Mithridates the Great (7 page)

The first challenge was the Scythians and Diophantus beat them convincingly. After subduing the local tribes around Chersonesus, Diophantus marched east, where he did not so much conquer the Bosphoran kingdom as have it pressed into his possession by a beleaguered king deeply grateful to be rid of it. With the south and east secure, Diophantus marched against the Scythians once more, and forced them into reluctant surrender. Mithridates later boasted that in defeating the Scythians he had achieved what Cyrus the Great and Alexander the Great had failed to do (though he failed to mention that these two had not actually tried very hard).

Nor did the Scythians remain subdued very long. They waited until Diophantus, and probably his army, had returned to Sinope, and rose in revolt. Though the Greeks alternately mocked them for their backwardness or praised their simple lifestyle, the Scythians were not ignorant barbarians. True, they wore trousers (which settled the matter as far as the Greeks were concerned), but they were skilled metal-workers, who seem (from archaeological grave finds) to have had a rich cultural tradition. The average Scythian fought on horseback, and his primary weapon was the bow (Scythian archers served as mercenary policemen in fifth-century Athens). Scythian nobles fought in armour rather in the Sarmatian tradition. Most of their cavalry were also bowmen, who carried arrows and bow in a case called the
gorytas
which held
both together. These bows were composites, a mixture of horn, wood and metal with a range and penetration which was all the more disconcerting for being delivered by fast-moving light cavalry.

Some Scythian infantrymen used javelins, but it seems that their shock troops preferred a double-handed axe about a metre long. Secondary weapons consisted of either another smaller axe, or a belt dagger not much smaller than a short sword. Fortunately for the Chersonese Greeks, the Scythian cavalry-based army was not well adapted for storming cities. The prudent Diophantus had left a citadel (possibly called Eupatorion) to defend Chersonesus, and this held off the Scythians until Diophantus returned. The chronology of this period is hopelessly confused but it appears that the Scythians, with retribution looming, allied themselves with tribes further to the north and tried to overwhelm the Pontic army by sheer force of numbers. The geographer Strabo (who was from Pontus) relates that 50,000 Scythians and their allies took on a Pontic army one tenth of the size, and were defeated with great slaughter. A final Scythian attempt was made to take control of the Bosphoran kingdom by treachery. The plot came into operation whilst Diophantus was there, finalizing the handover of the kingdom to Pontus. The Bosphoran king was assassinated, but Diophantus escaped in a boat sent by the Chersonese. The Pontic general returned at the start of the next campaigning season with his veteran army, and a one-sided reconquest followed. Thereafter, the Crimea and its peoples was, with varying degrees of relief and reluctance among the inhabitants, made into a newly integrated part of the Pontic kingdom.
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Though not stated explicitly by our historical sources, it is almost certain that Olbia was conquered. Coinage with Mithridatic themes appears in large quantities in the archaeological record; it seems that Mithridates did as he had done outside Chersonesus and built a fortress outside Olbia which served both as a bulwark for the town against barbarian attack, and as a reminder to the citizens that their military destiny was no longer in their own hands.

It can be inferred from later events that with the Crimea as a base, Mithridates began to spread his power east and westwards around the Black Sea. Since he had gone to the effort of acquiring Trapezus as a way-station to Colchis, it can be assumed that this region fell to him soon after. Mithridatid apologists claimed that their king inherited the region from its previous sovereign. Other sources are explicit that he conquered it, so it seems probable that this ‘inheritance’ was as voluntary as those by which Pontus gained Armenia Minor and the Bosphoran kingdom. Colchis was then put under the command of a governor who ruled the region on his behalf, whilst
Panticapaeum, former capital of the Bosphoran kingdom, became the seat of Mithridates government in the north.

Pontus also expanded on to the Asian side of the Bosporus, taking in those tribes and cities traditionally subject to the kingdom. Strabo describes a particularly epic battle fought on the ice of the frozen straits which brought the eastern peninsula under Pontic control. This left only a small portion of the eastern Black Sea coast out of Pontic control. This was occupied by a tribe called the Achaeans, assumed, because of the linguistic similarity with the Homeric Greeks, to be descendants of soldiers returning home from the Trojan wars who had, like Odysseus, lost their way. In fact the Achaeans were more backward and barbaric than was the norm for Black Sea tribes, and the effort-to-reward ratio of conquering them meant that Mithridates never got around to it.

