Fourth installment of «Archienemies of Rome «. Collaboration of Gabriel Castelló.
Mithridates VI , in Greek ÎœÎ¹Î¸Ï Î¹Î´Î¬Ï„Î Ï‚ , was born in Sinope (Sinop, Turkey) in 132 BC. C. He was known by his contemporaries as Eupator Dionysius or simply as Mithridates the Great . He held the crown of the Kingdom of Pontus from 120 BC. C. until his death in 63 a. C. He has gone down in history as one of the most formidable and successful enemies of Rome. His arrogance and excessive selfishness led him to fight consecutively against three of the greatest generals of the late Republic:Silla, Lucullus and Pompey .
The name Mithridates was very popular among the rulers of the Hellenistic kingdoms; etymologically it is associated with the Persian god of the sun Mithras and the European root da ("grant") which we could translate as "Awarded by Mithras"
Our archenemy of Rome today was the son of the king Mithridates V Euergetes . His reign began in 112 BC, when he was still in his twenties, after clearing the way by murdering his mother, the regent during his minority, and his brother. Advised by the same advisers of his father, he continued with the expansionist policy of his father. The kingdom he inherited from his father was located on the eastern Black Sea shores of present-day Turkey. Mithridates had ambitions to expand into neighboring Bithynia and Cappadocia. But since he did not want to stir up Rome until he was strong enough, he concentrated his conquests to the northwest, on the shores of Colchis (the legendary kingdom of the Golden Fleece, in present-day Georgia) and further north, towards the Chersonesus (Crimea, Ukraine)
When his power in the Pontus Euxine (The Black Sea) was unquestionable, he continued with his wicked plan of setting himself up as a new Alexander. He displaced his neighbor Nicomedes III of Bithynia, protégé of Rome, from his throne. The Roman senate, suspicious of Mithridates' reckless ambition, reinstated the Bithynian king. The young but cunning king of Pontus, aware of his inferiority against the legions, agreed to submit to the plan of Rome, and even collaborated by sending auxiliaries. But the greedy governor of Asia, Manius Aquilius , was not satisfied with his good intentions and demanded compensation for King Nicomedes, a request to which Mithridates replied that he himself was a creditor of Rome, since he had bribed numerous senators and did not intend to pay it. It was then that Rome incited this Nicomedes, puppet king of Bithynia, to invade Pontus. Mithridates, for his part, installed his son Pharnaces as king of Cappadocia in 89 BC. C. These events led to the start of hostilities with Rome, a conflict known as the First Mithridatic War .
Manio Aquilio was at the head of the legions of Asia while Mithridates formed an army on land and sea of 300,000 men. He divided the army into two corps:the first sent to the northwest against this Aquilius and his Bithynian allies, and the second against the Roman provinces of Asia and Cilicia.
Mithridates responded to Nicomedes' timid attack with a powerful counterattack. Their commander, Archelaus, first defeated the Bithynian army at the Battle of the Amnias River and later to the Roman army in the battle of Mount Scorobas . Aquilio was handed over and executed for his abuses in the city of Mytilene, while the Roman fleet from Pontus Euxinus simply surrendered. The Kingdom of Pontus came to control Cappadocia, Bithynia, and the Roman province of Asia. Most of the Greek cities of this province, belonging to the ancient kingdom inherited by Rome such as Pergamon, Ephesus and Miletus itself, received Mithridates as a liberator from the terrible Roman exploitation to which they were subjected.
Of all the Greek regions and allies, only the Rhodians remained faithful to Rome, which caused the Pontics to launch hostilities against them, both by sea and by land, but without being able to bend or break the will of Rhodes. The Cilician pirates, true scourge of commercial shipping in these times, entered the service of Pontus in an anticipation of what would be the corsairs of the 17th century. In one of these sea battles against the Rhodians, Mithridates himself came close to being captured. This event must have made him very angry, for after failing in his plans to invade Rhodes, he wrote to all the Greek cities of Asia instructing them to murder any Roman citizen in his territory. According to historical sources, around 80,000 men, women and children of Italian origin were executed in bloody days known as the «Asian Vespers «. This indiscriminate massacre of Italics residing in Asia gave him the dubious award of public enemy number one of the Republic.
In the year 88 a. C., after the rapid and successful expansion of Pontus, much of mainland Greece that was also exploited by Rome supported Mithridates. Rome counterattacked by sending a rival of his stature, the arrogant Lucius Cornelius Sulla , which managed in a couple of blows to recover Boeotia and surround Piraeus and Athens.
