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Mark Antony's Great Great Grandson?

  • Writer: sulla80
    sulla80
  • Jan 19
  • 14 min read

Updated: Jul 27

M. Antonius Polemon (active AD 50–54) was the grandson of Polemon I and a great-grandson of the orator Zenon. He remained in the family's home city of Laodicea. He was a high-ranking Priest (Hiereus) and city official. He is also the great-great-grandson of Mark Antony by way Polemon I (the magistrate's grandfather) who married Pythodoris (the magistrate's great grandmother), the daughter of Antonia who was the daughter of Mark Antony (or was she?). There is a question mark on this lineage that is not easy to conclude.


The Coin

Phrygia, Laodicea. Claudius (AD 41-54). AE (27mm, 12h, 8.2g) Antonius Polemon, son of Zenon, as magistrate, ca. AD 50-54.

Obv: ΔΗΜΟΣ / ΛΑΟΔΙΚΕΩΝ / ΚΑΙ ΖΜΥΡΝΑΙΩΝ (People of the Laodiceans and Smyrnaeans) , confronting busts of laureate head of the Demos of Laodicea and laureate head of the Demos of Smyrna

Rev: ΕΠΙ ΙΕΡΕΩΣ / ΑΝΤΩΝΙΟΥ / ΠΟ (monogram)-ΥΙΟΥ / ΖΗΝΩΝΟC / TOA (under the priest Antonius Polemon, son of Zenon), Zeus Laodiceus standing left, with eagle and staff.

Ref: Franke-Nollé 1198 (dies A/17) = RPC I 2912.9 (this coin); SNG Copenhagen 613; BMC p. 324, 263. ex CNG EA 143, 12 July 2006, lot 130

During the reign of Claudius (AD 41–54), there was a fierce dynastic struggle between the supporters of Britannicus (Claudius’s biological son) and Nero (his adopted son). While the coin's legend explicitly names the Demoi (the People) of Laodicea and Smyrna, some scholars suggest that the physical portraits are intended to be portraits of the young princes Nero and Britannicus.


The introduction of B.V. Head's catalog notes that three members of the famous Zenon family of Laodiceia appear on coins from Augustus to Nero:

1) Antonius Polemo, Philopatris (Augustus to Caligula).

2) Antonius Zeno, son of Polemo, Hiereus (Priest) four times (Claudius and Nero as Caesar).

3) Zeno, son of Antonius Zeno, or Antonius Zeno, son of Zeno (Nero as Augustus)


Zeus Laodikeos

Zeus Laodikeos served as the supreme tutelary deity of Laodicea ad Lycum, a unique fusion of Hellenic tradition and local Phrygian identity. Unlike the thunderbolt-wielding, celestial Zeus of Olympia, the Laodicean manifestation was portrayed as a dignified, standing figure holding a long scepter (staff) in one hand and a small eagle in the outstretched palm of the other.


Frequently depicted on the reverse of the city's coinage, as the guardian of the city's civic order, its immense banking wealth, and its world-famous textile industry. Zeus Laodikeos was a figure of stability, often appearing on Homonoia (alliance) coinage to provide the divine support for the treaty between Laodicea and as Smyrna.


Zenon & Parthia

Zenon of Laodicea, great grandfather of our magistrate, was a distinguished orator and local leader whose legacy was defined by his unwavering loyalty to Rome during the Parthian invasion of 40/39 BC. Zenon famously led the defense of his home city against Parthian Pacorus I and the Roman renegade Quintus Labienus.


Antony, impressed by Zenon’s resistance and devotion, rewarded him with significant political support. He granted Roman citizenship to Zenon's family - giving them the prestigious name Antonius - and laid the groundwork for the family's transformation from local aristocrats to regional dynasts. Antony subsequently elevated Zenon's son, Polemon I, to the rank of client king, ultimately ruling over Pontus and the Bosporan Kingdom. Polemon I married Pythodoris.


Pythodoris is the link to Mark Antony, or not. The mystery comes in with the question of Pythodoris' mother, Antonia. Theodor Mommsen put forwad the hypothesis that Antonia was the daughter of Mark Antony and Antonia Hybrida Minor, Antony's first wife (or second if we believe Cicero's story of Mark Antony as son-in-law of a freedman - Philippics 2.3). The question is: was the mother of Pythodoris really that Antonia. The evidence is thin. Mommsen makes the connection purely on timing and a single inscription honoring the son of Polemon I.

