Mithridatic Wars

The Mithridatic Wars were three conflicts fought by the Roman Republic against the Kingdom of Pontus and its allies between 88 and 63 BCE. They are named after Mithridates VI, the King of Pontus during the course of the wars, who initiated the hostilities with Rome. Mithridates led the Pontic forces in every war. The Romans were led by various generals and consuls throughout the wars, namely Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, and Gnaeus Pompey Magnus.

Mithridatic Wars
Part of the Roman–Greek wars
Map of the Kingdom of Pontus
Date 88–63 BCE Location Eastern Mediterranean Result Roman victory Territorial changes Pontus and Syria become Roman provinces Judea becomes a client state of Rome
Belligerents
Roman Republic amid civil war	Kingdom of Pontus and momentary allies
Commanders and leaders
Sulla Lucullus Pompeius Manius Aquillius † Lucius Licinius Murena Marcus Aurelius Cotta Gaius Flavius Fimbria  Nicomedes IV	Mithridates Tigranes the Great Artoces of Iberia Oroeses of Albania Archelaus Neoptolemus Arcathius Dorylaeus Aristion Marcus Marius

Mithridatic Wars 87–86 BCE.

The wars began over Pontus and Rome backing differing kings of Cappadocia and Bithynia. The conflicts ended with the death of Mithridates in 63 BCE and the annexation of Pontus and Syria into Rome. The Kingdom of Armenia and the Bosporan Kingdom ruled by Mithridates's son, Pharnaces II became allied client states of Rome after the conclusion of the wars.

Etymology

The bellum Mithridaticum ("Mithridatic War") referred in official Roman circles to the mandate, or warrant, issued by the Roman Senate in 88 BCE declaring war against Mithridates.Handed at first to the consuls, it would not end until the death of Mithridates or the declaration by the Senate that it was at an end. As there were no intermissions in the warrant until the death of Mithridates in 63 BC, there was officially only one Mithridatic War.

Subsequently, historians noticed that the conduct of the war fell into three logical subdivisions. Some of them began to term these subdivisions the "First", "Second", and "Third" in the same texts in which they used the term in the singular. As the Roman Republic faded from general memory, the original legal meaning was not recognized. A few historians folded events prior to the declaration of war into the war.

Today, anything to do with the war can be included under it. Hence, the term "First Mithridatic War" is extended to include the wars between the states of Asia Minor as well as Roman support or lack of it for the parties of these wars. The officers offering this support were acting under other mandates from the Senate; to do anything not mandated was to risk criminal charges at home.

Wars

Prelude

The Mithridatic Wars resulted from Mithridates consolidating his neighboring kingdoms into his realm which was opposed by Rome. Mithridates incorporated the Kingdom of Cappadocia by marrying his sister to its king before killing him and installing his young nephew, Ariarathes the IX, on the throne as a puppet ruler. Mithridates supported a rival claimant to the throne of Bithynia, Socrates Chrestus, as another puppet ruler after overthrowing his half-brother, Nicomedes the IV. Rival claimants to these thrones fled to the Roman Senate to plead their cases over the inheritance disputes and influence of Pontus in their kingdoms. Ariobarzanes, a Cappadocian nobleman, also made his case against Ariarathes the IX and was selected as the senate-approved king of Cappadocia. A senatorial legation was dispatched to head east to supplant the Mithridates-backed kings for Roman-favored ones.

This legation, the Aquilian Legation, was sent from Rome in the summer of 90 BCE to install the Rome-supported figures onto the thrones of Bithynia and Cappadocia. The Legation was led by Manius Aquillius, a prominent politician who previously served as consul in 129 BCE. The legation gained the army of Cassius, the governor of the Roman province of Asia. Mithridates did not oppose the Roman legation and by the fall of 90 BCE both Nicomedes the IV and Ariobarzanes the I were installed as kings of their respective countries without any fighting. With their goal achieved, the legation left the following winter. Before the legation left, however, Aquillius urged the kings to attack Mithridates to repay loans they had taken out previously to bride senators in supporting their claims.