At the same time, in the city of Rome, the popular party took control of the Senate after the return of Gaius Mario from Africa promoted by Cinna . That change of powers left Sulla in a very precarious situation as he was a clear opponent of the Popular Party. Mario then began the systematic persecution and murder of Sila's followers, raging against his direct relatives and friends and expropriating his properties. While, in Greece, Sila took Athens in 86 a. C. and faced the Pontic forces at Chaeronea and Orchomenus, defeating them both times. That same year, Rome, still ruled dictatorially by the popular Cinna, sent an army to Greece against Pontus and Sulla. The army sent by the senate was commanded by the consul Lucio Valerio Flaco and the legacy Cayo Flavio Fimbria . Valerio was later assassinated by two of his men, so all command fell to Fimbria. he crossed into Bithynia with the help of the city of Byzantium and conquered some cities by agreement and captured others by force. The Pontics faced the Roman army of Fimbria led by Prince Mithridates, another son of Mithridates VI. The Pontics suffered a crushing defeat in a night attack orchestrated by Fimbria, managing to escape to neighboring Pergamon. After this defeat, a large part of the Greek cities realigned themselves on the Roman side.
The Pontic defeats and the political changes in Rome led to an unfavorable situation for both Silla as for Mithridates . This coincidence motivated the two leaders to meet to sign the Dárdanos Peace Treaty in 85 a. C. (current Kosovo), by which Pontus gave Rome 70 triremes, 2,000 talents and renounced its possessions over Cappadocia and Bithynia.
At the end of the First Mithridatic War, Sulla left Mithridates control of his kingdom despite having been defeated. The legacy of him, Murena , remained in Asia in command of two legions that had formed part of the contingent led by Cayo Flavio Fimbria during the war. Such Murena accused Mithridates of rearming his armies and invaded Pontus. When he was defeated by Mithridates, Murena decided that the wisest thing was to obey Sulla's orders and leave the king and his kingdom alone. Thus ended the Second Mithridatic War.
The lion of Pontus recovered from the damage of the war by relying on his son-in-law Tigranes , the king of Armenia. In the year 75 a. C., in the middle of the Civil War in Hispania, the king of Bithynia, Nicomedes died , and Rome sought to annex the territory, declaring his heir illegitimate. Mithridates, knowing from his Cilician spies that all the military resources of the Republic were devoted to fighting the popular rebels in Valentia and Sucrone, claimed his right to the throne and invaded Bithynia and Cappadocia. This is the start of the Tthird Mithridatic War . It is assumed that around this time the alliance with Quinto Sertorio was closed, the legendary popular general who had revolted in Hispania Citerior against the Senate, sending an embassy to Dianium (Dínia, Alicante) in which he established a pact between the two when the war was over and they defeated their common rival. Initially, in the year 74 a. C., the Pontic army instructed by one of Sertorio's generals, Mario, defeated the Romans with their own techniques, invading almost the entire province of Asia, but two years later, after the end of the civil war in Hispania, the The Roman Senate turned its attention back to the troublesome Kingdom of Pontus with the intention of avenging the Asiatic Vespers. He handed over command of the campaign to the victor of the Sertorian revolt, Pompey the Great, who, starting from Cilicia, headed through Cappadocia towards the Upper Euphrates. Pompey won a great victory between the Euphrates and Nicopolis. Mithridates had to flee to the Kingdom of the Bosporus where he reorganized his army and planned, like Hannibal, to transfer the fight against Rome to Italy. in 63 a. C. his son Farnaces revolted in Panticapea (Crimea, Ukraine) and Mithridates, cornered and betrayed, was forced to commit suicide by his own son.
Polyglot and despotic, this curious character has gone down in history for his many extravagances. One of them was his compulsive obsession to die poisoned. Every day he took small doses of "mitridate" dissolved in water, a substance composed of fifty-four different ingredients, because according to the advice of his personal doctor, said antidote would immunize him against the effects of the poison. We could say that it was the precursor to the vaccine. Three times they tried to poison him, and he survived all three. The last of them had to resort to the sword to end his life.
To enjoy the adventures of this tremendous individual I recommend reading «The Last King » by Michael Curtis Ford , an exciting novel that shows us Mithridates VI and his son Farnaces II in its purest form