A Smaller History of Rome / from the Earliest Times to the Establishment of the Empire

by William Smith; Eugene Lawrence

THIRD OR GREAT MITHRIDATIC WAR. B.C. 74-61.

When Sulla returned to Italy after the First Mithridatic War, he left L. Murena, with two legions, to hold the command in Asia. Murena, who was eager for some opportunity of earning the honor of a triumph, pretending that Mithridates had not yet evacuated the whole of Cappadocia, not only marched into that country, but even crossed the Halys, and laid waste the plains of Pontus itself (B.C. 83). To this flagrant breach of the treaty so lately concluded the Roman general was in great measure instigated by Archelaus, who, finding himself regarded with suspicion by Mithridates, had consulted his safety by flight, and was received with the utmost honors by the Romans. Mithridates, who was wholly unprepared to renew the contest with Rome, offered no opposition to the progress of Murena; but finding that general disregard his remonstrances, he sent to Rome to complain of his aggression. When, in the following spring (B.C. 82), he saw Murena preparing to renew his hostile incursions, he at once determined to oppose him by force, and assembled a large army, with which he met the Roman general on the banks of the Halys. The action that ensued terminated in the complete victory of the king, and Murena, with difficultly, effected his retreat into Phrygia, leaving Cappadocia at the mercy of Mithridates, who quickly overran the whole province. Shortly afterward A. Gabinius arrived in Asia, bringing peremptory orders from Sulla to Murena to desist from hostilities, whereupon Mithridates once more consented to evacuate Cappadocia. Thus ended what is commonly called the Second Mithridatic War.

Notwithstanding the interposition of Sulla, Mithridates was well aware that the peace between him and Rome was in fact only suspension of hostilities, and that the haughty Republic would never suffer the massacre of her citizens in Asia to remain ultimately unpunished. Hence all his efforts were directed toward the formation of an army capable of contending, not only in numbers, but in discipline, with those of Rome; and with this view he armed his barbarian troops after the Roman fashion, and endeavored to train them up in that discipline of which he had so strongly felt the effect in the preceding contest. In these attempts he was doubtless assisted by the refugees of the Marian party, who had accompanied Fimbria into Asia, and on the defeat of that general by Sulla had taken refuge with the King of Pontus. At their instigation, also, Mithridates sent an embassy to Sertorius, who was still maintaining his ground in Spain, and concluded an alliance with him against their common enemies. But it was the death of Nicomedes III., king of Bithynia, at the beginning of B.C. 74, that brought matters to a crisis, and became the immediate occasion of the war which both parties had long felt to be inevitable. That monarch left his dominions by will to the Roman people, and Bithynia was accordingly declared a Roman province; but Mithridates asserted that the late king had left a legitimate son by his wife Nysa, whose pretensions he immediately prepared to support by his arms.

The forces with which Mithridates was now prepared to take the field were such as might inspire him with no unreasonable confidence of victory. He had assembled an army of 120,000 foot-soldiers, armed and disciplined in the Roman manner, and 16,000 horse, besides a hundred scythed chariots. His fleet, also, was so far superior to any that the Romans could oppose to him as to give him the almost undisputed command of the sea. These preparations, however, appear to have delayed him so long that the season was far advanced before he was able to take the field, and both the Roman Consuls, L. Licinius Lucullus and M. Aurelius Cotta, had arrived in Asia. Neither of them, however, was able to oppose his first irruption. He traversed almost the whole of Bithynia without encountering any resistance; and when at length Cotta ventured to give him battle under the walls of Chalcedon, his army and fleet were totally defeated. Mithridates now proceeded to lay siege to Cyzicus both by sea and land. But Lucullus, who had advanced from Phrygia to the relief of Cotta, and followed Mithridates to Cyzicus, took possession of an advantageous position near the camp of the king, where he almost entirely cut him off from receiving supplies by land, while the storms of the winter prevented him from depending on those by sea. Hence it was not long before famine began to make itself felt in the camp of Mithridates, and all his assaults upon the city having been foiled by the courage and resolution of the besieged, he was at length compelled (early in the year B.C. 73) to abandon the enterprise and raise the siege. In his retreat he was repeatedly attacked by the Roman general, and suffered very heavy loss at the passage of the Æsepus and Granicus. By the close of the year the great army with which he had commenced the war was annihilated, and he was not only compelled to retire within his own dominions, but was without the means of opposing the advance of Lucullus into the heart of Pontus itself. But he now again set to work with indefatigable activity to raise a fresh army; and while he left the whole of the sea-coast of Pontus open to the invaders, he established himself in the interior at Cabira. Here he was again defeated by Lucullus; and despairing of opposing the farther progress of the Romans, he fled into Armenia to claim the protection and assistance of his son-in-law Tigranes.