Evidence for Pontic expansion to the west is lacking, but as Mithridates is recorded as fighting the Bastarnae, a tribe in the region of Byzantium, and as that tribe later fought in his army as allies, it can be assumed that Pontic arms also enjoyed considerable success in the west. This is confirmed by coinage from nominally independent cities which bore Mithridatic themes, and the boasts of Pontic propaganda, which proclaimed Mithridates as master of all the tribes and cities around the Black Sea. One reason why it is hard to determine whether cities came under Pontic control is that Mithridates did not attempt to change the system of government at the local level. Petty kings remained in charge of their kingdoms; those Greek cities ruled by oligarchies continued to be so ruled, whilst in democratic cities, the peoples assemblies met and voted as before. The principal difference was that tribute was no longer paid to an unpredictable barbarian chieftain. Instead, that barbarian chieftain, like themselves, paid tribute to Pontus.

The tribute from the Crimea alone came to 200 talents of silver and 180,000
medimni
of corn. Since a
medimnus
could keep a man fed for a month and a half, and 200 talents of silver would support an entire army for considerably longer, it can be seen that Mithridates’ Black Sea campaigns greatly increased the military power of his kingdom, even before the very valuable reserves of manpower are taken into account. Yet in the long run, the greatest gain yielded by these early conquests was not measurable in concrete terms. By his salvation of Greek cities from barbarian peril, Mithridates came to be seen as the protector of the Greek cities of Asia Minor. This provided him with immense help in his later campaigns, and allowed him to garner support long after his later behaviour had ceased to merit it.

Bithynia, Cappadocia and Rome

As king of Pontus, Mithridates was expected to follow the conventions set by his royal predecessors. One of these was that a king did not go to war in person, but sent his generals to do the actual fighting. It was one of Mithridates’ strengths that he selected highly competent subordinates, and another that he seems to have been one of the few ancient commanders with a genuine appreciation of the value of military intelligence.

In the case of Asia Minor, Mithridates seems to have decided that the best way to get the lie of the land was to see for himself. His kingdom was stable, his army was constructively engaged elsewhere, so Mithridates took himself on a tour or the region. He travelled incognito, with just a few friends, and would have been encouraged by what he found.
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Bithynia was under the rule of Nicomedes III, and though Bithynia was a strong and well-organized kingdom which had grown from the wreck of the Seleucid empire much as had Pontus, Bithynia’s greater proximity to Pergamum and consequently-greater exposure to Roman culture had left both king and people seething over the arrogance and greed of Roman debt-collectors.
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Despite a history of rivalry between their kingdoms, Mithridates would have marked Nicomedes as a potential ally, and an important one, as Bithynia controlled naval access to the Black Sea. Both Nicomedes and Mithridates were worried and angered by the Roman decision to rule Phrygia directly, using the excuse that Phrygia had once been part of the kingdom of Pergamum. Mithridates felt he had at least as good a claim to the place as the Romans had, on the basis that one ancestor had received it as part of a marriage settlement, and Mithridates V, father of the current Mithridates, had received it again as a reward for helping the Romans to defeat Aristonicus. To add insult to injury, Pontus had paid a substantial bribe for possession of Phrygia to the Roman commission which had settled affairs after the revolt of Aristonicus.

Galatia was quiet, its people subdued by a series of defeats against the better-organized kingdoms of the region, and the state itself demoralized and disorganized. Cappadocia was more of a problem. The kingdom was nominally under the rule of Ariarathes VI, but Ariarathes had been married to the elder sister of Mithridates - with the Pontic army in attendance to ensure that the wedding went ahead. At the time Ariarathes had been younger and easily controlled. But Roman ambassadors made it clear to Ariarathes that they would support a Cappadocian bid for independence in fact as well as in name, and Ariarathes was becoming increasingly self-assertive. Prompt action was required if Pontic control of Cappadocia was to not to slip away. Another invasion was out of the question as it would antagonize Rome and, in any case,
the people of Cappadocia (as Mithridates would have established) showed little taste for direct rule from Pontus. Nevertheless, appropriate steps were taken. The independent-minded Ariarathes was assassinated, and whilst his sister continued to rule in the name of her son, Ariarathes VII, Mithridates ensured that true power lay with the tool through whom the assassination was accomplished, a courtier named Gordias.
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Looking further afield, Mithridates would have been encouraged to note that Rome was looking less invincible than usual. Jugurtha, an African usurper, had made a career of defying Roman settlements of his kingdom, and usually managed to bribe his way past any Roman objections. When he went too far by killing Italian traders, he withstood a Roman invasion in 111 BC, and comprehensively defeated another sent against him in 109 BC. In the same year, Rome suffered a string of defeats at the hands of German invaders who looked as though they might succeed in eliminating Rome altogether.

