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Kingdom of Bosporus
Rheskuporis IV – King, circa 242-277 A.D.
Rheskuporis IV & Gallienus
Billon Stater 20mm (6.82 grams) Struck year 569 of Bosporan era, 267/268 A.D.
Reference: Anohin 715; Sear GIC 5499; B.M.C.13.77,9
Certification: NGC Ancients VF 4375823-429
ΒΑCΙΛЄѠC ΡΗCΚΟΠΟΡIΔΟC, His diademed and draped bust right; trident before.
Laureate and draped bust of Roman emperor Gallienus right; date, ΔΞΦ below; K in field to right.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
The Bosporan Kingdom, also known as the Kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus (Greek: Βασίλειον του Κιμμερικού Βοσπόρου Basileion tou Kimmerikou Bosporou), was an ancient state located in eastern Crimea and the Taman Peninsula on the shores of the Cimmerian Bosporus, the present-day Strait of Kerch. (It was not named after the more famous Bosphorus beside Istanbul at the other end of the Black Sea.) The Bosporan Kingdom was the longest surviving Roman client kingdom. It was a Roman province from 63 to 68 AD, under Emperor Nero. The 1st and 2nd centuries BC saw a period of renewed golden age of the Bosporan state. At the end of the 2nd century, King Sauromates II inflicted a critical defeat on the Scythians 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 Bosporus 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 BC. Phanagoria (c. 540 BC) 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.
Archaeanactidae dynasty
According to Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (xii. 31) the region was governed between 480 and 438 BC by a line of kings called the Archaeanactidae, probably a ruling family, usurped by a tyrant called Spartocus (438 – 431 BC), who was a Thracian.
Spartocid dynasty
Spartocus founded a dynasty which seems to have endured until c. 110 BC, 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 BC), 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 BC) 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 BC but was then killed in battle, giving Eumelus the throne.[3]
Eumelus’ successor was Spartocus III (303 – 283 BC) 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.
Mithridates VI
After his defeat by Roman General Pompey in 63 BC, 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 BC, 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 a rock-cut tomb in either Sinope or Amasia,[4] the capital of the Kingdom of Pontus.
After the death of Mithridates VI (63 BC), Pharnaces II (63 – 47 BC) supplicated to Pompey, and then tried to regain his dominion during Julius Caesar’s Civil War, but was defeated by Caesar at 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 BC, 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 BC. 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 BC) in his place. Polemon married Dynamis in 16 BC and she died in 14 BC. Polemon ruled as king until his death in 8 BC. After the death of Polemon, Aspurgus, the son of Dynamis and Asander, succeeded Polemon.
The Bosporan Kingdom of Aspurgus was a client state of the Roman Empire, protected by Roman garrisons. Aspurgus (8 BC – 38 AD) founded a dynasty of kings which endured with a couple of interruptions until 341 AD. Aspurgus adopted the Imperial Roman names “Tiberius Julius” when he received Roman citizenship and enjoyed the patronage of the first two Roman Emperors, Augustus and Tiberius. All of the following kings adopted these two Roman names followed by a third name, of Thracian (Kotys, Rhescuporis or Rhoemetalces) or local origin (such as Sauromates, Eupator, Ininthimeus, Pharsanzes, Synges, Terianes, Theothorses or Rhadamsades).
A few centuries after the Hunnic invasion, the Bosporan cities enjoyed a revival, under Byzantine and Bulgarian protection. The ancient Greek city of Phanagoria became the capital of Old Great Bulgaria between 632 and 665. From time to time Byzantine officers built fortresses and exercised authority at Bosporus, which constituted an archbishopric.
A relevant Byzantine usage of the term is found in a newly discovered seal of a general of the early 11th century as of “Πο<σ>φορ(ου)”, i.e., of the Cimmerian Bosporos.
They also held Tamatarcha on the eastern side of the strait, a town which in the 10th and 11th centuries became the seat of the Kievan Rus principality of Tmutarakan, which in turn gave way to Tatar domination.
Following the Diaspora, and aided by the Khazars, Judaism emerged in the region, and Jewish communities developed in some of the cities of the region (especially Tanais). The Jewish or Thracian influence on the region may have inspired the foundation of a cult to the “Most High God,” a distinct regional cult which emerged in the 1st century AD, which professed monotheism without being distinctively Jewish or Christian.
Although considered rare among collectors prior to the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Bosporan coins are now well known on the international coin markets, hinting at the quantities produced. Several large series were produced by Bosporan cities from the 5th century BC, particularly in Panticapaeum. Gold staters of Panticapaeum bearing Pan‘s head and a griffin are especially remarkable for their weight and fine workmanship.
There are coins with the names of the later Spartocids and a complete series of dated solidi issued by the later or Achaemenian dynasty. In them may be noticed the swift degeneration of the gold solidus through silver and potin to bronze.
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