Pages: 229-236

The article analyses the military and political situation and the dynastic fight in Bosphorus on the turn of eras. After Dynamia, granddaughter of Mitridates Eupatores, came to throne in Bosphorus, Rome most likely feared restoration of the great Pontus tzar traditions here. Wishing to prevent the potential threat to the north-eastern frontiers of the Empire, Rome in the person of Mark Vipsanius Agrippa supported Polemon, Pontus tzar, thus organising an opposition between the latter and Dynamia. This fight ended not in favour of Bosphorus queen. Polemon came to throne after her, while Dynamia probably was sent to Rome as a hostage, where she spent time till Polemon’s death in 8 B.C. Apparently, after his death Dynamia took Bosphorus throne for the second time, already sanctioned by Augustus (8 B.C. – 7 B.C.) It was in 14 B.C., still during Polemon’s rule, that in the Aspurgians joined the fight against him, Rome’s protégé. The author, following M.I. Rostovtsev, sees the Aspurgians not as an ethnic group, but rather as a military detachment of the Sarmatian leader Aspurg. Gradually, the Aspurgians apparently fully adapted to the local version of the Classical civilisation, and some of them joint the leading elite. All this contributed to an easier coming to power in Bosphorus of Aspurg (14-38), who, after his visit to Rome in 14 A.D., obtained the title of tzar from Tiberius. Supported by a union with the Sarmatian tribes, Bosphorus in this period represents a serious power, which controlled military and political situation in the North-Eastern Black Sea region. This state of affairs had preserved till 40s of I A.D., when Bosphorus saw the events connected with an outbreak of Mithridates III against Rome.