Over the course of his reign, Mithridates would become the single greatest challenger to Roman expansion towards the Black Sea. Pontus and Rome would fight three bloody conflicts, known as the Mithridatic Wars, in the space of twenty-five years. The first such conflict would end with the Treaty of Dardanos in 85 BCE, cementing Roman control of Greece and Anatolia.

The Rise of Mithridates VI

Mithridates VI Eupator ascended the throne of Pontus at the age of thirteen, under the regency of his mother, and following the assassination of his father. His ruthless streak was revealed mere years later, with the killing of his brother Mithridates Chrestus in order to secure his own sole rulership over Pontus. He had his mother imprisoned, where she allegedly died of natural causes, and married his sixteen year old sister to solidify his control on the kingdom.

Mithradates’ first major success was the conquest of Colchis, a polity located in modern-day Georgia, which was rapidly followed by the annexation of Crimea and the Bosporan kingdom some time around 115 or 114 BCE. This was done under the pretext of protecting the Greek cities of the region from the Scythians, nomadic peoples who were being pushed towards them by the advancing Sarmatians.

This threat was apparently severe enough that the cities and kingdoms of the area willingly surrendered their independence to Mithridates. The latter embarked on a vigorous campaign that allowed him to defeat the Scythians on multiple occasions, and in so doing dominating most of Crimea. Due to the way in which Mithridates had cleverly used a combination of force and diplomacy to gain control of his new territories, his armies were now bolstered by his new subjects and allies, including the Scythians themselves, and some Sarmatian princes.

The Road To War

Some two decades prior to these events, Rome had established a definitive foothold in the region, by gaining Pergamum through peaceful means. With his dying will, Pergamum’s last monarch provided for Rome to inherit his kingdom, rather than see it descend into a succession crisis, which also threatened to entice Pergamum’s greedy neighbours. Additionally, the Roman domination of Greece, and strong alliances with Greek states like Rhodes, provided Rome with a strong position to act from.

However, the Jurgurthine and Cimbri wars severely distracted the Romans, just as Mithridates turned his attention to the west. The Pontic king took this opportunity to occupy Pathlagonia, in concert with the kingdom of Bithynia. The occupation was short-lived: with Roman fortunes on the rise, the Senate ordered Mithridates to leave the territory, which he did – though Bithynia at the time ignored this demand. His next attempt at expansion was to conquer Cappadocia, a feat achieved largely through the assassinations of Ariarathes VI and VII. This time, the Romans responded quickly, forcing Mithridates to withdraw, and expelling Bithynian forces from Pathlagonia.

These attempts at expansion were beginning to seriously concern the Romans. Marius, in his diplomatic role in the region, had insisted that Mithridates should “be stronger than the Romans or obey their commands in silence”. Rome fully expected Mithridates to challenge them at some point, in order to make good his attempts to expand into much of Asia Minor. Mithridates, however, moved quicker than expected, hammering out an alliance with the Armenian king Tigranes I. Armenia was a significant regional power, and in combination with Pontus, it could present a realistic threat to Roman hegemony in the region.

Challenging Rome

Despite the stiffening Roman resistance, Mithridates remained on the lookout for opportunities to exploit. One such opportunity came when the Italian peninsula descended into the Social War, a military conflict that pitted Rome against its long-standing allied city-states and tribes in Italy. While Rome was distracted by the fighting, Mithridates rapidly seized control of much of Asia Minor, quickly retaking as far as Cappadocia to the south and using a pretender to de-facto seize control of Bithynia as well. The Romans dispatched Manius Aquillius to place the original kings of these countries back on their thrones, which Mithridates did not immediately oppose. Only when Aquillius coerced Nicomedes of Bithynia to attack Pontus did the war start in earnest.

At this point, the Pontic ambassadors had successfully engineered events to make Rome look like the instigator of aggression against Pontus, therefore allowing Mithridates to present his war as a defensive one. Once conflict erupted, his forces rapidly overran most of Asia Minor and defeated Aquillius in battle. After he had secured these territories and appointed satraps to govern them, Mithridates issued an order to massacre all Romans and Italians in Asia Minor, including their families and freedmen.

This massacre, known as the Asiatic Vespers, involved the slaughter of between 80,000 and 150,000 people, with Rhodes being the only real safe haven available for the targets of the butchery. This city remained a staunch ally of the Romans even while the other Greek states began to rebel in favour of Mithridates.

Rome responded in earnest to these upheavals. Sulla was dispatched to command a military expedition which quickly pacified the Greek states which had gone over to Mithridates. The operation was a complete success for Rome, with Sulla besieging Athens and forcing it to surrender in 86BCE. After Athenian dignitaries managed to insult Sulla while trying to surrender, the latter used sappers to bring down a huge section of the walls defending the city. With the way into the city open, Sulla’s army sacked Athens with such brutality that senators in the commander’s retinue had to beg him to not completely raze the city.

