The Multicultural Ties of the Mithridatids: Sources, Tradition and Promotional Image of the Dynasty of Pontus in 4th-3rd centuries B.C., With an appendix on The Earliest Issues of Pontic Coins and Laodice III’s Dowry

The relationship between the kingdom of Pontus and the kingdoms of the successors in 4th-3rd c. B.C. had the appearance of an intricate web of ambiguous ties, propagandist, dynastic and political, and culminated in the wedding of Antiochus III with Laodice, the daughter of Mithridates II: in this occasion Polybius (V 43.1-4) highlights the Mithridatids’ nobility with reference to the Seven Persians that established Darius I. Nevertheless, Diodorus and Plutarch also link the Mithridatids with a dynasty of Cyus in Mysia, and attribute to the Macedonian Demetrius Poliorcetes a major role in the foundation myth of the Pontic kingdom. Through the comparison of the literary sources, this work shows that Hieronymus of Cardia concocted the whole tradition promoting the Iranian origins of the dynasty together with the Antigonid support to the creation of the Basileia. While the link with the Achaemenids implied prestige even beyond the days of Alexander the Great, the Mysian connection was designed to explain the Mithridatids’ political interactions with the Hellenistic dynasties. Showing that the earliest evidence of the promotion of the dynasty’s multicultural ties originated during the reign of Mithridates II, the paper ultimately provides a new perspective on the agenda conceived by the king: Mithridates II is also known for the opening of the royal family to the Graeco-Macedonian through interdynastic marriages (epigamiai) with the Seleucids.