Sopaios (
Greek: Σωπάιος) or Sopaeus or Sinopeus (
fl.
''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...
390 BC) was a powerful
Bosporan minister to
Satyros I
Satyrus I (, died 389 BC) was the Spartocid ruler of the Bosporan Kingdom from 432 BC to 389 BC. During his rule he built upon the expansive foreign policy of his father, Spartocus I. He conquered Nymphaion, became involved in the political deve ...
, the father of queen Theodosia, and father-in-law to
Leukon I.
Biography
Sopaios was a native of the
Bosporan Kingdom
The Bosporan Kingdom, also known as the Kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus (, ''Vasíleio toú Kimmerikoú Vospórou''), was an ancient Greco-Scythian state located in eastern Crimea and the Taman Peninsula on the shores of the Cimmerian Bosporus, ...
who was greatly influential during the reign of Satyros I. Sopaios controlled major regions of the kingdom and the king's military forces. His daughter, named Theodosia, married one of Satyros's sons, Leukon. Sopaios, as an aristocratic nobleman, was able to send his son to the school of Isocrates in Athens. Sopaios lived in a country palace of significant size, with one of his sons boasting while in Athens "I, who live in Pontus and possess so large an estate that I am even able to assist others!"
Sopaios, however, was suspected of treason and was arrested. According to Moreno, the Spartocids could take away what they could easily give and ordered the Bosporans who lived in Athens to confiscate Sopaios's son's possessions and force him to return, even if it meant raising the matter with the Athenian authorities.
However, it seems that Sopaios was later acquitted of all his crimes and was brought back into the king's favour who later allowed his son to marry Sopaios's daughter, Theodosia.
References
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People of the Bosporan Kingdom