The Comic History of Rome

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

The treasury of Tigranocerta, with a surplus of two millions sterling, fell into the hands of the Romans, who seized on the spoil, and who had become so independent by their temporary wealth, that they criticised, approved, and abused or disobeyed, when and why they pleased, the orders of their general.

Mithridates, taking advantage of this state of things, collected a numerous army, and fell wherever he could upon the Roman garrisons. On one occasion he approached so near the enemy as to be within a stone's throw, and as they happened to be throwing stones, he received one on the knee; while an arrow, fixing itself under the eye, at once opened it to the full extent of his danger. He soon recovered from the effect of his wounds, and was ready by the ensuing spring to attack C. Triarius, when a Roman soldier, disguised as a native, pretended to whisper something in the ear of Mithridates, at the same time giving him a most unfriendly poke in the ribs with a concealed weapon. The King was so unprepared for the wound that he fainted right away, and his troops were so taken up in catching him, that they forgot to catch the foe, who were suffered to escape, though they might otherwise have been easily seized upon. Mithridates, having come to, expressed his anger at the carelessness of his officers, and, notwithstanding his wound and his age, he would have attempted the pursuit—under difficulties—of the enemy. The next morning he renewed the attack on Triarius, and cut to pieces 7000 men; an operation, however, which seems almost too extensive for even the scissors of Fate, and we cannot help regarding it, therefore, as a sheer invention of the graver historians.

Pompey was now sent to supersede Lucullus in the command; a measure that had become doubly necessary, for Lucullus had not only failed as a leader, but his soldiers were daily refusing to follow him. When his troops approached within a short distance of Mithridates, they seemed more inclined to engage with him in a friendly than in a hostile sense, for many of them joined his forces. Soon after the arrival of Pompey, a battle was fought by night on the banks of the Euphrates. The moon, being near its setting, had lengthened the reflection cast by the Roman troops, and the soldiers of Mithridates, mistaking the reflection for the substance, began fighting most energetically with mere shadows. Every missile, thrown apparently into the midst of the Romans, was as ineffective as a miss, and the soldiers of Mithridates believing the foe to be invulnerable, fled in a state of panic. The King himself fought valiantly at the head of his body-guard; a corps which counted among its members his own wife, who, in the arms of a man, committed fearful havoc upon the Roman soldiery. Notwithstanding the powerful assistance of this strong-minded and able-bodied woman, Mithridates was compelled to fly, though he made extensive arrangements for renewing the war on the first favourable opportunity. This opportunity seems never to have arrived, or, if it came, it was lost by the treachery and cowardice of his son Pharnaces, who persuaded the soldiers that his father was an old fool to think of fighting with the Romans. Several of the principal officers took the same view of the subject, and joined in a conspiracy to depose the King, for the purpose of setting up Pharnaces as his substitute.

Mithridates was in bed one morning, when, woke by a considerable shouting under his window, he heard the words, "Pharnaces is king!" and sent to know the meaning of such an outcry. The answer was unsatisfactory, when the veteran, mounting his charger, made a speech on horseback, which nobody listened to. His son gave orders that he should be seized, when the old man, putting spurs to his horse, galloped up a hill, which for a man in the decline of life, who had been going down hill rather rapidly, was a bold and hazardous experiment. From the eminence he had gained, he saw the depth to which he had fallen; for he witnessed the coronation of his son Pharnaces, amidst the acclamations of the army. The poor old man was so affected at the sight, that he took from a fold in his dress a deadly drug, which, in anticipation of an alarming self-sacrifice, he always carried about with him. He was about to take off the mixture, when his two daughters, who were standing at his side, entreated the privilege of a drink at the deadly decoction. For some time he hesitated; but he was at length touched by their looks of mute entreaty at the fatal liquid. Dividing the contents of the bottle into three parts, he gave a dose to each of his daughters, reserving a dose for himself; and on a signal from the old gentleman, the two young ladies swallowed the nauseous stuff they had so earnestly solicited.

Mithridates, his rash act.

The poison took effect at once upon the females; but their father experienced only a disagreeable taste, without the deadly result he had looked for. Though too much for two, it was not enough for three, and the poor old man tottered about in a state of nausea, unattended with danger. Having been previously tired of existence, he was now thoroughly sick of it, and turning to a loyal servant at his side, he requested that he might immediately be put out of his misery. The faithful fellow, making a compromise between his morality and his duty, turned away his eyes, and held out the point of his sword, when Mithridates, coming speedily to the point, fell on the outstretched weapon.

Thus ended the Mithridatic War, as well as Mithridates himself; and his cowardly son Pharnaces sent in his adhesion to Pompey, acknowledging, in a spirit of humility and subservience to Rome, that he only held his kingdom at the pleasure of the Senate.

Mithridates.