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Saulaces of Colchis

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Saulaces was a king of Colchis known from Naturalis Historia by the 1st-century Roman author Pliny the Elder and identified by one hypothesis as a king mentioned on eight coins found on the eastern Black Sea coast.

Contents

Pliny

According to Pliny, Saulaces was a descendant of Aeëtes, a king of Colchis of the Argonautic fame. He was further claimed to have found rich gold and silver deposits in the land of the Suani and to have furnished his palace with golden and silver structures obtained on his conquest of Sesostris, king of Egypt:

Pliny's account of Saulaces and his victory over the Egyptians is uncorroborated by other written sources, but Sesostris' connection with Colchis was treated by many Classical authors, first by the 5th-century BC historian Herodotus, who credited Sesostris with leading an expedition into Asia and transplanting a group of Egyptians to settle Colchis. Martin Bernal, who accepted the historicity of Sesostris' campaign, dated the event to the 1930s or 1920s BC.

Coinage

Saulaces was identified by an older hypothesis favored by the historians such as Alfred von Gutschmid and Davit Kapanadze with the name in Greek (ΒΑΣΙΛΕ... ΣΑΥ or ΣΑΥΜ) inscribed on eight coins from the collections in Moscow, Berlin, London, and Vani. Giorgi Dundua, however, demonstrated that the coins attributed to Saulaces belonged to Saumacus, a Scythian, who seized power in the Bosporan Kingdom c. 108 BC.

References

Saulaces of Colchis Wikipedia