Duane W. Roller

many territories and the establishment of several new kingdoms with
rulers friendly to Rome, Cleopatra was the clear winner. Th e arrangements
made perfectly good sense regardless of any personal relationship
between queen and triumvir: Cleopatra was the only tested ruler
of the eastern Mediterranean. Herod had just secured his throne, and
all the others were petty dynasts with limited territories. Moreover,
the ease with which Brutus and Cassius had been able to disrupt the
Roman governments of the region may have suggested to Antonius
that a more compact Roman presence was the better choice, with large
areas under the control of indigenous royalty beholden to Rome. Th us
Antonius established a network of friendly states ruled by new dynasties
that he essentially created, oft en bypassing the existing claimants. In
Galatia, the central part of Asia Minor, Rome’s long ally Deiotaros had
supported Brutus and Cassius but had not yet been punished when he
died naturally in 40 b.c. Antonius gave his kingdom and surrounding
territories to his secretary Amyntas, who survived until 25 b.c. 6 To the
north was the kingdom of Pontos, where a certain Polemon was placed
on the throne aft er the convenient death of King Dareios. Polemon
seems to have had no connection with any indigenous royalty, and his
father, Zenon, was a rhetorician. Eventually Polemon would marry into
royalty, fi rst by wedding Dynamis and then Pythodoris, the latter a
granddaughter of none other than Antonius. Polemon survived until the
last decade of the fi rst century b.c.; his widow, Pythodoris, would rule
alone until she married the third of Antonius’s friendly kings, Archelaos
of Kappadokia. 7 Archelaos also came from outside established royalty,
although it is possible that he was related to Mithradates the Great. One
of his credentials, perhaps a minor one, was the personal relationship
Antonius had had with his mother Glaphyra, but the triumvir was too
astute to base kingship on this alone, and Archelaos’s abilities and lineage
were what resulted in his placement on the throne of Kappadokia when
he expelled the king, Ariarathes X. 8 Th e fourth friendly king enthroned
by Antonius was Herod the Great, also not a part of the existing royal
line, that of the Hasmoneans, although he promptly married into it. Th us
these four kings, none of whom was the expected heir to his throne,
created a dynastic network that established a new order in the East. 9
Eventually there were marriage connections among all of them except
Amyntas, who died too soon.
Yet there was a fi ft h friendly monarch in Antonius’s plan. Th is of
course was Cleopatra. At fi rst glance she might not seem to fi t the pattern,
Th e Peak Years 91