ὁ δῆμος Ζήνωνα βασιλίσσης Πυθοδωρίδος Φιλομήτορος καὶ βασιλέως Πολέμωνος υἱόν, θυγατριδῆ δὲ τῆς εὐεργέτιδος Ἀντωνίας ἐτείμησεν. 

"The people honored Zenon, son of Queen Pythodoris Philometor and King Polemon, and grandson through his mother of the benefactress Antonia." 
-Ionia Smyrna, 140

We will leave open the possibility that Polemon was not Antony's descendant. There is also a question of whether the family on the coins is directly connected to Polemon I or not. (see addendum for details on current state)


Polemon I's grandson was on the throne in Pontus at the time of his cousin's magistracy in Laodicea. Polemon II was the child of Polemon I's daughter Antonia Tryphaena and Cotys VIII.

Kings of Pontos. Polemon II 38-64 AD, (dated year 20 = 57-58 AD). Drachm AR 17mm., 3.38g.

Obv: BACIΛEωC ΠOΛEMωNOC, diademed head of Polemon right

Rev: ETOYC K, laureate head of Nero right


Laodicea

"Laodiceia, though formerly small, grew large in our time and in that of our fathers, even though it had been damaged by siege in the time of Mithridates Eupator.⁠ However, it was the fertility of its territory and the prosperity of certain of its citizens that made it great: at first Hieron, who left to the people an inheritance of more than two thousand talents and adorned the city with many dedicated offerings, and later Zeno the rhetorician and his son Polemon,⁠ the latter of whom, because of his bravery and honesty, was thought worthy even of a kingdom, at first by Antony and later by Augustus."
-Strabo, Geography, XII.8.16

Strategically located at the crossroads of major trade routes in the Lycus River Valley, Laodicea ad Lycum was arguably the wealthiest city in the Roman province of Asia. Originally known as Diospolis ("City of Zeus"), it was refounded in the 3rd century BC by the Seleucid King Antiochus II, who named it after his wife, Laodice.


The city’s economy was built on a three industries: it was a premier banking and financial hub frequented by elite Romans like Cicero; a world-renowned textile center famous for its unique, glossy "raven-black" wool; and a sophisticated medical center home to a prestigious medical school and the production of a celebrated "Phrygian powder" eye salve.


This immense self-sufficiency was famously demonstrated in AD 60 when, after a devastating earthquake, the citizens rejected Imperial aid from Nero, proudly rebuilding their monumental theaters, stadium, and agoras entirely from their own private resources.

"In the same year, Laodicea, one of the famous Asiatic cities, was laid in ruins by an earthquake, but recovered by its own resources, without assistance from ourselves."
-Tacitus, Annals, XIV.27

Phrygian powder

The famous "Phrygian powder" explains the piercing irony found in the Book of Revelation (3:18). The author tells the Laodiceans to "anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see", he is using their most famous local pharmaceutical product as a metaphor for their spiritual blindness.


Galen (c. 130 – c. 210 AD), the influential Greek physician mentions in Hygiene: 

"You will strengthen the eyes by the use of a dry collyrium made from Phrygian stone, applying the probe to the eyelids without touching the membrane of the eye within. This is what women who apply kohl (a dark eye makup) to the eyelids do every day."

Zinc carbonate is the mineral profile associated with the "Phrygian Stone" and "Cadmia" described by Galen as the base of the Laodicean salve. Zinc is a powerful astringent and antiseptic. Even today, zinc oxide is a standard ingredient in eye drops and skin ointments (like calamine) for its ability to reduce inflammation and inhibit bacterial growth.


For a modern analysis of a 2000 year old "eye wash" see:

Giachi, G., et al. (2013). "Ingredients of a 2,000-y-old medicine revealed by chemical, mineralogical, and botanical investigations." PNAS, 110(4). https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1216776110.


Harmony between Laodicea and Smyrna

A fierce rivalry lies behind this coin. Laodicea and Smyrna commemorate on this coin their Homonoia, Greek for "concord" or "unity", a strategic diplomatic and economic alliance within the Roman province of Asia. While Laodicea was a wealthy inland banking and textile hub in Phrygia, famous for its "black wool" and medical school, Smyrna was a prestigious, "first-rank" port city in Ionia and a primary center for the Roman Imperial cult. By minting this coin, the two cities signaled a mutual pledge of cooperation that likely facilitated trade routes connecting the Aegean coast to the Anatolian interior and shared participation in regional religious festivals.


