Mithridates VI Eupator
Mithridates or Mithradates VI Eupator was the ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus in northern Anatolia from 120 to 63 BC, and one of the Roman Republic's most formidable and determined opponents. He sought to dominate Asia Minor and the Black Sea region, waging several hard-fought but ultimately unsuccessful wars to break Roman dominion over Asia and the Hellenic world. He has been called the greatest ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus. He cultivated an immunity to poisons by regularly ingesting sub-lethal doses; this practice, now called mithridatism, is named after him. After his death, he became known as Mithridates the Great. He claimed to be a descendant of Darius the Great.
Biography
Name and ancestry
Mithridates is the Greek attestation of the Iranian name Mihrdāt, meaning "given by Mithra", the name of the ancient Iranian sun god. The name Mihrdāt itself derives from Old Iranian Miθra-dāta-. The Greek-language epithet "eupator" means "of a well father", and was adopted by a number of other Hellenistic rulers.Mithridates was a prince of mixed Iranian and Greek ancestry. He claimed descent from Cyrus the Great, the family of Darius the Great, the Regent Antipater, the generals of Alexander the Great, as well as the later kings Antigonus I Monophthalmus and Seleucus I Nicator.
Early life
Mithridates was born in the Pontic city of Sinope, on the Black Sea coast of Anatolia, and was raised in the Kingdom of Pontus. He was the first son among the children born to Laodice VI and Mithridates V Euergetes. His father, Mithridates V, was a prince and the son of the former Pontic monarchs Pharnaces I of Pontus and his cousin-wife Nysa. His mother, Laodice VI, was a Seleucid princess and the daughter of the Seleucid monarchs Antiochus IV Epiphanes and his sister-wife Laodice IV.Mithridates V was assassinated in about 120 BC in Sinope, poisoned by unknown persons at a lavish banquet which he held. He left the kingdom to the joint rule of his widow Laodice VI, and their elder son Mithridates VI, and younger son Mithridates Chrestus. Neither Mithridates VI nor his younger brother were of age, and their mother retained all power as regent for the time being. Laodice VI's regency over Pontus was from 120 BC to 116 BC and favoured Mithridates Chrestus over Mithridates. During his mother's regency, Mithridates escaped from his mother's plots against him and went into hiding.
Mithridates emerged from hiding and returned to Pontus between 116 and 113 BC. There, he was hailed as king. By this time he had grown to become a man of considerable stature and physical strength. He combined extraordinary energy and determination with a considerable talent for politics, organization and strategy. Mithridates removed his mother and brother from the throne, imprisoning them both. In this way, he became the sole ruler of Pontus. Laodice VI died in prison, ostensibly of natural causes. Mithridates Chrestus may have died in prison also or may have been tried for treason and executed. Mithridates gave both of them royal funerals. Mithridates took his younger sister Laodice, aged 16, as his first wife. His goals in doing so were to preserve the purity of their bloodline, to solidify his claim to the throne, to co-rule over Pontus, and to ensure the succession to his legitimate children.
Early reign
Mithridates entertained ambitions of making his state the dominant power on the Black Sea and in Anatolia. He first subjugated Colchis, a region east of the Black Sea occupied by present-day Georgia, and prior to 164 BC, an independent kingdom. He then clashed for supremacy on the Pontic steppe with the Scythian king Palacus. The most important centres of Crimea, Tauric Chersonesus and the Bosporan Kingdom readily surrendered their independence in return for Mithridates' promises to protect them against the Scythians, their ancient enemies. After several abortive attempts to invade the Crimea, the Scythians and the allied Rhoxolanoi suffered heavy losses at the hands of the Pontic generals Neoptolemus and Diophantus and accepted Mithridates as their overlord.The young king then turned his attention to Anatolia, where Roman power was on the rise. He contrived to partition Paphlagonia and Galatia with King Nicomedes III of Bithynia. It was probably on the occasion of the Paphlagonian invasion of 108 BC that Mithridates adopted the Bithynian era for use on his coins in honour of the alliance. This calendar era began with the first Bithynian king Zipoites I in 297 BC. It was certainly in use in Pontus by 96 BC at the latest.
Yet it soon became clear to Mithridates that Nicomedes was steering his country into an anti-Pontic alliance with the expanding Roman Republic. When Mithridates fell out with Nicomedes over control of Cappadocia, and defeated him in a series of battles, the latter was constrained to openly enlist the assistance of Rome. The Romans twice interfered in the conflict on behalf of Nicomedes, leaving Mithridates, should he wish to continue the expansion of his kingdom, with little choice other than to engage in a future Roman-Pontic war. By this time Mithridates had resolved to expel the Romans from Asia.
