According to modern genealogies, Ariobarzanes I was a son of a previous ruling King Mithridates I and a daughter of the Armenian King Tigranes the Great and his wife, Cleopatra of Pontus,[9][failed verification][10] which can explain the claims of Mithridates I’s descendants to the Armenian kingship in opposition to the lasting ruling monarchs of the Artaxiad dynasty.
[11] There were Persian satraps who bore this name as did some of the ancestors of Cleopatra, daughter of King Mithridates VI of Pontus and his sister-wife Laodice.
He appeared to have died in 56 BC, as he was succeeded by his son Artavasdes I of Media Atropatene.
The Epitaphs are probably of the son and the grandson of a Median Atropatenian king called Ariobarzanes.
[21] Ariobarzanes I is mentioned in paragraph 33 of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti.