Very recently, Professor Mary Beard , brand new Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences 2016, she explained in an interview the genocidal character of some actions of the Roman Empire. And, indeed, although the Romans carried out various barbarities that could be adjusted to that description, they also had to experience them from the other side, as victims. Probably the most tremendous case was that of the so-called Asian Vespers .
They are also called Ephesian Vespers , because it was in that Hellenic city of Asia Minor that the decree originated. They occurred in the times of the king of Pontus, Mithridates VI , of which we already spoke on one occasion in reference to mithridate, a panacea that he took to immunize himself against poisoning. This monarch, considered an unscrupulous despot and, like many others of his type, somewhat paranoid, led not one but up to three wars against Rome that we know today under the heading of Mithridatic Wars .
The one that interests us here above all is the first, because of the brutal way in which it began:with a call by Mithridates to stop the expansionism of Rome through the eastern Mediterranean and especially through the Anatolia region, where he had already established his domain and applied heavy tributes to the Greek polis, sowing discontent. This became so great that the king's exhortation was heard and put into practice in an unusual massacre . Mithridates ordered his governors and, therefore, the entire population of the kingdom, to assassinate all Italics residing in the territory.
This group included Roman citizens regardless of gender or age , being identifiable by, among other things, speaking Latin. As usually happens in these cases, the order included the threat of serious sentences for anyone who hid them or helped them, something that was encouraged by establishing the distribution of assets of the victims in two halves, one for the murderer and the other for the crown. Said and done, the year 88 B.C. It has gone down in history mainly due to two events and both related to Rome:the civil war between Mario and Sulla, and the cold-blooded massacre of Romans that broke out in Anatolia.
Men, women and children, servants, freedmen and slaves, rich and poor, all were put to the knife in a paroxysmal holocaust in which -always the same- many took the opportunity to settle personal disputes, clean up insults or get rid of creditors. It is difficult to know the exact death toll but it is estimated that they were between eighty and one hundred thousand , which also did not receive burial but were exposed to scavengers by express instruction of Mithridates. An authentic ethnic cleansing that, infamy aside, was absurd and counterproductive because, logically, the Roman Senate reacted by authorizing the legions to invade Pontus .
Perhaps it was what Mithridates really intended:to force the confrontation by taking advantage of the presumed weakness of the enemy due to the turbulent situation in Rome, fresh out of the so-called Social War , which had confronted it with other Italic peoples; in fact, his kingdom expanded borders and even made the leap to Europe. The fact is that the Greek king did not assess the events correctly and Lucius Cornelius Sulla He demonstrated it by crushing his army - commanded by General Archelaus - in two battles, Chaeronea and Orchomenus . As expected, the Roman troops amply avenged their murdered compatriots through all kinds of looting, rape and torture; some cities were destroyed and their population exterminated.
Only the eternal rivalry of the Roman leaders stopped the situation. To confront Lucio Valerio Flaco, legacy of Lucio Cornelio Cina , strong man of Rome at that time and political enemy of Sulla, he reached an agreement with Mithridates embodied in the Peace of Dardanus (85 BC), by which the monarch would return the territories seized from the Romans in Asia Minor, hand over his fleet and pay an indemnity of three thousand talents. The praetor Lucius Licinius Murena would see to it that those clauses are enforced harshly.
Thus, remaining halfway, the First Mithridatic War ended, although the peace was short-lived:Murena accused Mithridates of breaching the treaty and tried to overthrow the sovereign in what was the Second Mithridatic War . He failed because Sulla had taken the bulk of the forces, leaving only two legions, but Mithridates preferred not to make matters worse and agreed to a new armistice in 81 BC. It would hardly last six years when a third conflict broke out when the recidivist sovereign tried again to take advantage of a difficult situation for Rome:the uprising of Sertorius in Hispania, just after the end of the civil war between Sila and Mario. But the consul Lucius Licinius Lucullus he mustered several legions and at the battle of Triganocerta he routed the army of Pontus. The campaign was finished off by Pompeyo; Mithridates, who had to flee knowing that this time he would not be forgiven, ended up committing suicide .