The Bosporan kings were the rulers of the Bosporan Kingdom, an ancient Hellenistic Greco-Scythian state centered on the Kerch Strait (the Cimmerian Bosporus) and ruled from the city of Panticapaeum. Panticapaeum was founded in the 7th or 6th century BC; the earliest known king of the Bosporus is Archaeanax, who seized control of the city c. 480 BC as a usurper. The Archaeanactid dynasty ruled the city until it was displaced by the more long-lived Spartocid dynasty in 438 BC. After ruling for over three centuries, the Spartocids were then displaced by the Mithridatic dynasty of Pontus and then its offshoot the Tiberian-Julian dynasty. The Tiberian-Julian kings ruled as client kings of the Roman Empire until late antiquity.
After several successive periods of rule by groups such as the Sarmatians, Alans, Goths and Huns, the remnants of the Bosporan Kingdom were finally absorbed into the Roman Empire by Justinian I in the 6th century AD following a revolt against the Hunnic ruler Gordas.
