Pharnaces II of Pontus - Marriage, Issue and Succession

Marriage, Issue and Succession

Mithridates VI in the early 1st century BC, made an alliance with the Sarmatian tribes and probably through this alliance Pharnaces possibly sometime after 77 BC married an unnamed Sarmatian noblewoman. She may have been a princess, a relative of a ruling Sarmatian monarch or an influential aristocrat of some stator. His Sarmatian wife bore Pharnaces a son, Darius, a daughter, Dynamis, and a son, Arsaces. The names that Pharnaces II gave his children are a representation of his Persian and Greek heritage and of his ancestry. His sons were made Pontian kings for a time after his death, by Roman triumvir Mark Antony. His daughter and her family succeeded him as ruling monarchs of the Bosporan Kingdom. Pharnaces II through his daughter would have further descendants ruling the Bosporan.