Note 213 — Chapter VII · (continued 2)

Mithradates, whom Claudius in the year 41 made king of Bosporus, traced back his descent to Eupator (Dio, lx. 8; Tacitus, Ann. xii. 18), and he was followed by his brother Cotys (Tacitus, l.c.). Their father was called Aspurgus (C. I. Gr. ii. p. 95), but need not on that account have been an Aspurgian (Strabo, xi. 2, 19, p. 415). Of a subsequent change of dynasty there is no mention; king Eupator in the time of Pius (Lucian, Alex. 57; vita Pii, 9) points to the same house. Probably, we may add, these later Bosporan kings, as well as the immediate successors of Polemon not even known to us by name, stood in relations of affinity to the Polemonids, as indeed the first Polemon himself had as his wife a granddaughter of Eupator. The Thracian royal names, such as Cotys and Rhascuporis, which are common in the Bosporan royal house, connect themselves doubtless with the son–in–law of Polemon, the Thracian king Cotys. The appellation Sauromates, which frequently occurs after the end of the first century, has doubtless arisen through intermarriage with Sarmatian princely houses, but, of course, does not prove that those who bore it were themselves Sarmatians. If Zosimus, i. 31, blames the petty and unworthy princes who attained to government after the extinction of the old royal family, for the fact that the Goths under Valerian could carry out their piratical expeditions in Bosporan ships, this may be correct, and in the first instance Pharnaces may be meant, of whom there are coins from the years 254 and 255. But even these, too, are marked with the image of the Roman emperor, and later there are again found the old family names (all the Bosporan kings are Tiberii Julii), and the old surnames, such as Sauromates and Rhascuporis. Taken as a whole, the old traditions as well as the Roman protectorate were still at that time here retained.