Mithradates VI Eupator

Pontic king (r. 120-63 b.c.e.)

• Born: c. 134 b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Probably Sinope, kingdom of Pontus (now Sinop, Turkey)
• Died: 63 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Panticapaeum, Crimea (now Kerch, Ukraine)

Mithradates fought three wars with Rome in the first half of the first century b.c.e., resulting in the destruction and transformation into a Roman province of his own kingdom of Pontus.

Early Life

Mithradates Eupator (mihth-ruh-DAYT-eez YEW-puh-tor), whose name means “good father,” was probably born at Sinope, the capital of the kingdom of Pontus (in modern northern Turkey), in 134 b.c.e. He was the son of the Pontic king Mithradates V Euergetes (benefactor) and his wife, Laodice. When his father was assassinated in 120, Mithradates succeeded to the throne, possibly in conjunction with his brother Mithradates Chrestus (the good), under the regency of their mother. The details of his life at this time are shrouded in mystery. According to the Latin historian Pompeius Trogus, whose work in summary form is the only literary source to describe Mithradates’ activity in these years, Mithradates went to live in the wild for the next seven years to avoid falling victim to various palace conspiracies. It is clear that this story is not strictly accurate, for a series of inscriptions in honor of Mithradates and other members of the Pontic court, dated to 116, found on the island of Delos in the Aegean Sea and an inscription discovered in southern Russia show that he was a presence in the palace during these years. The kingdom of Pontus was characterized by the difficult fusion of Greek and Iranian cultural traditions, as, indeed, was the court itself. It is therefore possible to interpret Trogus’s story as a folkloric development stemming from the basic education of an Iranian noble in horsemanship and the hunt.

Whatever the case may be, it is clear from the course of his later life that Mithradates received a good education in Greek as well as in the traditional Iranian arts of war and the hunt. He was a man who truly represented the amalgam of these two powerful cultural traditions, and throughout his career there are many signs of these two sides in his upbringing. His coins suggest that he tried to model his appearance on that of Alexander the Great, for when he made war on Rome he presented himself to the cities of the Greek East as a champion against the Romans—the “common enemy”—and surrounded himself with officials of Greek descent. At the same time, he gave these officials titles such as satrap, which evoked the memory of the ancient Persian kingdom swept away by Alexander, and he offered massive sacrifices to the high god of the Persian pantheon, Ahura Mazda.

In general terms, he was a man of tremendous physical and intellectual gifts, preternatural brutality, and, evidently, severe paranoia. He could speak twenty-two (or, according to another tradition, twenty-five) languages and was a patron of the arts and a lover of music. He is said to have been able to control a chariot drawn by sixteen horses and in his late sixties could still ride a hundred miles in a day. He included prophylactics against poison in his meals, murdered three of his ten sons, and, in the course of his wars, perpetrated massacres that were to become legendary in antiquity.

Life’s Work

In 115 or 114 b.c.e., Mithradates established himself as the sole ruler of Pontus, murdering his mother and then his brother in the process. At about the same time, he began a series of campaigns to extend his control in the Crimea, in southern Russia, and along the coast of what is now Bulgaria and Romania. He appears to have undertaken these operations for several reasons. One was to increase his prestige in the Greek world as a whole; as a result of these campaigns, he emerged as the protector of Greek cities against neighboring barbarian tribes. Another reason was to increase the overall power of Pontus, whose natural economic base was not sufficient to support a great nation. The territories that now came under his control were extremely wealthy; they had for centuries been an important source of grain and dried fish for the Aegean world and were to become an important source of revenue for Mithradates. In the next few years, he sent his armies to establish control over the eastern shore of the Black Sea as well. The success of these operations was vital for what seems to have been Mithradates’ great ambition: the establishment of Pontus as a major power in Anatolia and the Aegean world, an ambition that he could achieve only if he could match the hitherto irresistible power of Rome.