After the sacking of Athens, Sulla proceeded to win a crushing victory against a Pontic army between two and four times the size of his own, under Archelaos, at Chaeronea. He then proceeded to win another decisive victory against the odds at Orchomenus, where his army was similarly outnumbered. Sulla achieved this feat by doggedly entrenching his positions against repeated Pontic assaults, bleeding the attackers dry. At the same time, Roman forces under Flaccus and then Fimbria managed to retake Pergamum in Asia Minor.

The Treaty Of Dardanos

Despite these drastic victories, Sulla could not afford to wait out the enemy and endure a long war. Trouble at home required his return, and the general recognised the need to speedily come to terms with Mithridates. In light of the atrocities committed by Mithridates, peace negotiations with Pontus were perceived as a betrayal by many, including Sulla’s own soldiers. This was made even worse by the provisions of the treaty, which merely forced Mithridates to abandon the territory which he had gained during the war, and to pay reparations equal to the financial cost of the war.

The Greek states who had sided with Pontus were not shown the same leniency: Rome slapped them with collective war reparations around ten times higher than the cost of the conflict, and imposed harsh billeting terms which, according to Plutarch, ruined many wealthy families. The peace also allowed Rome to consolidate its power in Greece, fully subjugating the cities there to Roman rule. Additionally, Mithridates was declared a friend and ally of Rome once his personal reparations had been paid. However, the treaty was never ratified by the Senate, and as such its legal force depended exclusively on the personal power of Sulla.

The war had a curious cultural impact, as detailed by Plutarch: during the sack of Athens, Sulla acquired the library of Apellicon the Teian, which contained many works by Aristotle and Theophrastus. These books were not publicly available at the time, but this changed after Sulla’s seizure. Copies were made and shared, primarily with Rhodes, allowing the texts to become more widely known and safer from being completely lost.

The First Mithridatic War was ultimately inconclusive, with two more wars being required before Rome could extinguish the threat posed by Mithradates and his ally Tigranes I. At that point, Roman dominance in Greece and the west and south of Asia Minor finally became unchallenged.

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The country has won only one time, in 2005, with Helena Paparizou and the song My Number One, a piece with elements of traditional Greek music in a contemporary dance music setting.

This year, in Lisbon, Greece will be represented by Yianna Terzi a Greek singer and songwriter born from a family of professional singers.

Nine years ago she relocated from Greece to the United States. Here she released her first official English language single, Love Is Your Name.

Yianna is representing her country in the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon, where she will be performing the song Oniro Mou (My Dream), which she co-produced with Aris Kalimeris, Dimitris Stamatiou and Michalis Papathanasiou.

Did you enjoy this article? You may also like  Finland: Road to Eurovision and  Macedonia: Road to Eurovision

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1 – Greece has been in a state of default for about 50% of its modern history as a sovereign state. In particular, Greek defaults on external debts were in 1826 (which is impressive if you consider that the country only became independent in 1829), 1843, 1860, 1893, and lastly in 1932. It was also the first developed nation to have defaulted on a payment to the IMF since its founding in 1944.

2 – To raise the people’s living standards, 19th-century governor Ioannis Kapodistrias introduced the cultivation of potatoes into Greece. The legend goes that although Kapodistrias ordered the potatoes to be handed out for free to anyone interested, the population was initially reluctant to take advantage of the offer. Refusing to grow discouraged, he devised a plan to get people interested in them: he ordered that the whole shipment be put on public display and placed under guard. Soon, believing them to be very valuable, people started stealing the guarded potatoes, thus making Kapodistrias’ plan successful.

3 – In order to advertise their services through the city, prostitutes in ancient Greece often wore sandals that left the words “follow me” imprinted in the dirt as they walked.

4 – The two rival churches of Aghios Markos and Panagia Ereithiani on the island of Chios have an interesting Easter tradition, known as rouketopolemos, ‘rocket war’. After every Holy Saturday Easter mass, the two shoot more than 100.000 homemade fireworks at the other’s church bell towers. The winner is supposed to be determined on the next day based on the number of direct hits on each tower, but each parish invariably claims victory over the other. The result is that both parishes agree to settle the score the following year, and the tradition is thus perpetuated. While the origin of this event is unclear, it is thought to go back to the Ottoman era. In fact, according to local lore, it was earlier performed with real cannons, until Ottoman authorities prohibited their use in 1889.