Mithridatic Wars
The next ruler of Bithynia, Nicomedes IV of Bithynia, was a figurehead manipulated by the Romans. Mithridates plotted to overthrow him, but his attempts failed and Nicomedes IV, instigated by his Roman advisors, declared war on Pontus. Rome itself was at the time involved in the Social War, a civil war with its Italian allies; as a result, there were only two legions present in all of Roman Asia, both in Macedonia. These legions combined with Nicomedes IV's army to invade Mithridates' Kingdom of Pontus in 89 BC. Mithridates won a decisive victory, scattering the Roman-led forces. His victorious forces were welcomed throughout Anatolia. The following year, 88 BC, Mithridates ordered a massacre of Roman and Italian settlers remaining in several major Anatolian cities, including Pergamon and Tralles, essentially wiping out the Roman presence in the region. As many as 80,000 people are said to have perished in the killings. The episode is known as the Asiatic Vespers.The Kingdom of Pontus comprised a mixed population in its Ionian Greek and Anatolian cities. The royal family moved the capital from Amasia to the Greek city of Sinope. Its rulers tried to fully assimilate the potential of their subjects by showing a Greek face to the Greek world and an Iranian/Anatolian face to the Eastern world. Whenever the gap between the rulers and their Anatolian subjects became greater, they would put emphasis on their Persian origins. In this manner, the royal propaganda claimed heritage both from Persian and Greek rulers, including Cyrus the Great, Darius I of Persia, Alexander the Great, and Seleucus I Nicator. Mithridates too posed as a champion of Hellenism, but this was mainly to further his political ambitions; it is no proof that he felt a mission to promote its extension within his domains. Whatever his true intentions, the Greek cities defected to the side of Mithridates and welcomed his armies in mainland Greece, while his fleet besieged the Romans at Rhodes. His neighbour to the southeast, the King of Armenia Tigranes the Great, established an alliance with Mithridates and married one of Mithridates' daughters, Cleopatra of Pontus. The two rulers would continue to support each other in the coming conflict with Rome.
The Romans responded to the massacre of 88 BC by organising a large invasion force to defeat Mithridates and remove him from power. The First Mithridatic War, fought between 88 and 84 BC, saw Lucius Cornelius Sulla force Mithridates out of Greece proper. After achieving victory in several battles, Sulla received news of trouble back in Rome posed by his rival Gaius Marius and hurriedly concluded peace talks with Mithridates. As Sulla returned to Italy, Lucius Licinius Murena was left in charge of Roman forces in Anatolia. The lenient peace treaty, which was never ratified by the Senate, allowed Mithridates VI to restore his forces. Murena attacked Mithridates in 83 BC, provoking the Second Mithridatic War from 83 to 81 BC. Mithridates defeated Murena's two green legions at the Battle of Halys in 82 BC before peace was again declared by treaty.
When Rome attempted to annex Bithynia nearly a decade later, Mithridates attacked with an even larger army, leading to the Third Mithridatic War from 73 BC to 63 BC. Lucullus was sent against Mithridates and the Romans routed the Pontic forces at the Battle of Cabira in 72 BC, driving Mithridates into exile in Tigranes' Armenia. While Lucullus was preoccupied fighting the Armenians, Mithridates surged back to retake Pontus by crushing four Roman legions under Valerius Triarius and killing 7,000 Roman soldiers at the Battle of Zela in 67 BC. He was routed by Pompey's legions at the Battle of the Lycus in 66 BC.
After this defeat, Mithridates fled with a small army to Colchis and then over the Caucasus Mountains to Crimea and made plans to raise yet another army to take on the Romans. His eldest living son, Machares, viceroy of Cimmerian Bosporus, was unwilling to aid his father. Mithridates had Machares killed, and Mithridates took the throne of the Bosporan Kingdom. He then ordered conscription and preparations for war. In 63 BC, another of his sons, Pharnaces II of Pontus, led a rebellion against his father, joined by Roman exiles in the core of Mithridates' Pontic army. Mithridates withdrew to the citadel in Panticapaeum, where he committed suicide. Pompey buried Mithridates in the rock-cut tombs of his ancestors in Sinope, the new capital of Pontus.
Death
After Pompey defeated him in Pontus, Mithridates VI fled to the lands north of the Black Sea in the winter of 66 BC in the hope that he could raise a new army and carry on the war through invading Italy by way of the Danube. His preparations proved to be too harsh on the local nobles and populace, and they rebelled against his rule. He reportedly attempted suicide by poison, which failed because of his immunity to the substance. According to Appian's Roman History, he then requested his Gallic bodyguard and friend, Bituitus, to kill him by the sword:Cassius Dio's Roman History records a different account:
At the behest of Pompey, Mithridates' body was later buried alongside his ancestors. Mount Mithridat in the central Kerch and the town of Yevpatoria in Crimea commemorate his name.