Eumenes III

Who was Eumenes III?

Eumenes III was the pretender to the throne of Pergamon.

When the Pergamene king, Attalus III, died in 133 BC, he bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans. Because the Romans were slow in securing their claim, Aristonicus, who claimed to be the illegitimate son of the earlier Pergamene king, Eumenes II, father of Attalus III, filled the power vacuum, claiming the throne and taking the dynastic name Eumenes III.

At first he tried to gain support by promising freedom to the Greek cities of the coast. When this failed, he sought support in the interior, promising freedom to both slaves and serfs. To what extent he was a social revolutionary or simply a dynastic contender to the throne is uncertain. He was joined by Blossius of Cumae, the Stoic, who had been a supporter of Tiberius Gracchus and promised to found a state called Heliopolis in which all were to be free. The first army sent against him, in 131 BC, was led by Publius Licinius Crassus Dives Mucianus, who was killed in battle. However, Eumenes III was defeated and captured in 129 BC by a Roman force under Marcus Perperna, the consul for 130 BC, in the siege of Thyatira. After his surrender, he was paraded through Rome, then executed by strangulation.