PHARNACES I OF PONTUS AND THE EXPANSIONIST POLICY ON THE BLACK SEA: DYNASTIC AMBITION, MARITIME STRATEGY, AND HELLENISTIC POWER POLITICS IN THE SECOND CENTURY BC

Abstract

This article reassesses the expansionist foreign policy of Pharnaces I of Pontus (ca. 196–ca. 170 BC), arguing that his reign represents the definitive structural transformation of the Mithridatid state. While Pharnaces I is frequently eclipsed in scholarship by his grandson, Mithridates VI Eupator, this study contends that it was the former who pioneered a grand-scale Euxine strategy predicated upon three interlocking pillars.

First, the capture of Sinope (183 BC) is analyzed not merely as a territorial gain, but as a catalyst that transmuted a minor inland principality into a dominant maritime power with a 400-mile coastline. Second, the study demonstrates that the post-war northern strategy—anchored in the Chersonesus treaty (179 BC) and extended to Odessos and Mesambria—constituted a deliberate geopolitical reorientation that sustained Pontic policy for three generations. Third, the article challenges the traditional paradigm of perennial Pontic-Pergamene enmity, suggesting instead a nuanced diplomatic engagement with Rome from the reign’s inception.

By integrating a re-evaluation of the prevailing political conjuncture in Hellenistic Asia Minor, the paper concludes that Pharnaces I successfully exploited the post-Apamea power vacuum. Ultimately, it was his establishment of institutional, territorial, and ideological templates that provided the essential framework for the later Mithridatid challenge to Roman hegemony in the Hellenistic East.