances, and imposing Hellenistic practices. The ensuing revolt by the Jews (167 BC) began a twenty-five-year period of Jewish independence potentiated by the steady collapse of the Seleucid Empire under attacks from the rising powers of the Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire. However, the same power vacuum that enabled the Jewish state to be recognized by the Roman Senate c. 139 BC was later exploited by the Romans themselves. Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, Simon's great-grandsons, became pawns in a proxy war between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great. The deaths of Pompey (48 BC), Caesar (44 BC), and the related Roman civil wars temporarily relaxed Rome's grip on Israel, allowing a very brief Hasmonean resurgence backed by the Parthian Empire. This short independence was rapidly crushed by the Romans under Mark Antony and Octavian. The installation of Herod the Great (an Idumean) as king in 37 BC made Israel a Roman client state and marked the end of the Hasmonean dynasty. In AD 6, Rome joined Judea proper, Samaria and Idumea (biblical Edom) into the Roman province of Iudaea. In AD 44, Rome installed the rule of a Roman procurator side by side with the rule of the Herodian kings (specifically Agrippa I 41–44 and Agrippa II 50–100).
The first intervention of Rome in the region dates from 63 BCE, following the end of the Third Mithridatic War, when Rome created the province of Syria. After the defeat of Mithridates VI of Pontus, Pompey (Pompey the Great) sacked Jerusalem in 63 BCE. The region at the time was not a peaceful place. The Hasmonean Queen of Judea, Salome Alexandra, had recently died and her sons, Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, turned against each other in a civil war. In 63 BCE, Aristobulus was besieged in Jerusalem by his brother's armies. He sent an envoy to Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, Pompey's representative in the area. Aristobulus offered a massive bribe to be rescued, which Pompey promptly accepted. Afterwards, Aristobulus accused Scaurus of extortion. Since Scaurus was Pompey's brother in law and protégée, the general retaliated by putting Hyrcanus in charge of the kingdom as Prince and High Priest. When Pompey was defeated by Julius Caesar, Hyrcanus was succeeded by his courtier Antipater the Idumaean, also known as Antipas, as the first Roman Procurator. In 57-55 BCE, Aulus Gabinius, proconsul of Syria, split the former Hasmonean Kingdom into five districts of Sanhedrin/Synedrion (councils of law). After Julius Caesar was murdered in 44 BCE, Quintus Labienus, a Roman republican general and ambassador to the Parthians, sided with Brutus and Cassius in the Liberators' civil war; after their defeat Labienus joined the Parthians and assisted them in invading Roman territories in 40 BCE. The Parthian army crossed the Euphrates and Labienus was able to entice Mark Antony's Roman garrisons around Syria to rally to his cause. The Parthians split their army, and under Pacorus conquered the Levant from the Phoenician coast through the Land of Israel: "
Antigonus... roused the Parthians to invade Syria and Palestine, [and] the Jews eagerly rose in support of the scion of the Maccabean house, and drove out the hated Idumeans with their puppet Jewish king. The struggle between the people and the Romans had begun in earnest, and though Antigonus, when placed on the throne by the Parthians, proceeded to spoil and harry the Jews, rejoicing at the restoration of the Hasmonean line, thought a new era of independence had come." When Phasael and Hyrcanus II set out on an embassy to the Parthians, the Parthians instead captured them. Antigonus, who was present, cut off Hyrcanus's ears to make him unsuitable for the High Priesthood, while Phasael was put to death. Antigonus, whose Hebrew name was Mattathias, bore the double title of king and High Priest for only three years, as he had not disposed of Herod, the most dangerous of his enemies. Herod fled into exile and sought the support of Mark Antony. Herod was designated "King of the Jews" by the Roman Senate in 40 BCE. The struggle thereafter lasted for some years, as the main Roman forces were occupied with defeating the Parthians and had few additional resources to use to support Herod. After the Parthians' defeat, Herod was victorious over his rival in 37 BCE. Antigonus was delivered to Antony and executed shortly thereafter. The Romans assented to Herod's proclamation as King of the Jews, bringing about the end of the Hasmonean rule over Judea. King Herod has become known among the archaeologists as Herod the Builder, and under his reign Judea experienced an unprecedented construction, still obtaining an impact on the landscape of the region. Under his enterprise, such projects as the Masada fortress, the Herodion and the great port of Caesarea Maritima were built. During King Herod's reign the last representatives of the Hasmoneans were eliminated. Antigonus was not, however, the last Hasmonean. The fate of the remaining male members of the family under Herod was not a happy one. Aristobulus III, grandson of Aristobulus II through his elder son Alexander, was briefly made high priest, but was soon executed (36 BCE) due to Herod's jealousy. His sister, Mariamne was married to Herod, but fell victim to his notorious jealousy. Her sons by Herod, Aristobulus IV and Alexander, were in their adulthood also executed by their father. Hyrcanus II had been held by the Parthians since 40 BCE. For four years, until 36 BCE, he lived amid the Babylonian Jews, who paid him every mark of respect. In that year Herod, who feared that Hyrcanus might induce the Parthians to help him regain the throne, invited him to return to Jerusalem. The Babylonian Jews warned him in vain. Herod received him with every mark of respect, assigning him the first place at his table and the presidency of the state council, while awaiting an opportunity to get rid of him. As the last remaining Hasmonean, Hyrcanus was too dangerous a rival for Herod. In the year 30 BCE, charged with plotting with the King of Arabia, Hyrcanus was condemned and executed.