Smyrna and Laodicea were constantly competing for the title "First of Asia". They fought over who got to host the Imperial games or build the biggest temple to the Emperor. This specific issue under the magistrate Antonius Polemon reflects a period where such "alliance" coinage was a sophisticated tool of civic branding, allowing these rival cities to demonstrate their collective stability and loyalty to the Emperor Claudius while elevating their own prestige through a public display of harmony.


References


ADDENDUM: on the question of Antonia

The well accepted facts

  • 88 BC: Mithradates puts a price on the head of the family patriarch of the Nysa-Tralles clan (Syll.³ 741). Pythodoros of Tralles is a mature man by the 50s BC.

  • 50s BC: Pythodoros of Tralles is a friend of Pompey and a man of enormous wealth, property of not less than 2,000 talents (Strabo 14.1.42).

  • 44 BC: Antony betroths his daughter Antonia, his child by Antonia Hybrida Minor, to a son of the triumvir Lepidus (Cassius Dio 44.53; Treggiari 2019, 137). She was probably born in the late 50s BC.

  • 37/36 BC: Antony sends the freedman Callias to Lepidus in Africa to arrange the wedding (Appian, Civil Wars 5.93). The engagement presumably dies with Lepidus's political fall in 36 BC. After this, Antony's daughter probably by Hybrida disappears from the Roman record.

  • 40 to 31 BC: Antony is master of the East. Zenon the orator leads Laodicea's resistance to the Parthians in 40 BC; his son Polemon I is made king by Antony in 37 BC; his son Polemon I is made king by Antony in 37 BC (Strabo 12.8.16); the family's Roman citizenship and gentilicium Antonius are inferred from its later nomenclature.

  • 8 BC: Polemon I is killed among the Aspurgianoi near the Cimmerian Bosporus. Pythodoris succeeds him and rules Pontus for decades (Strabo 12.3.29).

  • Circa 5 BC: a magistrate "Antonius Polemo philopatris" strikes coins at Laodicea (RPC I 2898 to 2900).

  • AD 18: Germanicus crowns Pythodoris's son Zenon as Artaxias III of Armenia (Tacitus, Annals 2.56). Smyrna sets up the inscription honoring the son of Polemon I.

ὁ δῆμος Ζήνωνα βασιλίσσης Πυθοδωρίδος Φιλομήτορος καὶ βασιλέως Πολέμωνος υἱόν, θυγατριδῆ δὲ τῆς εὐεργέτιδος Ἀντωνίας ἐτείμησεν. 

"The people honored Zenon, son of Queen Pythodoris Philometor and King Polemon, and grandson through his mother of the benefactress Antonia." 
-Ionia Smyrna, 140

  • Tacitus explains the Armenians' enthusiasm by Zenon's adopted Armenian manners and says nothing of any kinship between the new king and Germanicus.

  • AD 19: Antonia Tryphaena's husband Cotys of Thrace is murdered; her children are "not yet adult" (Tacitus, Annals 2.67).

  • Circa AD 23: Strabo, writing under Tiberius, describes Pythodoris at length and with admiration, names her father Pythodoros of Tralles, her husband, and her three children, and never mentions her mother or any connection to Antony (12.3.29; likewise silent at 14.1.42).

  • AD 38: Caligula grants "Polemo son of Polemo" his ancestral domain (Cassius Dio 59.12.2); Pythodoris is dead by this point.

  • AD 50 to 54: the four-times priest of the Laodicea homonoia coinage (RPC I 2912 to 2916); the inscriptions of Heraclea and Apollonia Salbake; the Amisus text in which the family claims descent "from kings and tetrarchs" (IGR III 1436).


The Case in Favor: Antonia was Mark Antony's daughter

The reconstruction of Mommsen (1872), accepted by Syme and Hanslik, its wide acceptance recorded by Magie (2:1130 n. 32), and preferred most recently by Cojocaru (2014).


Antony's daughter is born in the late 50s BC; betrothed to Lepidus's son 44 to 36 BC; after the engagement collapses, her father, then ruling the East and needing money for the Parthian war, marries her to the immensely rich Pythodoros between 36 and 34 BC.


Pythodoris is born about 33 to 29 BC (the often-quoted "born at Smyrna, 30/29 BC" is modern inference, not an attested fact). She marries Polemon I about 13/12 BC, after his brief marriage to Dynamis of the Bosporus.


Her three children are born in the years around 11 to 8 BC: Zenon, crowned in AD 18 in his late twenties; Antonia Tryphaena, married to Cotys about AD 12 in her early twenties, her children still minors in AD 19; and the anonymous third son, the "private citizen" who helped his mother govern (Strabo 12.3.29).


