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Fighting for Pontus: The Second and Third Mithridatic Wars

When Mithridates became king of Pontus, he took his country from being a minor state to challenging Roman power in Anatolia. But then came the defeat in the war. Pontus barely survived, and only because Roman armies were needed elsewhere. However, Mithridates would rise to the challenge, triggering not just another, but two more wars against the Romans.

Kingdom of Pontus, Mithridates
The expansion of Pontus under Mithridates VI

Broken treaties: the events leading to the conflict

The first Mithridatic war had ended badly for Pontus – its armies soundly smashed by Rome, saved from total destruction only by other conflicts attracting the Republic’s attention. Mithridates had assumed he could push Rome from Greek-speaking lands before they could muster a reaction, but this backfired catastrophically: now Rome was free to cement its hegemony in Greece and western Anatolia. The King of Pontus was declared a friend of Rome in the peace treaty, which was a common trap, as such a declaration demanded an extremely punitive reaction should such a person act against the Republic in the future.

After his crushing defeat in the first war, he significantly altered his military organisation, favouring a combination of skirmishing and cavalry tactics rather than the hoplite style formations, long since proven ineffective against Roman legions in anything other than perfect circumstances. Tensions in the region also came from neither Mithridates nor Murena (Sulla’s lieutenant left to deal with Anatolia) fully respecting the treaty, itching for an excuse to resume fighting. In addition to all this Mithridates, in a fit of paranoia, had his eldest son executed on the suspicion that he wanted to usurp the throne. Not content, he  then started openly suspecting his general Archelaus, who defected before he met the same fate. Archelaus then informed Murena of Mithridates’ military preparations and encouraged a pre-emptive strike.

The Second War

Murena apparently followed Archelaus’ suggestions, as he suddenly marched into Cappadocia and sacked Comana, wiping out much of Mithridates’ cavalry in the process. The war so began, but the King didn’t respond with force – in order to buy time, he instead officially protested Murena’s breaches of the treaty. During this time, the Roman general began raiding Pontus itself, looting 400 villages before a representative of the Roman senate could come and order him to stop. However, this didn’t stop the conflict. The representative also said that the halt order had not been put in written form, through an official decree. Murena apparently took this as tacit permission to continue, with Mithridates thinking the same.

When Murena came across the Halys river again, Mithridates had gathered an army and completely routed Murena, pushing him into the mountains and then out of Cappadocia. Sulla, furious at Murena, sent a tribune named Gabinius both to threaten Murena into standing down and to secure peace with Mithridates, who now held the upper hand. He insisted on gaining more territory in Cappadocia, tying its king Ariobarzanes to his dynasty by betrothing his daughter to him. Thus ended the second Mithridatic War, with a modest victory but a substantial propaganda boon for the King of Pontus.

The Third War: Good Omens for Mithridates

After the second war, Mithridates made efforts to establish peace with Rome. He tried to get the treaty agreed with Sulla formally ratified, even being willing to give Ariobarzanes the rest of his land back to secure it. Unfortunately for Pontus, by the time his emissaries arrived, Sulla was dead, and the senate was completely uninterested in discussing the matter. Mithridates likely considered this a statement of hostility. The Roman lack of interest started the Third War, as Mithridates soon had his son in law, Tigranes II of Armenia, invade Cappadocia. This invasion however resembled more a massive raid than an attempt at conquest, as Tigranes primarily wanted to capture people he could use to populate his new city of Tigranocerta. Rome immediately recognised Mithridates himself as the cause of this attack – a fact, it seems, made deliberately obvious by the King.