The later Herodian rulers Agrippa I and Agrippa II both had Hasmonean blood, as Agrippa I's father was Aristobulus IV, son of Herod by Mariamne I, but they were not direct male descendants, and thus not seen legitimate rulers by much of the Jewish population. He died in 4 BCE, and his kingdom was divided among his sons, who became tetrarchs ("rulers of a quarter part"). One of these quarters was
Judea corresponding to the region of the ancient Kingdom of Judah. Herod's son Herod Archelaus, ruled Judea so badly that he was dismissed in 6 CE by the Roman emperor Augustus, after an appeal from his own population. Another, Herod Antipas, ruled as tetrarch of Galilee and Perea from 4 BCE to 39 CE, being then dismissed by Caligula. At the time of his death Herod ruled over most of the South Western Levant, as a client-state of the Roman Empire. Antipas was not Herod's first choice of heir. That honor fell to Aristobulus and Alexander, Herod's sons by the Hasmonean princess Mariamne. It was only after they were executed (c. 7 BCE), and Herod's oldest son Antipater was convicted of trying to poison his father (5 BCE), that the now elderly Herod fell back on his youngest son Antipas, revising his will to make him heir. During his fatal illness in 4 BCE, Herod had yet another change of heart about the succession. According to the final version of his will, Antipas' elder brother Archelaus was now to become king of Judea, Idumea and Samaria, while Antipas would rule Galilee and Perea with the lesser title of tetrarch. Philip was to receive Gaulanitis (the Golan Heights), Batanaea (southern Syria), Trachonitis and Auranitis (Hauran). Because of Judea's status as a Roman client kingdom, Herod's plans for the succession had to be ratified by Augustus. The three heirs of Herod therefore travelled to Rome to make their claims, Antipas arguing he ought to inherit the whole kingdom and the others maintaining that Herod's final will ought to be honored. Despite qualified support for Antipas from Herodian family members in Rome, who favoured direct Roman rule of Judea but considered Antipas preferable to his brother, Augustus largely confirmed the division of territory set out by Herod in his final will. Archelaus had, however, to be content with the title of ethnarch rather than king. Eventually, after his death the kingdom was divided between three of Herod's sons: Archelaus, his son by his fourth wife Malthace the Samaritan, received the lion's share of the kingdom; Idumaea, Judea and Samaria, and the title of Ethnarch ("ruler of the people"; in this case, the Jews, Samaritans, and Idumeans). Herod Antipas, Archelaus’ brother, became Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. Philip I, Herod’s son by his fifth wife Cleopatra of Jerusalem, became Tetrarch of the northern part of Herod’s kingdom. St. Luke the Evangelist lists Philip’s territories as Iturea and Trachonitis: Josephus gives his territories variously as Batanea, Gaulanitis, Trachonitis and Paneas (
Antiquities XVII, 8 : 1) and Batanea, Trachonitis, Auranitis, and "a certain part of what is called the House of Zenodorus" (
Ant XVII, 11 : 4). A number of these names refer to the same places, found now in modern-day Syria and Lebanon. In a turbulent period of history, the rule of the tetrarchs was relatively uneventful. The most trouble fell to Archelaus, who was faced with sedition by the Pharisees at the beginning of his reign, and crushed it with great severity. After ruling for 10 years he was removed by the emperor Augustus in 6 CE, following complaints about his cruelty and his offences against the Mosaic law. He was replaced by a Roman prefect, and his territory re-organized as the Roman province of Iudaea.
In 6 CE Judea became part of a larger Roman province, called
Iudaea, which was formed by combining Judea proper (biblical Judah) with Samaria and Idumea (biblical Edom). Even though
Iudaea is simply derived from the Latin for
Judea, many historians use it to distinguish the Roman province from the previous territory and history. Iudaea province did not include Galilee, Gaulanitis (the Golan), nor Peraea or the Decapolis. Its revenue was of little importance to the Roman treasury, but it controlled the land and coastal sea routes to the bread basket Egypt and was a border province against the Parthian Empire because of the Jewish connections to Babylonia (since the Babylonian exile). The capital was at Caesarea, not Jerusalem, which had been the capital for King David, King Hezekiah, King Josiah, the Maccabees and Herod the Great. Quirinius became Legate (Governor) of Syria and conducted the first Roman tax census of Syria and Iudaea, which was opposed by the Zealots. Iudaea was not a Senatorial province, nor exactly an Imperial province, but instead was a "satellite of Syria" governed by a prefect who was a knight of the equestrian order (as was Roman Egypt), not a former consul or praetor of senatorial rank. Pontius Pilate was one of these prefects, from 26 to 36 CE. Caiaphas was one of the appointed High Priests of Herod's Temple, being appointed by the Prefect Valerius Gratus in 18. Both were deposed by the Syrian Legate Lucius Vitellius in 36 CE. The 'Crisis under Caligula' (37–41) has been proposed as the first open break between Rome and the Jews. Between 41 and 44 CE, Iudaea regained its nominal autonomy, when Herod Agrippa was made King of the Jews by the emperor Claudius, thus in a sense restoring the Herodian Dynasty, though there is no indication Iudaea ceased to be a Roman province simply because it no longer had a prefect. Claudius had decided to allow, across the empire, procurators, who had been personal agents to the Emperor often serving as provincial tax and finance ministers, to be elevated to governing magistrates with full state authority to keep the peace. He elevated Iudaeas's procurator whom he trusted to imperial governing status because the imperial legate of Syria was not sympathetic to the Judeans. Following Agrippa's death in 44 CE, the province returned to direct Roman control for a short period. Agrippa's son Marcus Julius Agrippa was designated King of the Jews in 48. Tensions are currently high between Romans and Jews, and if due process and diplomacy don't work out in the future, rebellion and suffering will spark across the Roman Levant. And did I mention Jesus got crucified? (You know that already)...
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