A Manual of Ancient History

by M. E. Thalheimer

93. Mithridates V., the Great, came to the throne at the age of eleven years, his father having been murdered by some officers of the court. The young prince, distrusting his guardians, began in his earliest years to accustom himself to antidotes against poison, and to spend much of his time in hunting, which enabled him to take refuge in the most rough and inaccessible portions of his kingdom. He had, however, received a Greek education at Sinope; and when, at the age of twenty, he assumed the government, he possessed not only a soul and body inured to every sort of peril and hardship, but a mind furnished with all the knowledge needful to a king. He spoke twenty-five languages, and could transact business with every tribe of his dominions, in its own peculiar dialect.

The Romans had already seized his province of Phrygia, and he clearly saw the conflict which must soon take place with the all-absorbing Republic. He determined, therefore, to extend his kingdom to the eastward and northward, thus increasing its power and wealth, so as to make it more nearly a match for its great western antagonist. In seven years he added to his dominions half the shores of the Black Sea, including the Cimme´rian peninsula—now the Crimea—and extending westward to the Dniester. He made alliances with the wild and powerful tribes upon the Danube, and with the kings of Armenia, Cappadocia, and Bithynia. From the last two countries he afterward drove out their hereditary kings, placing his own son on the throne of Cappadocia, and Socrates, a younger brother of Nicomedes III., on that of Bithynia.

94. The Roman Senate now interfered, and with their favor Nicomedes invaded Pontus. Mithridates marched into Cappadocia and drove out its newly reinstated king; then into Bithynia, where he routed the army of Nicomedes and defeated the Romans. He speedily made himself master of all Asia Minor, except a few towns in the extreme south and west; and from his headquarters at Pergamus, gave orders for a general massacre of all Romans and Italians in Asia. Eighty thousand persons fell in consequence of this atrocious act, but from that moment the tide turned against Mithridates. Two large armies which he sent into Greece, were defeated by Sulla at Chæronea. A great battle in Bithynia was lost by the Pontic generals. Pontus itself was invaded, and its king became a fugitive.

Peace was at length made, on terms most humiliating to Mithridates. He surrendered all his conquests, and a fleet of seventy vessels; agreed to pay 2,000 talents; and recognized the kings of Cappadocia and Bithynia, whom he had formerly expelled. The reverses of Mithridates naturally led the subject nations on the Euxine to throw off his yoke. He was preparing to march against them, when a second Roman war was kindled by a sudden and unprovoked aggression of Murena, the general of the Republic in the East. The Romans were defeated on the Halys, and peace was restored, B. C. 82.

95. In the seven years’ breathing-space which followed, Mithridates subdued all his revolted subjects, and recruited his forces with the utmost energy. His army, drawn largely from the barbarous nations on the Danube and Euxine, was drilled and equipped according to the Roman system, and his navy was increased to four hundred vessels. Both the Pontic king and the Romans would willingly have remained some years longer at peace, but, in 74 B. C., the legacy of Bithynia to the latter power, by Nicomedes III., brought them into unavoidable collision. Mithridates first seized the country, and gained a double victory over Cotta, by sea and land. But he failed in the sieges of Chalcedon and Cyzicus, and in the second year he was repeatedly worsted by Lucul´lus. His fleet was first defeated off Tenedos, and then wrecked by a storm. In the third year Mithridates was driven out of his own dominions, and those of his son-in-law, Tigranes. For three years the war was carried on in Armenia, where the two kings were twice defeated by Lucullus.

In 68 B. C., Mithridates returned to his kingdom, and defeated the Romans twice within a few months. But in 66 B. C., Pompey assumed the command, and Mithridates, after the loss of nearly his whole army, abandoned Pontus, and retired into the barbarous regions north of the Euxine, where the Romans did not care to pursue him. With a spirit untamed either by years or misfortunes, he plotted the bold design of gathering to his standard the wild tribes along the Danube, and marching upon Italy from the north. But his officers did not share his enthusiasm. A conspiracy against him was headed by his own son; and the old king, deserted by all whom he would have trusted, attempted to end his life by poison. His constitution had been for many years so guarded by antidotes, that the drugs had no effect, and he was finally dispatched by one of his Gallic soldiers. Pontus became a Roman province, only a small portion of its territory continuing, a century or more, under princes of the ancient dynasty.

VIII. Cappadocia.

Coin of Ariarathes V., twice the size of original.

96. The southern part of Cappadocia remained loyal to the Persian kings until their downfall at Arbela. It was conquered by Perdiccas after the death of Alexander, but within six years became independent, and continued under native kings until it was absorbed into the Roman dominions, A. D. 17. The history of these monarchs is of little importance, except so far as it is included in that of the neighboring nations. The fifth king, Ariara´thes IV., made, in his later years, a close and friendly alliance with the Romans, which continued unbroken under his successors.