Olympichus

Olympichos was a Macedonian dynast who ruled Caria in the late 3rd century BCE ( BCE).

Personal life

His father was also called Olympichos and his wife was called Nicaea. His name suggests that he was a Macedonian. Details of his life and reign are known primarily through epigraphic evidence, meaning that little else can be said about him outside his political activity.

Olympichos died before BCE; he is absent from the historical record when the Second Macedonian War broke out, by which time Caria was politically disunited. The eventual result was the Rhodian occupation of Caria by 197 BCE. His predecessors in Caria appear to have been Ptolemaic generals, including a mysterious 'Ptolemy the brother' (Πτολεμ̣αίου τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ).

Olympichos later transferred his allegiance from the Seleucids to the Antigonid dynasty which ruled Macedon. This was a consequence of the expedition to Caria by Antigonus III Doson in 227 BCE. He typically defers to higher authorities (Seleucid or Antigonid) in formal communication but may have wielded much independent power in reality, as shown by his ability to change his allegiance from the Seleucids to the Antigonids. Olympichos was the inheritor of a longer tradition of somewhat independent military governance in Caria, like the satraps Mausolus, Asander, and Pleistarchus before him.

Relationships with the cities

Olympichos ruled Caria from Alinda. A century before his time, this fortress in northern Caria was the base of Ada I, adoptive mother of Alexander the Great, after she was deposed as satrap by her brother Pixodaros.

It is not clear how much of Caria Olympichos controlled, nor how many city-states (poleis) maintained privileges such as freedom from taxation while he was dynast. As well as Alinda, he controlled a minor fortress called 'Petra' in the territory of Olymos, which he apologised to the people of Mylasa for retaining. The Olympichos dossier is contemporaneous with a similar range of Greek inscriptions at Labraunda concerning Karian relations with Cretans. Many of these inscriptions from Labraunda relate to a dispute between the sanctuary and the growing city-state (polis) of Mylasa nearby, which Olympichos was often called to intervene in.

Seleucus II had liberated Mylasa in BCE and many of the inscriptions record negotiations for the extent of the city's freedom. Olympichos overruled Korris, subordinating his sanctuary and priesthood to the independent civic government of Mylasa.

In thanks, the people of Mylasa built a bronze statue of Olympichos in the early 230s BCE, alongside another bronze statue representing the citizen body (demos) of the city, which crowned the dynast. A marble altar was built in front of this statue group, at which the Mylasans would sacrifice two bulls every year and then hold a feast in his honour. The statue and altar have both since been lost. An inscription explicitly compares these honours to similar ones previously awarded to Mausolus, who also had an altar in Mylasa at the Hecatomneum.

The dynast and Rhodes came into conflict later in the 3rd century. An inscription from Iasos of the early 210s BCE records that Olympichos had invaded the territory of this coastal polis and that the Rhodians had intervened diplomatically, forcing him to observe the city's freedoms as granted by Philip V of Macedon.