Nicomedes the IV began hostilities with Mithridates in 90 BCE, almost immediately after being installed as king of Bithynia. Nicomedes launched raids into Pontic territory by the spring of 89 BCE which led to Mithridates sending delegates to Rome in response to the Roman client state's attacks. Rome responded that Bithynia shouldn't raid Pontus but didn't allow Mithridates to attack Bithynia in retaliation.

In the summer of 89 BCE, Mithridates sent an army lead into Cappadocia to remove the Roman-appointed Ariobarzanes the I and occupy the kingdom. This military action went against what the Aquilian Legation had enforced and was used as justification for war against Mithridates and Pontus, beginning war between Rome and Pontus.

First

The First Mithridatic War (89–85 BCE) resulted from Mithridates sending an army into the Roman ally of Cappadocia to remove its senate-supported king. Rome was busy with the Social War and was slow to direct forces eastward to stop Mithridates. One of the Consuls for the year, Sulla, was dispatched with 5 legions after 18 months of preparations in 87 BCE, the first major force sent by Rome since the start of the war.

In 89 BCE, Mithridates continued from occupation of Cappadocia to and moved to Bithynia where he defeated Nicomedes the IV, also occupying the kingdom of Bithynia. Following this, Roman forces in the region marshalled an army to force Mithridates back under the direction of Manius Aquillius who was still in Anatolia. Mithridates defeated this force and continue his advance throughout Anatolia unchecked. In 88 BCE, Along with the occupation of Cappadocia, Mithridates fully controlled the Roman provinces of Asia and Cilicia.

In spring of 88, Mithridates's forces enacted the Asiatic Vespers which saw the systematic killing of Roman and Latin-speaking people in these provinces to remove any Roman influences from his conquered lands. The death toll of these massacres ranged from 80,000 and above. Aristion, an Athenian philosopher was originally sent to Mithridates as ambassador but became close friends with the King and entered into his service. In 88 BCE, Mithridates sent Aristion back to Athens, where Aristion convinced its citizens to revolt and declare him Tyrant of Athens. Mithridates also sent Archelaus, one of his generals, with a sizeable Pontic force to aid Aristion against the Romans. The city revolted against Roman rule with support from Mithridates with several other cities joining Athens. Aristion sent Apellicon of Teos with a force to seize the sacred treasury stored at Delos which was still loyal to Rome. Apeilicon sacked the island of Delos, killing approximately 100,000 of its inhabitants before enslaving any left alive. Apeilicon seized the wealth kept on the island, particularly the sacred Treasury of the temple of Apollo the island was famous for before returning to Athens.

Sulla landed in Epirus in 87 BCE, before marching on Athens which was the leader of the revolt in Greece. In the summer of that year he besieged Athens; the siege lasted until early 86 when Roman forces broke through the defenses to storm Athens. Aristion and some of his followers retreated into the Acropolis where they were besieged by the Romans until late spring, after which Aristion was killed.

In 86 BCE, a Roman force under Lucius Valerius Flaccus was dispatched to apprehend Sulla and defeat Mithridates. Flaccus chose to first deal with Mithridates before Sulla, crossing the Hellespont into Pontic-occupied territory. Flaccus was killed by a mutiny within his forces led by Gaius Flavius Fimbria who took control of the Roman force. Flaccus besieged and took the city of Pergamon where Mithridates was at the time, however, he was unable to stop Mithridates from fleeing to safety by sea.

Archelaus escaped the city with his forces and engaged Sulla in the battle of Chaeronea in central Boeotia. Mithridates sent another of his generals, Taxiles, with reinforcements for Archelaus. The Pontic force outnumbered the Roman one, however, the Romans won the battle, capturing Taxiles and forcing Archelaus to flee with the survivors to Chalcis. While there, Archelaus received reinforcements and returned to mainland Greece where he would engage Sulla again in 85 BCE at the Battle of Orchomenus. Archelaus' force outnumbered the Roman once again, but the Roman force emerged victorious. Archelaus managed to flee the battlefield, returning to Mithridates. Mithridates did not launch another invasion of Greece and withdrew his forces back to Anatolia.