In preparation of the proper conflict he secured the help, or at least neutrality, of regions surrounding the Roman Republic, and massively expanded his army. Leading up to the third war were negotiations between Mithridates and Sertorius, the rebel governor of Hispania, conducted via the pirates of the Mediterranean. They agreed that in exchange for support, once in power Sertorius would recognise Mithridates’ right to rule all of Anatolia except for the existing Roman province of Asia. The King of Pontus then allowed one of Sertorius’ generals sent to aid him to essentially act as governor in the name of the latter’s rival government. Finally, Mithridates tried to ensure the neutrality of Egypt via a royal marriage, and began building his military strength in earnest, drilling his troops in the hope of matching Roman discipline, stripping luxuries and gilding in order to make room for military equipment on his ships. In total, Mithridates managed to gather an impressive force of around 140,000 infantry and 16,000 cavalry, between his own well trained forces and those of various mercenaries and barbarian tribes he managed to rally to his banner.

The King of Pontus then opened hostilities in style, with an elaborate slaughter of horses sent rushing over a cliff pulling a chariot, as well as a great fire sacrifice. These theatrics were deliberately engineered to appeal to all his followers, matching similar rituals to the gods performed by ancient Greeks, Scythians and Persians.

The real war then began. Mithridates marched his army into Paphlagonia using the failure to ratify the treaty of Dardanus by Rome as his casus belli. He then quickly took Bithynia, which willingly surrendered to him. At Chalcedon, he conducted a slaughter of Roman civilians and their Hellenic allies trapped outside by the cowardly governor Cotta, though this time he did not continue the practice of murdering prisoners after the battle. Against this seemingly unstoppable force was one of Sulla’s proteges, Lucius Lucullus, with a severely outnumbered force of around 30,000 men and 2500 cavalry. To make things worse, two of his five legions were the tough but frequently mutinous “Fimbrian” legions.

Bust of Mithridates VI Euphator, King of Pontus
Portrait of Mithridates VI, King of Pontus as Heracles, 1st century

The Third War: Bad Omens for Mithridates

The King of Pontus was in a very strong position. As such, Mithridates attempted to bring Lucullus to battle at Otryae, but an apparent meteor strike spooked both generals, who viewed it landing between their armies as an omen that they shouldn’t fight on that day. From here, things started to rapidly go south for Mithridates. He moved on the city of Cyzicus and laid siege to it while attempting to convince the defenders that Lucullus’ approaching army was that of his son in law Tigranes II. Also, during this siege Mithridates received the news that Sertorius had been murdered and Pompey’s legions were wiping out what resistance was left in Hispania.

One of Mithridates’ Sertorian advisors, Lucius Magius, suggested allowing Lucullus to camp wherever he wanted as he claimed to be able to bring about the defection of the two Fimbrian legions. The failure of this gambit effectively handed Lucullus the mountain passes which both armies relied on for foraging, limiting Mithridates to naval resupply. With this change in circumstances, Mithridates resorted to trying to storm the city before winter set in and his army starved. He had by, this point, built huge siege engines to attack both the land and sea walls of Cyzicus. However they weren’t enough, and the assault was repelled by the city’s forces, helped by chance. While Cyzicus’ citizens desperately tried to plug a breach in their walls, a major gale destroyed or toppled many of Mithridates remaining siege engines. This was perceived by both sides as divine intervention, with the people of Cyzicus making sacrifices in the gods’ honour.

Mithridates’ advisors encouraged him to retreat, but the King refused, insisting on redoubling their efforts, building more siege engines and tunnels to try to break into the city. This fateful decision was partly due to hearing about the start of the third servile war, along with the successes of his general Eumachus in southern Anatolia and the massacres that came to signify his forces’ advances. While his generals tried to conceal the extent of his food problem, Mithridates eventually discovered that his soldiers were resorting to every desperate measure: from eating weeds and pack animals to cannibalism of dead comrades in the most extreme cases. A plague soon followed.

In response to these crises, Mithridates tried to send some of his forces and all of his cavalry on a long route around the mountains in the hope of preserving them, however Lucullus managed to catch this contingent, consisting heavily of ill or injured troops, and proceeded to march the survivors back, parading them in front of Mithridates’ remaining army. This humiliation was made worse upon hearing that the Galatians, who were allied to Rome out of hatred for Mithridates’ murders of their leading families, had pushed Eumachus out of southern Anatolia. Further demonstrating that when it rains it pours, another major storm wrecked Mithridates’ new siege towers, demoralising his remaining forces.