Tigranes was at this moment the most powerful monarch of Asia, but he appears to have been unwilling to engage openly in war with Rome; and on this account, while he received the fugitive monarch in a friendly manner, he refused to admit him to his presence, and showed no disposition to attempt his restoration. But the arrogance of the Romans brought about a change in his policy; and Tigranes, offended at the haughty conduct of Appius Claudius, whom Lucullus had sent to demand the surrender of Mithridates, not only refused this request, but determined at once to prepare for war.

While Lucullus was waiting for the return of Claudius, he devoted his attention to the settlement of the affairs of Asia, which was suffering severely from the oppressions of the farmers of the public taxes. By various judicious regulations he put a stop to their exactions, and earned the gratitude of the cities of Asia; but at the same time he brought upon himself the enmity of the Equites, who were the farmers of the revenue. They were loud against him in their complaints at Rome, and by their continued clamors undoubtedly prepared the way for his ultimate recall.

Meanwhile community of interests between Mithridates and Tigranes had led to a complete reconciliation between them, and the Pontic king, who had spent a year and eight months in the dominions of his son-in-law without being admitted to a personal interview, was now made to participate in all the councils of Tigranes, and appointed to levy an army to unite in the war. But it was in vain that in the ensuing campaign (B.C. 69) he urged upon his son-in-law the lessons of his own experience, and advised him to shun a regular action with Lucullus: Tigranes, confident in the multitude of his forces, gave battle at Tigranocerta, and was defeated, before Mithridates had been able to join him. But this disaster, so precisely in accordance with the warnings of Mithridates, served to raise the latter so high in the estimation of Tigranes, that from this time forward the whole conduct of the war was intrusted to the direction of the King of Pontus.

In the following summer (B.C. 68) Lucullus crossed the Taurus, penetrated into the heart of Armenia, and again defeated the allied monarchs near the city of Artaxata. But the early severity of the season, and the discontent of his own troops, checked the farther advance of the Roman general, who turned aside into Mesopotamia. Here Mithridates left him to lay siege to the fortress of Nisibis, which was supposed to be impregnable, while he himself took advantage of his absence to invade Pontus at the head of a large army, and endeavor to regain possession of his former dominions. The defense of Pontus was confided to Fabius, one of the lieutenants of Lucullus; but the oppression of the Romans had excited a general spirit of disaffection, and the people crowded around the standard of Mithridates. Fabius was totally defeated, and compelled to shut himself up in the fortress of Cabira. In the following spring (B.C. 67), Triarius, another of the Roman generals, was also defeated with immense loss. The blow was one of the severest which the Roman arms had sustained for a long period: 7000 of their troops fell, among whom were an unprecedented number of officers, and their camp itself was taken.

The advance of Lucullus himself from Mesopotamia prevented Mithridates from following up his advantage, and he withdrew into Lesser Armenia, where he took up a strong position to await the approach of Tigranes. But the farther proceedings of Lucullus were paralyzed by the mutinous and disaffected spirit of his own soldiers. Their discontents were fostered by P. Clodius, whose turbulent and restless spirit already showed itself in its full force, and were encouraged by reports from Rome, where the demagogues who were favorable to Pompey, or had been gained over by the Equestrian party, were loud in their clamors against Lucullus. They accused him of protracting the war for his own personal objects, either of ambition or avarice; and the soldiery, whose appetite for plunder had been often checked by Lucullus, readily joined in the outcry. Accordingly, on the arrival of Tigranes, the two monarchs found themselves able to overrun almost the whole of Pontus and Cappadocia without opposition.