In addition to strengthening his kingdom through acquisitions along the Black Sea coast, Mithradates worked to enhance the economic base of his ancestral territories, which extended along the northern coast of modern Turkey and just across the Caucasus Mountains into the Anatolian plateau. Many parts of this realm were at the time of his accession quite backward. The settled areas south of the mountains had retained their basic political structure from the time of the Persian Empire, or, indeed, of the Hittites, while the mountainous regions had always been the preserve of wild tribes whose primary occupations were the pasturing of flocks and brigandage. Mithradates sought to encourage urbanization, founding cities in the mountain valleys and bringing the tribesmen out of the hills. He was not altogether successful in this, but the effort is a good illustration of his comprehensive planning to build up the power of Pontus.

In the final decade of the second century, Mithradates began to turn his attention to the kingdoms that lay to his south and west: Bithynia, which bordered Pontus at its western extremity in Asia Minor; Paphlagonia, to the southwest; and Cappadocia on the central Anatolian plateau to the south. All these areas were essentially under the influence of Rome, which had established a presence in what is the central portion of modern western Turkey when in 132 it had accepted this area as a bequest from the last king of Pergamum (who had ruled these areas). This land had become the Roman province of Asia.

As a result of the potential might of Rome, Mithradates at first had to move against these areas through diplomacy and the promotion of domestic discord. On several occasions between 109 and 89, he sought to establish his relatives or supporters as the rulers in both Paphlagonia and Cappadocia. On each occasion, Roman embassies had ordered him to withdraw, and Mithradates, who did not believe that he could risk armed conflict, had done so.

The situation changed in 90, as a result of two events. First, a major civil war broke out in Italy between Rome and its Italian subjects, which initially went badly for Rome. Second, the incompetent Roman governor of Asia, Manius Aquillius, in conjunction with Cassius, the head of a Roman embassy that had recently ordered Mithradates out of Bithynia (from which he had expelled King Nicomedes), encouraged Nicomedes to attack the territory of Pontus. In 89, Mithradates struck with overwhelming force, thinking that he could no longer tolerate the intervention of Rome in his affairs and that Rome was now so weak that it would not be able to take effective action against him. His armies overwhelmed all resistance in Asia Minor, captured Aquillius (whom Mithradates executed by pouring molten gold down his throat) and Cassius, and began a wholesale massacre of Romans and their supporters throughout the region. In 88, at the height of his power, his forces were established in Greece while he remained to administer his newly won territories.

In the same year, after the war against the Italians had turned decisively in Rome’s favor, the Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla, after temporarily securing his personal domination by a military occupation of the city, set out to engage Mithradates. From 87 to 86 Sulla besieged Athens, the main base of the Pontic armies in Greece. In 86 he captured Athens, defeated in two battles the two main Pontic field armies, commanded by Mithradates’ lieutenants, and prepared an invasion of Asia.

At the same time, a Roman army under the command of one of Sulla’s rivals (Sulla’s enemies had occupied Rome after heavy fighting in 87) moved directly against Mithradates. Although this army defeated him in several battles, it proved to be his salvation. When Sulla arrived in Asia Minor in 85, he was more interested in doing away with his rival and reestablishing his power in Italy than he was in destroying Pontus. Sulla struck a deal with Mithradates to restore the state of affairs before the outbreak of hostilities in return for a large indemnity, which Sulla could use to support the war that he then undertook in Italy. This deal, the Treaty of Dardanus, was signed in 85.

The treaty with Sulla saved Mithradates’ kingdom and enabled him to rebuild his forces. He was able to do this rapidly enough to repulse an invasion by Murena, the officer whom Sulla had left in charge of Asia, in 82. This event is traditionally referred to as the Second Mithradatic War, even though it seems to have been no more than an unsuccessful plundering expedition. In the next several years, aided by Romans who had fled Sulla’s bloody return to Italy and had continued the struggle abroad, Mithradates assembled a new army. At the same time, it is said, he offered encouragement to the pirates based in southern Asia Minor in their raids on Roman shipping.