With much to ponder, Mithridates returned home some time in 108 BC. He discovered that his wife had been busy in his absence. Not only had she produced a son, but, inspired by her mother’s example, had plans of ruling Pontus as regent in that son’s name. She had irrevocably committed some courtiers to her side by the simple technique of sleeping with them, and was understandably eager to remove Mithridates before he caught up on the news from home. Either Mithridates had sensibly neglected to inform his sister-wife of his acquired immunity to poison or he was tipped off in advance. In either case a poisoning attempt failed, with fatal consequences for the would-be poisoners.

The new rapport between Bithynia and Pontus manifested itself soon after Mithridates returned home, when, in a spirit of international cooperation, the pair invaded and occupied Paphlagonia. The excuse was probably the traditional Pontic allegation that Paphlagonia had been given to Pontus by the previous king (as with Colchis, Armenia Minor and the Bosphoran kingdom). However, Bithynia had always maintained a grip on a part of Paphlagonia, and probably took the lion’s share of possession. Certainly it fell to Nicomedes to install the puppet king, who took the name Pylaemenes. This was the name of the traditional ruling house of Paphlagonia. Though it is probable that the new king was in fact related to Nicomedes, giving him a traditional family name reassured his subjects - a trick that Mithridates filed away for future use.

The expected growl of protest came from the Roman wolf, in the form of a delegation ordering both kingdoms to quit their new conquest forthwith. The delegates were blandly informed of the fullest friendship and regard which the two kingdoms had for the Romans, and their orders were totally ignored. Whilst
he was at it, Mithridates ignored a demand to ‘return the Scythian princes to their kingdoms’, which the Romans apparently made at the same time. Rome was preoccupied with Jugurtha to their south and preparing to fight for survival against the Germanic invasion from their north, so had precious little time or resources to defend the interests of faraway minor statelets about which the voters knew little and cared less. Encouraged by the lack of vigour in the Roman response, Mithridates calmly helped himself to a large slice of that part of Galatia adjoining his borders. There he repeated the policy used in the Crimea and built a fortress, Mithridateum, to hold down the local populace.
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Also apparently inspired by the success of his Paphlagonian adventure, Nicomedes attempted a yet more ambitious project. Probably some time in 103 BC, he made a daring march across northern Galatia, right against the Pontic border, and swooped on Cappadocia. It is probable that the Galatians, being highly peeved with Mithridates at that point, made no objection to the Bithynian army crossing their territory. Nor was Mithridates particularly popular in Cappadocia. Laodice took the opportunity to make plain how she felt about her brother Mithridates having organized the murder of her husband. She welcomed the Bithynian invasion with such enthusiasm that she immediately married Nicomedes. Indeed, it may well have been at Laodice’s invitation that Nicomedes came in the first place.

There was no way that the proud Mithridates would calmly accept a diplomatic slap in the face of this magnitude. Perhaps Nicomedes assumed that he, as the husband of Laodice, had a claim to the kingdom which Rome would recognize as legitimate, especially as the Romans were none too keen on Pontic influence in Cappadocia in the first place. If he hoped that such considerations would at least cause Mithridates to hesitate, he was disappointed. Mithridates gathered an army and briskly bundled the newly-weds out of the country, setting his nephew, the son in whose name Laodice had been ruling, as king in his own right. It would then have occurred to Mithridates that the Romans needed bringing up to speed on the latest developments. Accordingly, he dispatched an embassy to Rome to explain his side of the story. This seems to be the most probable cause of the embassy which arrived in Rome in 101 BC; an embassy which the Romans treated with such undiplomatic contempt that the senate tried to bring capital charges against the tribune mainly responsible for this.
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That the senate were so sympathetic is partly explained by their extreme antipathy to the tribune concerned. But also Mithridates had followed the career of Jugurtha with careful attention, and realized the value of equipping his embassy with a goodly sum of money with which to bribe senators.