On this view the Laodicean moneyer of 5 BC is a kinsman from the branch of Zenon the orator's family that stayed at Laodicea, and cannot be Pythodoris's son, who would then be a small child.


Evidence in favor.

  • the fit of dates and motive: a marriageable Antonia becomes available in 36 BC exactly when and where Antony is raising funds in Asia, and the Roman record on her goes silent at precisely that moment.

  • onomastics in the next generations: Pythodoris names her daughter Antonia Tryphaena, and the royal line carries Marcus Antonius as praenomen and gentilicium for a century; Hanslik held that this alone pulls the ground from under Dessau's argument from silence.

  • the unusual prominence of the maternal grandmother in the Smyrna inscription suggests a woman of extraordinary distinction.

  • Pythodoris's epithet Philometor, "mother-loving," advertises the maternal line, which makes most sense if that line was the glorious one.


Evidence against.

  • Strabo's silence: he knew Pythodoris, praised her, and detailed her ancestry, and a descent from the triumvir is exactly the kind of fact he records elsewhere; Dessau judged that he could not have been ignorant of it, and Braund calls the silence "noisy."

  • the inscription's own wording: in AD 18, when Antony's blood was no disgrace (Germanicus, the crowning prince, was himself Antony's grandson through Antonia Minor), Smyrna calls her only "benefactress," with no filiation and no royal styling.

  • Tacitus's silence in the same year: had Zenon been Antony's great-grandson, the new king of Armenia and Germanicus would have been cousins, and Tacitus, explaining why this Pontic prince was chosen, says nothing.

  • the name Antonia proves nothing on its own, since the whole clan bore Antonius from the citizenship grant, not from blood.


A resolution would require one or more of:

  • an inscription or papyrus giving Antonia a Roman filiation, "Antonia, daughter of Marcus," at Smyrna, Tralles, or anywhere in the family's orbit.

  • a source placing Antony's daughter in Asia after 36 BC.

  • A firmly dated document showing Pythodoris born about 30 BC or later, which would make the marriage chronology work only on Mommsen's terms.


The Case Against: Antonia was someone else

The reconstruction of Dessau (1913), sharpened by Braund (2005) and Thonemann (2004), accepted by Edmondson (2009).


Antonia is a wealthy Greek noblewoman, on Dessau's and Thonemann's suggestion probably a native of Smyrna, from a family enfranchised by Antony (hence her name), who married Pythodoros by about 55 BC, perhaps earlier (Thonemann 2004, 148). Pythodoris is born correspondingly earlier, by the mid-40s BC at latest on Thonemann's dating. She marries Polemon I no later than about 30 BC, which makes his marriage to Dynamis about 14 BC bigamous, as Thonemann accepts. Her eldest child is then M. Antonius Polemo philopatris, the Laodicean moneyer of 5 BC, whom Thonemann identifies with Strabo's anonymous "private citizen" son; Zenon, Tryphaena, and the rest follow through the 20s and teens BC. Antonia's title euergetis is civic: she was honored at Smyrna as the city's benefactress, which is why Smyrna, and only Smyrna, names her in her grandson's inscription, and why this branch of the family kept its Smyrna ties for a century, down to the homonoia coinage.


Evidence in favor.

  • euergetis means benefactress and nothing more; Mommsen's reading of it as a quasi-royal marker was the sole positive prop of his theory, and it does not bear the weight.

  • the two silences, Strabo's and Tacitus's, both fall exactly where a real Antonian descent should have left a mark.

  • Magie's old observation that Polemon I is unlikely to have remained unmarried and childless until old age, which favors an early marriage to Pythodoris and hence her earlier birth.

  • the family's own self-description at Amisus, "descended from kings and tetrarchs," claims Polemon I and says nothing of the triumvir, in a genre where every drop of glorious blood is normally named.

Evidence against.

  • the theory requires two conjectures of its own: the bigamy of the Dynamis marriage, and the identification of the 5 BC moneyer with Pythodoris's son, which Thonemann himself introduces only with "nothing impedes identification." Remove that identification and the chronological argument against Mommsen loses most of its force.

  • it must explain away the dense cluster of Antonian names in the royal line, which patronage alone explains less elegantly than blood plus patronage.

  • it leaves the extraordinary prominence of a non-royal grandmother in a royal honorific unexplained except by local benefaction.

  • it has no positive candidate: no source names any other Antonia, so the hypothesis is "someone otherwise unknown," which is unfalsifiable but also unprovable.