Mithradates’ third and final war with Rome began in 73 b.c.e. It was precipitated by the death of the king of Bithynia, who bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans. At first, Mithradates was completely successful. He defeated a Roman army, overran Bithynia, and again sent his troops into the province of Asia. However, his success was short-lived. At the end of the year, the Roman general Lucius Lucullus encountered Mithradates’ main force as it was besieging the city of Cyzicus. At the beginning of 72, Lucullus destroyed this army and invaded Pontus itself. In 71 he drove Mithradates out of his kingdom.

Mithradates fled to Armenia, where he convinced his son-in-law, King Tigranes, to support him. Lucullus continued his invasion in 69 and defeated the combined forces of the two kings, leaving Mithradates roaming the hills with a small band of followers. Mithradates’ career would have ended had it not been for a crisis of command on the Roman side. In 68, Lucullus’s army mutinied, and he was forced to withdraw to Asia. Mithradates was then able to defeat the Roman army that had been left behind to occupy Pontus. This defeat led to the removal of Lucullus from command, though no effective officer relieved him until 66 when Pompey the Great arrived. Mithradates used this interval in an unsuccessful effort to consolidate the defenses of his old kingdom. At the end of 66, Pompey drove him from his kingdom and he was forced to withdraw, at the head of a small army, around the coast of the Black Sea to the Crimea. It was a difficult march, and its success is testimony to the enduring energy of the king.

In 63, while planning a new campaign against the Romans that is said to have involved the grandiose scheme of marching on Italy through the Balkans, Mithradates faced a serious palace revolt. His son, Pharnaces, launched a successful coup and took command of the army. Mithradates withdrew to his palace and, after killing his harem, tried to commit suicide. His efforts to poison himself failed, as a result of the drugs he had taken against poison throughout his life, and he had to call on one of his officers to stab him to death.

Significance

Mithradates was a man of tremendous energy and ambition. It must also be conceded that this energy and ambition were fatally misdirected. No matter what steps he took, he would never have been able to match the power of Rome, and despite initial successes, he was never able to hold his own when Rome turned its superior military might against him. In fact, he was able to survive his first failure only because Sulla thought that he had more pressing business elsewhere.

Although Mithradates’ determination, his refusal to admit defeat, and the broad vision he brought to the organization of his kingdom were impressive, his accomplishments were essentially negative. He initiated a series of wars that led to the expansion of Roman control in Anatolia and proved to be of great importance for Rome’s subsequent organization of this area, precisely the end he sought to avoid. Furthermore, the process involved massive devastation by both Mithradates and his enemies. There can be no doubt that the course of Roman expansion would have been very different if it had not been for Mithradates, but it can scarcely be argued that the course that Mithradates initiated was beneficial to those involved, as it resulted in the undoing of all that he had accomplished in the early part of his reign.

Bibliography

Appianus of Alexandria. “The Mithridatic Wars.” In Appian’s Roman History, translated by Horace White. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990-1999. Appian’s account of the Mithradatic Wars, written in Greek during the first half of the second century c.e., is the basic source for information on Mithradates’ reign.

Jones, Arnold H. M. The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. This work contains a useful chapter on the history of Pontus.

Magie, David. Roman Rule in Asia Minor to the End of the Third Century After Christ. New York: Arno Press, 1975. Several chapters on Mithradates. Includes detailed analysis of the sources in extensive notes.

Plutarch. Fall of the Roman Republic: Six Lives—Marius, Sulla, Crassus, Pompey, Caesar, Cicero. Translated by Rex Warner. Rev. ed. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1981. This volume contains Plutarch’s biographies of Sulla and Pompey, both of which provide much information about the campaigns of Mithradates. Includes introduction and notes.

Sherk, Robert, ed. and trans. Rome and the Greek East to the Death of Augustus. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Contains translations of a number of documents (inscriptions, papyruses, and classical texts for which other translations are not readily available) that are relevant to the career of Mithradates.

Sherwin-White, Adrian N. Roman Foreign Policy in the East, 168 B.C. to A.D. 1. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984. The central portion of the book deals with the history of Mithradates’ reign, including valuable studies of the military aspects.