Lucius Licinius Lucullus defeater of king of pontus
Engraving of a marble bust traditionally believed to be of Lucius Licinius Lucullus

Mithridates’ attempt to retreat at this stage was catastrophic, and his effort to distract Rome with ships filled with gold failed, with the Romans capturing the gold before it could even be embarked. His remaining forces suffered atrocious casualties both from drowning and the pursuing Romans, with the survivors seeking refuge in Lampascus. Mithridates did succeed in evacuating his troops and the locals from the subsequent Roman siege, by directing his pirate allies to evacuate them by sea. However, the navy he left in the Hellespont took severe casualties from yet another major winter storm.

Lucullus proceeded to mop up Mithridates’ remaining forces in the region, which included capturing the traitor Varius. His armies in Bithynia enacted comparable reprisals to the  atrocities conducted on Romans by Mithridates. However, due to the incompetence of his second in command Voconius, Mithridates himself was able to escape, albeit having lost nearly his entire land force. Lucullus then marched into Pontus, where he successfully defeated Mithridates and sent him fleeing to Tigranes while he fully occupied Pontus itself. He soon moved to fighting Tigranes, but the battles were largely inconclusive, with Lucullus being hamstrung by his mutinous troops which prevented him fully exploiting his victories.

The tide finally seemed to turn in favour of Mithridates. Whilst in Armenia, he took advantage of Lucullus’ temporary halt, and managed a surprise attack to regain control of Pontus, while Lucullus was undermined by a political conspiracy involving Clodius Pulcher and Pompey. This forced the general to retreat and allowed Mithridates to consolidate his gains. As a result of these setbacks, Lucullus was removed from command, supplanted by Pompey.

Pompey moved quicker than Mithridates, using a night attack calculated to make Mithridates’ archers believe his men were closer than they actually were, and managing to catch and route Mithridates’ army, driving the survivors back towards Armenia. This time, however, Tigranes refused to protect him. Mithridates was now forced to flee towards the Bosporan kingdom with Pompey on his tail. While the Iberi and Albanoi tribes tried to delay the Roman forces, Pompey burned them out of their forests as a response to their guerrilla tactics. After losing track of Mithridates he turned to deal with Tigranes.

The Death of Mithridates

Tigranes surrendered when Pompey attacked his stronghold of Artaxata, surrendering Syria, Phoenicia and Mesopotamia in exchange for being forgiven and allowed to rule Armenia as a friend of Rome. Meanwhile, Mithridates managed to stabilize his situation. After escaping to the Bosporan kingdom, he took control of the region after his son Machares committed suicide, and proceeded to purge those he considered treacherous, including one of his other sons. He then tried to ask Rome for a conciliation, but Pompey rejected Mithridates’ overtures for peace while he was securing the Levant.

With no options left, he prepared a desperate plan to lead an army all the way to Italy, but the heavy preparations incited revolts and mutinies within the kingdom. The most significant was that of his son Pharnaces, who usurped him in his rebellion. At this point Mithridates committed suicide, rather than risk being handed to Pompey. Having purposefully cultivated an immunity to poison, this relatively painless method failed. He asked his bodyguard Bituitus to kill him by the sword – Bituitus “rendered the king the service that he desired”.

Conclusion

The decades-long struggle with Mithridates threatened Roman dominance in Anatolia and Greece – crucial regions for the soon-to-be Empire. After a long effort, the costly wars ultimately led to Mithridates’ suicide, when the Romans, helped by chance and Pompey, ground down his supporters and subdued his allies. After the dust settled, the Romans were left in total control of Anatolia and the Levant, finally enjoying stability in the area, now having a border with Parthia. Mithridates’ son Pharnaces would later try to recover his empire, only to be defeated by one Julius Caesar.

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