Talk:List of rulers of Bithynia

Untitled

The point is that it's nearly impossible to buld an abolutely correct List of Kings of Bithynia. Apart from Zipoites III (255 BC), who simply doesn't seem to have ever exicted (at least I didn't find anything about him), the point is that historians are in conflict over deciding if Nicomedes II died in 128 or in 94 and if between 149 BC and 94 BC under the same name Nicomedes do we have one king or two. The reason resides mainly in the paucity of sources. Aldux 21:13, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Doedalsus

I think we should be dead honest about Doedalsus (Diodalsos, Dudalsos, Dydalsos Δοιδαλσοῦ, Δυδαλσοῦ). There are only 2 passing mentions of him in primary sources (Memnon of Heraclea and Strabo), and they say pretty damn little. There are linguistic reasons to believe he is a mythological founder of the dynasty due to the name's resemblance to Dodola and Perperuna, including variants like Dodole, Dudola, Dudula, Dudule, Dudulica, Doda, Dodočka, Dudulejka, Didjulja, Dordolec/Durdulec etc., common names for Southeastern European / Balkanic weather deities, including Thracian ones (and Bithynians may well have descended from Thracians). Even if he did exist, there are no good indications when he lived.

Memnon

There is no clear connection between Doedalsus and Boteiras, except a very vague one in Memnon's work. There is a big gap in between, where we know that Hellespontine Phrygia based in Dascylium was a Persian satrapy, of whom we know the satraps by name. If we are to take Memnon's king list seriously, in which three kings in a row lived 76, 71 and 76 years, and ruled for 50 and 48 years, (which is suspiciously consistent, and quite long for antiquity, an era of constant warfare and unchecked diseases and abysmal healthcare), then we can WP:CALC that Boteiras of Bithynia died in 376 BCE, having lived 76 years, thus being born in 452 BCE, presumably / implicitly as Doedalsus' son. If we are to presume he also reigned about 50 years, that means his father Doedalsus died around 426 BCE. This is all speculation of course; if there ever was a Doedalsus, he might not have been the father or ancestor of the later Bithynian kings at all, as the dynasty was disrupted by the Persian conquest.

Strabo

Moreover, as I discovered while rewriting Astacus (Bithynia), it has been traditionally mistranslated that Doedalsus "founded" the city of Astacus.
Strabo wrote: Ἦν δ' ἐν αὐτῷ τῷ κόλπῳ καὶ Ἀστακὸς πόλις, Μεγαρέων κτίσμα καὶ Ἀθηναίων καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα Δοιδαλσοῦ..
That means: And on the gulf itself there was also a city Astacus, a colony of the Megarians and of the Athenians, and after those things of Doidalsos.
κτίσμα is a noun meaning "colony" or "foundation", so translating it as the verb "founded" is silly. Are we to believe the citizens of Megara and Athens "founded" it, and afterwards Doidalsos "founded" it AGAIN? Plus, the verb κτίζω goes with dative if you want to say "founded/created by" (compare αὐτῷ in Colossians 1:16). Μεγαρέων Ἀθηναίων Δοιδαλσοῦ are all genitive. It was "a COLONY OF the M, A and D", not "founded by the M, A and D". So the city was founded some time before Doidalsos apparently took control of it, he didn't "co-found" it or anything.

Siculus

So the idea that he fl. c. 435 BC, based on Diodorus Siculus's dating of the founding around the time of the Battle of Potidaea (which actually occurred in 432 BCE), is ridiculous. Memnon, too, narrates that Astacus was founded by the Megarians, then suffered many attacks from its neighbours, then Athenian settlers joined and strengthened it, then its troubles ended, and only then did the city "achieve great glory and strength, when Doedalsus had the dominion of the Bithynians". Given that Megara and Athens were on opposite sides of the Peloponnesian War, the phrase "but after the Athenians sent settlers there to join the Megarians, it was rid of its troubles", may well be a pro-Athenian propagandistic way of Memnon saying the Athenians conquered the city (Strabo also implies that the Athenians seized power from the Megarians). Peace may not have returned until 404 BCE (end of Peloponnesian War; perhaps that's what Strabo means with μετὰ ταῦτα "after those things"), and Doidalsos still needed to show up. If he fathered Boteiras in 452 BCE, assuming he was at least 20 years old, that would make him 68 by the time he might show up as the "ruler" of Astacus. Rather than ruling for 50 years, he would be limited to just a few before he died around 75 years old (all still speculation of course). There is no reason that c. 435 BCE was an important year in his life just because Siculus misdated the Battle of Potidaea then as simultaneously occurring with the founding of Astacus (erroneously attributed to the Athenians rather than the Megarians), which Doidalsos probably had nothing to do with until after the Peloponnesian War was over in 404 BCE.

I find all these sources dubious. Although Doidalsos / Dydalsos is multiply attested, he does not pass the criterion of dissimilarity (it's too much like a mythological founder for the Bithynian dynasty, and seems entirely made up by Memnon, perhaps based on a local variety of the Dodola and Perperuna myth), nor the criterion of contextual credibility (the chronology is all over the place, and seems entirely made up by Memnon, who seems to skip over the Persian satraps and fills out neatly organised lifespans of about 70 years and reigns of about 50 years in a time where people rarely lived that long). I don't think we should take him seriously. If anything, Bas was the dynasty founder, and perhaps Boteiras was real as well, but I don't believe Doidalsos / Dydalsos was historical. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 23:02, 14 March 2023 (UTC)