Later in 85 BCE, Mithridates and Archelaus met with Sulla at Dardanos to discuss a peace treaty. The war ended with the Treaty of Dardanos. It stipulated that the Kingdoms of Bithynia and Cappadocia would be restored to the Roman-supported kings, but Mithridates would maintain his own kingdom of Pontus. After ending the war, Sulla quickly withdrew back to Rome as a power struggle was developing into a civil war between factions within the senate.

Second

The Second Mithridatic War (83–81 BCE) began when Roman forces attacked the Kingdom of Pontus, reigniting conflict between Rome and Mithridates. This ended the peace that the previous Treaty of Dardanos in 85 BCE which ended the First Mithridatic War three years earlier. The Roman forces were commanded by Lucius Licinius Murena who had served as Sulla's legate and was stationed in the region to oversee its defense. Murena ordered an attack on the Pontic city of Comana out of fear that Mithridates was preparing a renewed invasion into Roman territory when Mithridates was raising forces to deal with a rebellion of Crimean tribes in the north.

Murena marched his forces into the Kingdom of Pontus after his attack on Comana, his advance unopposed by Mithridates's forces. Mithridates sent an ambassador to Murena to stop the conflict because of the peace established by the treaty of Dardanos, Murena replied that there was no treaty as Sulla hadn't written it out. Mithridates plundered Pontic villages in 82 BCE before returning to Cappadocia. Mithridates then sent envoys to the Roman senate asking for them to recall the Roman forces that were laying waste to his territory. The senate agreed with Mithridates, ordering Murena to withdraw and end his attack on the Pontic Kingdom; Murena refused and continued the conflict.

Murena was met by a minor Pontic army led by Gordius, one of Mithridates' generals, later in 82 BCE. The Roman and Pontic forces met at the Halys River where they engaged in the ensuing battle of Halys. During the battle the outnumbered Pontic forces stood against superior Roman forces until Mithridates himself arrived with reinforcements, defeating the Romans. The decisive battle was the only major engagement between Roman and Pontic forces in the Second Mithridatic War.

The war ended when Sulla dispatched envoys to Murena to end the conflict as Mithridates hadn't broken the treaty they had agreed upon years earlier. Peace was established between Pontus and Rome by 81 BCE after which Murena was recalled from Anatolia back to Rome. This peace continued until 74 BCE when Mithridates invaded Roman territory in Asia Minor sparking the Third Mithridatic War.

Third

The Third Mithridatic War (74–63 BCE). The Roman forces were mainly led by Lucius Licinius Lucullus (75–66 BCE) and then by Pompey (66–63 BCE). Several states were drawn into the war through alliances on both Roman and Pontic sides, like the Kingdom of Armenia on Mithridates's side. The war started when the King of Bithynia, an allied client state of Rome, died in 74 BCE and granted his kingdom to Rome in his will, Mithridates launched an invasion as this would mean Rome only gained more influence in Asia Minor. Mithridates launched the invasion around the time that Quintus Sertorius, an old supporter of Gaius Marius's Populist faction who still opposed the senate, was in the middle of a major revolt against Rome in Hispania.

The Senate responded to Mithridates's invasion by sending the consuls Lucius Licinius Lucullus and Marcus Aurelius Cotta, Lucullus to Cilicia, and Cotta to Bithynia. Lucullus's force would invade Pontus by land while Cotta's force would deal with the Pontic Navy. Cotta's forces engaged Mithridates's forces at Chalcedon, where Cotta was positioned with his navy. The Roman defenders sallied out of their defenses to fight the Pontic force. However, the Pontic army outnumbered the Roman one, forcing them to withdraw into the city, with at least 3,000 soldiers killed. After this, Mithridates launched a raid on the harbor, destroying four ships and capturing the other 60, several thousand more Roman soldiers died in the fighting before Mithridates left Chalcedon. Cotta's force was reduced to a fraction of what it once was, giving Mithridates impunity to take the nearby cities of Nicaea, Lampsacus, Nicomedia, and Apameia.

