In 120, a few years after the establishment of the Roman province of Asia, Mithridates VI, surnamed “the Great,” became King of Pontus. A talented administrator and general, he showed more spirit than most Hellenistic mon-archs. The kings of Pontus had married Seleucid princesses, and even if Mith-ridates VI bore an Iranian name he was fully at home in the Hellenistic world. He is best known for his prodigious linguistic ability (allegedly he spoke fifty languages - [Aurelius Victor], De uir. ill., 76) and the precautions which he is supposed to have taken against any attempt to assassinate him by poison: by taking increasingly larger doses of known poisons, he allegedly built up an immunity to them all (Plin. NH XXV 3).
Soon after his accession he responded to an appeal from the Greek cities along the northern coast of the Black Sea, for help against the Scythians farther to the north. Over the next few years Mithridates VI consolidated his rule over that region, including the so-called Kingdom of the (Crimean) Bosporus (Strab. VII 4,3-4, pp. 308-310). In 104 Mithridates VI turned to Asia Minor and, together with Nicomedes III of Bithynia, seized Paphlagonia. He went on to occupy Galatia (Just. XXXVII 4), but when he and Nicomedes quarreled over Cappadocia, Nicomedes complained to Rome. A Roman embassy ordered both kings to withdraw from their new conquests, and Mithridates VI backed down (Just. XXXVIII 1-2). Shortly thereafter (96) L. Cornelius Sulla arrived to install one Ariobarzanes as the new King of Cappadocia (Plut. Sul. 5). But when the Social War (91-88) broke out in Italy, Mithridates VI attacked Nicomedes IV of Bithynia and occupied that kingdom. Next, with the connivance of Tigranes II, the King of Armenia, he reoccupied Cappadocia (Just. XXXVIII 3). The Senate sent out M’. Aquilius to deal with the situation, but although Mithridates VI withdrew again, Aquilius so provoked the king with curt orders and smug replies that Mithridates VI chose war with Rome over enduring additional insults (App. Mith. 11-16).
The result was the First Mithridatic War. Mithridates VI seized Asia Minor in one swift campaign (App. Mith. 17-20), and in 88 he encouraged everyone in his dominions to vent what amounted to the entire Hellenistic world’s century’s worth of pent-up anger at Rome, Rome’s high-handed behavior, Rome’s insults, and Roman greed (e. g., the heavy indemnities): in the so-called Asiatic Vespers, an alleged 80,000 Italians (traders, money-lenders, tax-collectors, petty officials, soldiers) were slain in one great massacre the length and breadth of Asia Minor (App. Mith. 23; Valerius Maximus, IX 2,4, ext. 3; Plut. Sul. 24, actually gives the figure as 150,000). Mithridates VI, moreover, saw to it that M’. Aquilius received due payment for his insolence by pouring molten gold down his throat (App. Mith. 21).
From Asia Minor Mithridates VI’s forces crossed the Aegean. With Athens as a base they seized much of Greece, but in 87 L. Cornelius Sulla arrived in Greece with 16,500 troops (Plut. Sul. 16). Sulla reduced Athens by siege and in 86 defeated Mithridates’ general Archelaus at Charoneia and again at Orchomenus in Boeotia (App. Mith. 28-50 - at Mith. 41 Appian puts Mithridates’ troops at 120,000, probably highly inflated). In 84 Sulla crossed over into Asia, and Mithridates made peace rather than risk another battle. Sulla required Mithridates to evacuate all seized territory and to pay the costs for the war (App. Mith. 54-58). Sulla hastened back to Rome where he seized power as dictator in 82. In Asia, Sulla’s legate, L. Licinius Murena, invaded Pontus and caused the Second Mithridatic War (83-82), but Sulla rebuked his subordinate and reaffirmed the previous terms of peace (App. Mith. 64-66).
In 74 Nicomedes IV, the King of Bithynia, died childless and, like Attalus III of Pergamum before him, bequeathed his kingdom to Rome. Sulla by now was dead, and Mithridates VI made one last play. He seized Bithynia (which M. Aurelius Cotta had just begun to organize as a province), and the Third Mithridatic War began. In 73 to 70 L. Licinius Lucullus in drawn-out minor campaigns slowly ejected Mithridates VI from all his conquests and from Pontus itself, and in the end Mithridates VI fled to Tigranes II of Armenia (App. Mith. 71-82). This monarch had steadily been building up an Armenian Empire which by now included most of Cappadocia (App. Mith. 67) and Syria which he had seized from the squabbling Seleucid princelings (App. Syr. 48 and 70). Lucullus’ campaigns against Armenia in 69 to 67 brought no lasting success (App. Mith. 84-90), and in 66 the Senate entrusted a new general, Cn. Pom-peius Magnus (Pompey the Great), with a wide-ranging command against all Rome’s enemies in the East (App. Mith. 94). Pompey was already in Cilicia where he had been waging war against the numerous pirates which had plagued the entire region for many decades now (App. Mith. 90-94; on Roman activity against the pirates, see also Sherk, Nr. 55; when exactly Cilicia became a province is unclear) following the decline of the Rhodian navy. Pompey immediately took up his new command.
Mithridates VI’s ally, Tigranes II of Armenia, was soon occupied by a war against the Parthians (Cassius Dio, XXXVI 45), and Pompey made short work of Mithridates VI’s remaining troops in Asia Minor. In 65 Mithridates VI fled to the Kingdom of the Bosporus, for now beyond Pompey’s reach (Cass. XXXVI 45-50; App., Mith. 97-103), but the hardships caused by his efforts there to raise yet another army led to a revolt against him, and in 63 this most spirited opponent of the Romans finally gave way to despair and committed suicide (Cass. XXXVII 11-14).
Meanwhile, Tigranes II decided that he could not cope with Pompey’s army and made his peace with Rome. Pompey restricted him to his original territory, but undertook no additional action against him (App. Mith. 104-105). Pompey added Western Pontus to the province of Bithynia, but left the remainder as formally independent statelets (Strab. XII 3,1, p. 541). Cappadocia remained formally independent under its kings (Strab. XII 2,11, p. 540) and would do so until ad 17 when it became a Roman province (Tac. Ann. II 42). In 64 Pompey entered Syria, liquidated what was left of the Seleucid Kingdom there, and organized Syria as a Roman Province (App. Mith. 106 and Syr. 70; Just. XL 2). The next year two rival claimants for the throne of Judea, the brothers Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, appealed to him to settle their dispute. Pompey in the end entered Jerusalem under arms, abolished the Judean monarchy, but left Judea formally independent under Hyrcanus II as high priest (Jos. Ant. XIV 3-4 [34-79]).
The East, up to the River Euphrates, now stood under Roman dominion.
World History
