Philotheos (294 BC-) was a Pontic nobleman and general during the 3rd century BC.
Biography[]
Philotheos was born in 294 BC to a Pontic Greek noble family, and he became a member of King Mithridates I of Pontus' court as a member of the "Disciples of Zeus" party. During the 260s BC, as Mithridates was fighting a war on two fronts with the Galatians in the west and the Bosporan Kingdom across the Black Sea in the north, he decided to raise a new army in Amasia, with Philotheos being selected as commander due to his high skillset. Philotheos was initially supposed to protect the northern Anatolian coast against any attempt by the Bosporan Kingdom to invade the peninsula via Sinope, but he later brought his army into central Anatolia and conquered the Galatian capital of Ancyra, delivering a crushing blow. He was later forced to return north to Sinope to ward off the arrival of a Bosporan fleet, with Praxiteles Agoranomos taking over in Ancyra.