Claudius’ Grant of Cilicia to Polemo

Abstract

Late in 37 or in 36 B.C., Polemo I left his Cilician kingdom for Pontus, which he received from Antony who had taken it away from Darius, son of Pharnaces. 1 Before he died in 8 B.C., Polemo also gained control over neighbouring Bosporus when he married his first wife Dynamis, the widow of Asander, in 15 or 14 B.C. 2 Soon afterwards, Polemo, who had no children from Dynamis, married Pythodoris and had by her a daughter, Antonia Tryphaena, and two sons. 3 One of the two Polemo's sons from Pythodoris was Zeno, the king of Greater Armenia. The other, not named by Strabo (idiotes meant that he was not the king), has been identified as a dynast of Cilician Olba, M. Antonius Polemo, who struck his coins in Olba during the reign of Tiberius, about A.D. 27/29. 4 The Roman name came to him either from his father who, therefore, should have received it together with Roman citizenship from Antony, which is nowhere attested, or from his mother, Pythodoris, allegedly the daughter of Pythodoros of Tralles and Antonia. 5 His name has allowed some to identify him with M. Antonius Polemo, the king of Cilicia, whose coins from Olba are known in the reigns of Nero and Galba. 6 This M. Ant. Polemo has been identified with another Polemo, the king of Pontus, after the words of Dio Cassius who described the grants of the emperor Claudius in the following way: 'to another Mithridates, a lineal descendant of Mithridates the Great, he granted Bosporus, giving Polemo some land in Cilicia in place of it'. How

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“…(Joseph.,BJ 7.226) and are not heard of thereafter (but see Konrad 2014: 75-6). 126 Julius Polemo II (PIR 2 I 472) might still have been alive and ruling some part of Cilicia in the beginning of Vespasian's reign (Dmitriev 2003;cf. Gray 1972;Syme 1988;Thonemann 2004;contra, Primo 2010).…”

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