A resolution would require one or more of:

  • an inscription from Smyrna honoring Antonia euergetis in her own right with a Greek filiation, "Antonia, daughter of so-and-so of Smyrna."

  • any document fixing Pythodoris's birth before about 40 BC, such as a dated honorific for her as queen with an age or year count, or a firm early date for her marriage.

  • Epigraphic proof that the philopatris moneyer of 5 BC was a son of Polemon I and Pythodoris, for instance a Laodicean text giving him that filiation, since that would push her birth back beyond the reach of any daughter of Antony.


Where it stands

Neither option is proven, and each rests on one large unattested assumption. Experts since 2004 remain split, with Braund and Thonemann against the descent and Cojocaru, following Hanslik, for it, while the handbooks and encyclopedias mostly still print the Antony descent without a hedge.


References

  • Appian. The Civil Wars. Translated by Horace White. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1913. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0231.

  • Braund, David. "Polemo, Pythodoris and Strabo: Friends of Rome in the Black Sea Region." In Roms auswärtige Freunde in der späten Republik und im frühen Prinzipat, edited by Altay Coşkun, 253–270. Göttingen: Edition Ruprecht, 2005.

  • Burnett, Andrew, Michel Amandry, and Pere Pau Ripollès. Roman Provincial Coinage. Vol. 1, From the Death of Caesar to the Death of Vitellius (44 BC–AD 69). London: British Museum Press; Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 1992. https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/.

  • Cagnat, René, ed. Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes. Vol. 3. Paris: Leroux, 1906. [IGR III 1436, the Amisus inscription.]

  • Cassius Dio. Roman History. Translated by Earnest Cary, on the basis of the version by Herbert Baldwin Foster. 9 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914–1927. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/home.html.

  • Cojocaru, Victor. "Once More about Antonia Tryphaina." Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology 1, no. 2 (2014): 3–11. https://doi.org/10.14795/j.v1i2.54.

  • Dessau, Hermann. "Miscellanea Epigraphica, I: De regina Pythodoride et de Pythodoride iuniore." Ephemeris Epigraphica 9 (1913): 691–696. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015039756682&seq=703.

  • Dittenberger, Wilhelm, ed. Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae. Vol. 1. Leipzig: Hirzel, 1903. [OGIS 377, the Smyrna inscription for Zenon.] https://archive.org/details/orientisgraeciin01dittuoft.

  • Dittenberger, Wilhelm, ed. Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum. 3rd ed. 4 vols. Leipzig: Hirzel, 1915–1924. [Syll.³ 741.]

  • Edmondson, Jonathan, ed. Augustus. Edinburgh Readings on the Ancient World. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009.

  • Hanslik, Rudolf. "Pythodoris." In Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, vol. 24. Stuttgart: Druckenmüller, 1963. [Add column numbers from the volume; his verdict on Dessau is quoted in Cojocaru 2014, 3.]

  • Magie, David. Roman Rule in Asia Minor, to the End of the Third Century after Christ. 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950.

  • Mommsen, Theodor. "Observationes epigraphicae XIII: De titulo reginae Pythodoridis Smyrnaeo." Ephemeris Epigraphica 1 (1872): 270–276. Reprinted in Gesammelte Schriften, 8:264–271. Berlin: Weidmann, 1913. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_8vZUAAAAcAAJ/page/n279/mode/2up.

  • Petzl, Georg, ed. Die Inschriften von Smyrna. Vol. 2.1. Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien 24.1. Bonn: Habelt, 1987. [I.Smyrna 614 = OGIS 377.] https://epigraphy.packhum.org/text/255038.

  • Strabo. Geography. Translated by Horace Leonard Jones. 8 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1917–1932. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/home.html.

  • Sullivan, Richard D. "Dynasts in Pontus." In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.7.2, 913–930. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1980.

  • Sullivan, Richard D. Near Eastern Royalty and Rome, 100–30 BC. Phoenix Supplementary Volume 24. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.

  • Syme, Ronald. The Roman Revolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939. https://archive.org/details/romanrevolution0000syme_t1k4/page/n5/mode/2up.

  • Tacitus. Annals. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb. In Complete Works of Tacitus. New York: Random House, 1942. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0078.

  • Thonemann, Peter J. "Polemo, Son of Polemo (Dio, 59.12.2)." Epigraphica Anatolica 37 (2004): 144–150. https://uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/ifa/EpAnat/37%20pdfs%20web/037144.pdf.

  • Treggiari, Susan. Servilia and Her Family. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.







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