The city of Cyzicus resisted Mithridates's advance, forcing him to besiege it in 73 BCE. The city held out until Lucullus's arrival with reinforcements that counter-sieged the Pontic army. Mithridates sent a detachment away with the sick and wounded but they were ambushed by the Romans at the Battle of Rhyndacus. Mithridates broke out in the winter of that year, marching towards Lampsacus; Lucullus pursued them, further depleting the Pontic army.

A Pontic navy led by Marcus Marius, a supporter of Sertorius and advisor to Mithridates, set sail into the Aegean Sea. Lucullus would fight the navy at an island near Lemnos, where it was camped, destroying or capturing 32 ships and taking Marius prisoner. After dealing with both the army and navy, Lucullus and Cotta planned out an invasion of Pontus to end Mithridates's threat, however before they could, Mithridates seized the important city of Heraclea Pontica. Cotta was tasked with retaking the city while Lucullus would march through the Galatian highlands into Pontus. Cotta began the siege of Heraclea Pontic in 73 BCE; it took two years until the city fell to the Romans in 71 BCE.

In 72 BCE, Lucullus marched through Galatia into the Pontic Heartland without fighting the native Galatians who let the Roman force pass without engaging them. Lucullus directed his army to raid the fertile Pontic heartlands, forcing Mithridates to assemble an army of 40,000 near Cabira to fight Lucullus. Lucullus occupied an old fort overlooking Cabira, Mithridates attacked the Roman position, starting the Battle of Cabira. Mithridates's initial attack faltered, allowing the Romans to counterattack. The Pontic army broke and retreated before the Roman position. Mithridates fled eastward into Armenia to his son-in-law and ally, King Tigranes II.

After Mithridates fled Pontus, Lucullus used the opportunity to secure the kingdom, dispatching forces to occupy it. Lucullus directed the siege of Amisus, which was holding out against the Romans, before taking the city. After taking Amisus, Lucullus besieged Sinope, the main port city of Pontus, taking it after fierce resistance. Lucullus stayed in Anatolia while Cotta returned to Rome in 70 BCE.

In 69 BCE, Tigranes brought Armenia into conflict with Rome after refusing to hand over Mithridates, his father-in-law, to the Romans; Lucullus invaded Armenia the following spring. Lucullus marched on the Armenian capital at Tigranocerta, where he engaged and destroyed a larger Armenian force in the subsequent Battle of Tigranocerta. In the summer of 68 BCE, Lucullus marched on Artaxata and defeated another Armenian force at the Battle of Artaxata. He then besieged the city of Nisibis, the main fort and treasury of Northern Mesopotamia. The city fell to Lucullus by the winter of 68 BCE.

During the spring of 67 BCE, while Lucullus was still at Nisibis, Mithridates returned to Pontus and fought the Roman forces that were still in the region. Legate Gaius Valerius Triarius, who was bringing troops to reinforce Lucullus at the siege of Nisibis, took command of Roman forces in Pontus to fight the sudden return of Mithridates. The Pontic and Roman forces engaged at the Battle of Zela, which the Romans lost, suffering 7,000 casualties, 24 tribunes, and 150 centurions. The loss forced the Romans to withdraw from Pontus, restoring Mithridates to fully control his Kingdom once again.

In the winter of 67 BCE, while still sieging Nisibis, Lucullus faced unrest from his soldiers after continuously fighting throughout the war. Lucullus convinced his troops to stay loyal but agreed to march back to Asia Minor and only protect the Roman provinces rather than invading Pontus or Armenia. In the following year, 66 BCE, the Senate granted Gnaeus Pompey, one of the influential generals of Rome, command of Roman forces in the east to end the war.