5 – Entry into the peninsula of Mount Athos is prohibited to all females, due to the peninsula being home to 20 male monasteries. The ban is in place to make living in celibacy easier for those who have chosen to do so. This also extends to some female animals, including all female chickens, cows, ewes, nanny-goats, mares, and sows. Exceptions are made for cats, insects and songbirds.

6 – In the month before the ancient Olympics, no wars were permitted so that spectators could travel from across Greece unharmed.

7 – During the Nazi occupation of Greece, the mayor of the island of Zakynthos was ordered to make a list with the names of all Jews on the island and turn them in. Together with the local Bishop, he proceeded to hide all of them in various mountainous villages and handed over to the Nazis a list which contained two names: the mayor’s and the Bishop’s. All of the 275 Jews who lived on Zakynthos survived the Holocaust.

8 – In 1862, Greece held a referendum to elect a new king after the previous one was deposed in a popular revolt. The top 17 candidates in the plebiscite were disqualified either by virtue of not being human or being a member of the French, Russian or British royal family, as these Great Powers refused to permit any of their respective royal families to accept the Greek throne. This threw the election to a Danish prince with 0.00002% of the votes – just 6 votes. He and his descendants ruled Greece for 100 years. Non-human selections included: Long Live the Three Powers (482 votes), A King (1,763 votes), and An Orthodox King (1,917 votes).

9 – Some ancient sling bullets excavated from the city of Athens, Greece were inscribed with the word dexai, which translates to “catch!”

10 – Ikaria Island, off the coast of Greece, is called “the island where people forget to die” because of the high proportion of 100-year-olds. It is one of the world’s five Blue Zones, that is an area with a longer-than-average life expectancy and with lower disease rates. On Ikaria, in particular, nearly 1 out of 3 people make it to their 90s, and inhabitants have about 20% lower rates of cancer, 50% lower rates of heart disease and almost no dementia.

Did you enjoy learning more about Greece? Do you want to find out more curious facts about other European countries? Try our Top 10 Curious Facts about Lithuania, Kosovo, or Estonia!

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Greek Cuisine In History

Ancient Greek cuisine established the “Mediterrenean triad”: olive oil, wine and wheat. Cheese especially from sheep and goat’s milk featured frequently, and fish and meat formed the basis for other recipes. Like elsewhere in the Mediterrenean Sea, meat has become truly readily available only in recent decades.

Some current spread dishes date back to ancient Greece like lentil soup, retsina (rosé or white wine with pine resin) and pasteli (candy with sesame seeds and honey). Byzantine cuisine included revolutionary changes by introducing new ingredients like nutmeg, lemons, basil and caviar. Moreover, Constantinople was a global hub for the spice trade, with consequences for everyday cooking.
In this period, feta cheese and paximadi (a traditional bread) became commonplace.

A Quick Overview

The most characteristic element of current Greek cuisine is certainly  olive oil, but other vegetables play a fundamental role – tomato, eggplant, green beans, green peppers, onions and potatoes.
Greek cuisine also employs many flavorings like oregano, garlic, mint, dill and bay laurel leaves. Moreover, many recipes include spices, especially in combination with meat, like cinnamon and cloves in stews.
Another common choice for meat dressing is yoghurt, like for souvlaki and gyros pita. Lamb meat is traditional and it is cooked especially for holidays like Christmas or Easter. Ingredients like feta and honey also deserve a special mention.
The typical places for eating outdoors are Taverna and Estiatorio.

The Peloponnese

Apart from famous typical dishes like moussaka, tzatziki, keftethes, boureki, baklava, halva and kadaifi, Greek cuisine is very diverse.
The Peloponnese is Greece’s fertile southernmost peninsula and its cuisine is very rich in vegetables and fruit, olives and olive oil like for preparing Arni me votana, a lamb dish with herbs and vegetables. The sea, instead, provides locals with shellfish and crustaceans. Some very traditional dishes are prepared, in fact, with lobster and crab which are normally char-grilled or crumbed and fried, then served with sea salt, olive oil, lemon juice and herbs. Kaimaki, a sweet cream, is also traditional and it’s usually served with pastries or walnuts and honey.

Our dish of choice is arni me votana, roasted lamb served in a casserole, seasoned with herbs and accompanied by legumes and greens.

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The Eurogroup just announced in a press release that European institutions and the member State of Greece have reached an agreement on a new set of financial reforms.

The policy package seeks to readdress structural imbalances and put the country back on its feet, and mobilize further EU funds for investment and job creation programmes.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the eurozone’s top official, said Greece has been cleared to get 8.5 billion euros ($9.5 billion), which will allow it to meet a big repayment hump this July.

You can read the full press release HERE.

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