Ancient States and Empires / For Colleges and Schools

by John Lord

The resources of this Oriental king were immense, since he bore rule over the shores of the Euxine to the interior of Asia Minor. His field for recruits to his armies stretched from the mouth of the Danube to the Caspian Sea. Thracians, Scythians, Colchians, Iberians, crowded under his banners. When he marched into Cappadocia, he had six hundred scythed chariots, ten thousand horse, and eighty thousand foot. A series of aggressions and [pg 513] conquests made this monarch the greatest and most formidable Eastern foe the Romans ever encountered. The Romans, engrossed with the war with the Cimbri and the insurrection of their Italian subjects, allowed his empire to be silently aggrandized.

Tigranes.

The Roman Senate, at last, disturbed and jealous, sent Lucius Sulla to Cappadocia with a handful of troops to defend its interests. On his return, Mithridates continued his aggressions, and formed an alliance with his father-in-law, Tigranes, king of Armenia, but avoided a direct encounter with the great Occidental power which had conquered the world. Things continued for awhile between war and peace, but, at last, it was evident that only war could prevent the aggrandizement of Mithridates, and it was resolved upon by the Romans.

Preparations of Mithridates. Power of Mithridates.

The king of Pontus made immense preparations to resist his powerful enemies. He strengthened his alliance with Tigranes. He made overtures to the Greek cities. He attempted to excite a revolt in Thrace, in Numidia, and in Syria. He encouraged pirates on the Mediterranean. He organized a foreign corps after the Roman fashion, and took the field with two hundred and fifty thousand infantry and forty thousand cavalry—the largest army seen since the Persian wars. He then occupied Asia Minor, and the Roman generals retreated as he advanced. He made Ephesus his head-quarters, and issued orders to all the governors dependent upon him to massacre, on the same day, all Italians, free or enslaved—men, women, and children, found in their cities. One hundred and fifty thousand were thus barbarously slaughtered in one day. The States of Cappadocia, Sinope, Phrygia, and Bithynia were organized as Pontic satrapies. The confiscation of the property of the murdered Italians replenished his treasury, as well as the contributions of Asia Minor. He not only occupied the Asiatic provinces of the Romans, but meditated the invasion of Europe. Thrace and Macedonia were occupied by his armies, and his fleet appeared in the Ægean [pg 514] Sea. Delos, the emporium of Roman commerce, was taken, and twenty thousand Italians massacred. Most of the small free States of Greece entered into alliance with him—the Achæans, Laconians, and Bœotians. So commanding was his position, that an embassy of Italian insurgents invited him to land in Italy.

The position of the Roman government was critical. Asia Minor, Hellas, and Macedonia were in the hands of Mithridates, while his fleet sailed without a rival. The Italian insurrection was not subdued, and political parties divided the capital.

Sulla lands in Epirus. Siege of Athens.

At this crisis Sulla landed on the coast of Epirus, but with an army of only thirty thousand men, and without a single vessel of war. He landed with an empty military chest. But he was a second Alexander—the greatest general that Rome had yet produced. He soon made himself master of Greece, with the exception of the fortresses of Athens and the Piræus, into which the generals of Mithridates had thrown themselves. He intrenched himself at Eleusis and Megara, from which he commanded Greece and the Peloponnesus, and commenced the siege of Athena. This was attended with great difficulties, and the city only fell, after a protracted defense, when provisions were exhausted. The conqueror, after allowing his soldiers to pillage the city, gave back her liberties, in honor of her illustrious dead.

Sulla deposed.

But a year was wasted, and without ships it was impossible for Sulla to secure his communications. He sent one of his best officers, Lucullus, to Alexandria, to raise a fleet, but the Egyptian court evaded the request. To add to his embarrassments, the Roman general was without money, although he had rifled the treasures which still remained in the Grecian temples. Moreover, what was still more serious, a revolution at Rome overturned his work, and he had been deposed, and his Asiatic command given to M. Valerius Flaccus.