Pompey led his forces into Pontus where he engaged Mithridates at the of the Lycus River in central Pontus by the end of the year. Pompey defeated Mithridates, inflicting at least 10,000 casualties on the Pontic side and causing Mithridates to flee to Colchis. Mithridates crossed the Black Sea in the following year, 65 BCE, to the Crimean lands that his eldest son, Machares, held with the support of Rome. After Mithridates landed in Crimea, Machares died, letting Mithridates seize control of the lands from Roman-supported rule.

Following the victory at the Lycus, Pompey marched into Armenia and came to terms with Tigranes, making Armenia an allied state of Rome. By 64 BCE, Pompey had established a naval blockade of Bosporan Crimea to wear down Mithridates, before he marched south into Syria where Armenia held lands, he seized important cities across the region like Antioch. In 63 BCE, he took cities like Damascus before involving himself in a civil war in Judea to establish it as a client state under Rome.

In 63 BCE, Mithridates retreated to the citadel at Panticapaeum where he would try to gather forces to fight the Romans. After his son, Pharnaces II, rebelled against him with the support of a weary populace, Mithridates killed himself. Pharnaces sent his father's body to Pompey who granted him the Crimean lands he still held, also establishing him as a Roman ally. The Anatolian and Syrian lands that were occupied would be incorporated as Roman provinces, while Armenia and Judea would become allied client kingdoms allied to Rome. Pompey's successes in the war further propelled his political career as the general, granting him a triumph in Rome for his efforts during the war.

Classical references

Diodorus Siculus

Enough remains of Diodorus Siculus to relate a summary of the Mithridatic Wars mixed in with the Civil Wars in the fragments of Books 37–40.

Velleius

A brief summary of the events of the Mithridatic Wars starting with the Asiatic Vespers combined with events of the Civil Wars can be found in Velleius Paterculus, Book II.

Livy

The surviving history closest to the Mithridatic Wars is the History of Rome by Livy (59 BCE – CE 17), which consisted of 142 books written between 27 and 9 BCE, dated by internal events: he mentions Augustus, who did not receive the title until 27 BCE, and the last event mentioned is the death of Drusus, 9 BCE. Livy was a close friend of Augustus, to whom he read his work by parts, which means that he had access to records and writings at Rome. He worked mainly in retreat at Naples. Livy was born a few years after the last Mithridatic War, and grew up in the Late Republic. His location at Padua kept him out of the Civil Wars. He went to the big city perhaps to work on his project. Its nature sparked the interest of the emperor immediately (he had eyes and ears everywhere), who made it a point to be Octavian, not Augustus, to the circle of his friends (he often found duty tedious and debilitating). Livy was thus only one generation away from the Mithridatic Wars writing in the most favorable environment under the best of circumstances.

Only 35 of the 142 books survived. Livy used no titles or period names. He or someone close to him wrote summaries, or Periochae, of the contents of each book. Books 1–140 have them. Their survival, no doubt, can be attributed to their use as a "little Livy", as the whole work proved to be far too long for any copyist. The events of the Mithridatic Wars survive only in the Periochae.

The term "Mithridatic War" appears only once in Livy, in Periocha 100. The Third Mithridatic War was going so badly that the Senators of both parties combined to get the Lex Manilia passed by the Tribal Assembly removing command of the east from Lucullus and others and giving it instead to Pompey. The words of the Periocha are C. Manilius tribunus plebis magna indignatione nobilitatis legem tulit, ut Pompeio Mithridaticum bellum mandaretur, "Gaius Manilius, Tribune of the People, carried the law despite the great indignation of the nobility that the Mithridatic War be mandated to Pompey". The "nobility" are the Senate, who usually had the privilege of mandates. There is a possible pun on "great", as Pompey had received the title of "The Great" in the service of Sulla, the original recipient of the mandate. Sulla was deceased; Lucullus held the mandate in his place. This is an intervention by the tribune in the legal business of the Senate. Now it was the indignation that was great.

The "Mithridatic War" is not just a descriptive term of the historians; it is the name of a mandate. As such it began with the declaration of war by the Senate in 88 BCE after the Asiatic Vespers (modern term), the casus belli. Mandates were assigned to the consuls, who, as the name implies, must perform them on penalty for refusal or failure of death. Similarly, only the Senate could declare the termination of a mandate, which is why Livy does not speak of three Mithridatic Wars. Sulla reached an agreement with Mithridates but it was never accepted by the Senate. Interim peace was never anything more than a gentleman's agreement. Tiring of this political game the ad hoc peace party bypassed the Senate, not only preempting the mandate but also giving to Pompey the power himself to declare it at an end. It ended automatically, however, with the death of Mithridates in 63 BCE, the mission being complete.

Florus

Florus writes the briefest of summaries of the Mithridatic War.

Appian

Appian of Alexandria (c. 95 – c. CE 165) also covers the Mithridatic Wars in the Foreign Wars section of his Roman History. His account offers the most in depth view of all three conflicts.

Contemporary references

Greek monumental inscriptions

Some monumental inscriptions of the times in Greece shed some light on the Roman command structure during First Mithridatic War.

See also

• List of conflicts in the Near East

Sources

Classical

• Appian (1995). Lendering, Jona (ed.). Appian, The Mithridatic Wars. Translated by White, Horace. Livius.org. Archived from the original on 2015-11-16. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
• Appian (2005), History of Rome: The Mithridatic Wars, translation by Horace White and Jona Lendering, Livius.org
• Florus (2018). Thayer, William (ed.). Florus: Epitome of Roman History. Translated by Forster, E. S. penelope.uchicago.edu.
• Livy (2014). The History of Rome. Translated by Baker, George. University of Adelaide. Archived from the original on 2019-04-19. Retrieved 2018-02-02.
• Lucius Annaeus Florus (1929), Epitome of Roman History, translation by E. S. Forster, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press
• Plutarch (2012). Thayer, William (ed.). The Life of Sulla. Translated by Perrin, Bernadotte. penelope.uchicago.edu.
• Plutarch (1886), Life of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, translation by Hubert A. Holden, Cambridge, England, Cambridge University Press
• Plutarch (1917), Plutarch's Lives, translation by Bernadotte Perrin, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press
• Velleius (2018). Thayer, William (ed.). Velleius Paterculus: The Roman History. Translated by Shipley, Frederick W. penelope.uchicago.edu.

Further reading

• Burcu Erciyas, Deniz. 2005. Wealth, aristocracy and royal propaganda under the Hellenistic kingdom of the Mithridatids in the central Black Sea region of Turkey. Leiden: Brill.
• Broughton, Robert S. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic.
• Corey Brennan. 2000. The Praetorship in the Roman Republic Vol. 2 [...] Oxford [U.A.] Oxford Univ. Press.
• Dmitriev, Sviatoslav. 2006. “Cappadocian Dynastic Rearrangements on the Eve of the First Mithridatic War.” Historia 55 (3): 285–97
• Fratantuono, Lee. 2017. Lucullus. Pen and Sword.
• Gabrielsen, Vincent, and John Lund, eds. 2007. The Black Sea in Antiquity: Regional and interregional economic exchanges. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press.
• Golden, Gregory K. 2013. Crisis Management during the Roman Republic : The Role of Political Institutions in Emergencies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Matyszak, Philip. 2009. Mithridates the Great. Pen and Sword.
• Mayor, Adrienne. 2010. The Poison King : The Life and Legend of Mithridates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy. Princeton ; Oxford: Princeton University Press, Cop.
• McGing, Brian C. 1986. The foreign policy of Mithridates VI Eupator king of Pontos. Leiden: Brill.
• Petković, Žarko. 2014. “The Bellum Dardanicum and the Third Mithridatic War.” Historia 63 (2): 187–193
• Sherwin-White, Adrian N. 1984. Roman foreign policy in the East 168 B.C. to A.D. 1. London: Duckworth.
• Smith, William. 1850. A New Classical Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, Mythology and Geography.
• Sullivan, Richard D. 1990. Near Eastern royalty and Rome: 100–30 B.C. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

External links

• Media related to Mithridatic Wars at Wikimedia Commons