The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy
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THE SECOND MITHRADATIC WAR, 83–81 BC
What was Mithradates’ state of mind as he retired to his drastically reduced corner of the world after a grueling Round One with Rome? Among the conflicting emotions of chagrin, resentment, relief, despair, hope, determination, suspicion, and calculation, one conviction stood out. He was King Mithradates VI Eupator Dionysus Vazraka (“The Great”), proud descendant of Persian and Macedonian monarchs, emperor of the Black Sea Empire, the divinely chosen champion of liberty, Light, and Truth, the enemy of Darkness and Deceit, the one true alternative to Roman imperialism in the East.22
He was aware that the Roman Senate had failed to ratify the Peace of Dardanus, which he and Sulla had sealed with a kiss. In fact, there had been no written, signed document setting out the terms of the truce. Just exactly how binding was a verbal agreement with a renegade Roman bent on ravaging Italy? The same idea occurred to Murena, the commander in charge of the twelve thousand “Fimbrians” that Sulla left in Anatolia. Murena (the “Eel”), who had rallied Sulla’s men at the battle for Piraeus, was among those disgusted by the lenient terms of the treaty. He decided to take matters into his own hands. Murena’s ill-considered, self-serving decision to resume the war played right into the hands of Mithradates.
But first Mithradates had to do some housecleaning. He decided not to restore all of Cappadocia to Ariobarzanes—the populace favored Mithradates, and he had always considered Cappadocia part of his kingdom. Disturbances brewing in Colchis and among some of the tribes around the Cimmerian Bosporus demanded immediate attention. To convince the tribes of the northern Black Sea of his power, Mithradates enlarged his navy and recruited another huge army. Learning from his defeats in Greece, Mithradates gave up the old-fashioned, lockstep hoplite formation and drilled his foot soldiers in smaller, more flexible units dispersed in thin lines, better able to fight Roman legions. He increased the number of lightly armed skirmishers and archers. He made a personal decision to fight in the front ranks when necessary. A large cavalry, made up of courageous, highly skilled Persian and Armenian knights, was the centerpiece of his new army. These forces were dispatched to quell the restive north, where his son Machares was viceroy of the Bosporan Kingdom.23
The Colchians requested that the king’s eldest son, Mithradates the Younger, be their ruler. As soon as Mithradates agreed, they renewed their allegiance. Without any evidence, Mithradates instinctively suspected that his son harbored ambitions to supersede his father. Mithradates sent for his son and heir, who had served faithfully in the war against Fimbria. But after all, this son was the offspring of Queen Laodice the Younger, the king’s sister, his first wife, who had to be executed for plotting against him. Had Laodice’s oldest son inherited the treachery inbred in his maternal lineage? Perhaps he held a grudge for the murder of his mother. In sorrow, Mithradates bound his son in golden fetters and put him to death. We can imagine that for this regrettable necessity, he administered the most gentle and rapid poison in his apothecary, perhaps hemlock mixed with opium (the deadly cocktail drunk by the philosopher Socrates), or the microscopic toxin from India, dikairon. A trusted Persian, Moaphernes from Amasia (great-uncle of the historian Strabo) became Mithradates’ viceroy in Colchis.
Paranoid thoughts continued to assail the king. The question of Archelaus’s loyalty preyed on his mind. The more Mithradates mulled it over, the more convinced he became that his star general had yielded far too much to Sulla in the peace negotiations. Word of the king’s suspicions reached Archelaus. Was Archelaus was really planning to jump ship? That is unknown, but the veteran soldier of fortune understood that it was time to look out for himself. Archelaus defected to the Romans. (His brother Neoptolemus remained loyal, as commander of Mithradates’ navy in the Aegean.) It seems likely that Archelaus was the source of much of the information available to Roman historians about Mithradates’ personality, strategies, troop numbers, and other facts.
Archelaus requested a meeting with Murena. He convinced the Roman commander that Mithradates was creating the large fleet in the Black Sea and training another grand army with the secret intention of renewing hostilities against Rome. Murena, eager for plunder and a triumph of his own—and seeking “trifling pretexts for war”—was persuaded to launch a preemptive strike before Mithradates could make the first move.24
In the summer of 83 BC, without any declaration of war, Murena marched deep into western Cappadocia and made a lightning strike on Mithradates’ garrison at Cappadocian Comana. In this large sacred city, said to have been founded by Agamemnon’s descendants after the Trojan War, was a fabulously rich Temple of Love, similar to the sanctuary at Comana in Pontus. In the temple was an archaic statue of Artemis. It was said that Agamemnon had sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to Artemis—Iphigenia’s sword was one of the precious relics displayed in Comana.25
Many of Mithradates’ cavalry were killed in Murena’s attack. Taken by surprise, and angry over Archelaus’s treason, Mithradates nevertheless scrupulously refrained from escalating the war. He sent ambassadors to Murena, protesting that he had broken the treaty. Murena’s sarcastic reply: “Treaty? What treaty? I’ve never seen a treaty document!” Murena proceeded to rob all the money and ornaments in the Temple of Love and set up winter quarters in Cappadocia.
Still Mithradates held back, following a strategy of restraint and statesmanship. He sent an embassy to Rome to appeal to the Senate and Sulla, registering a formal complaint that Murena had broken the terms of the Peace of Dardanus. He would await their reply before reacting to Murena’s unauthorized aggression. Meanwhile, his old Cappadocian friend Gordius replaced the traitor Archelaus as general.
In the spring of 82 BC, Murena crossed the Halys, flooded with melted snow, into Mithradates’ home territory. That summer and fall, Murena’s legions raided four hundred villages in Pontus, amassing wagonloads of plunder. He departed with his haul across Roman-controlled Galatia. Still Mithradates did nothing but sent spies to track Murena.
Sulla and the Senate dispatched a commissioner to investigate Mithradates’ complaint about Murena in 81 BC. The official met Murena and announced that the Senate ordered him to cease attacking Mithradates, who had made peace with Rome. But, as Mithradates’ spies reported, the commissioner also admitted that the Senate had not issued a written decree to that effect. Then the spies observed the official whispering privately with Murena. Murena invaded Mithradates’ home territory again! Mithradates was now perfectly justified in assuming that the commissioner had conveyed a secret message from Rome to Murena, authorizing him to attack Mithradates in an all-out war. This was even more bald-faced than the unauthorized war begun by Aquillius and Nicomedes back in 89 BC.
Mithradates gave Gordius the order to retaliate. Gordius quickly collected a local citizen army eager to fight for Mithradates. They took up a position across the Halys River from Murena’s two legions. Mithradates himself arrived, riding a fine horse at the head of his very large new army. With little personal combat experience, Mithradates vigorously threw himself into battle against Murena, a determined young veteran of Roman victories under Sulla. Well aware that his royal Persian ancestors never took part in actual combat, Mithradates—at age fifty-one—was now emulating young Alexander in his decision to rush into the thick of battle.
The opposing armies exploded into fierce fighting at the riverbank. Mithradates prevailed, pushing across the river and sending Murena and his men running up a hillside. Commanding his smaller, flexible units, Mithradates decisively routed the Romans. In the hail of arrows from Mithradates’ Armenian archers, the jackal Murena and his men fled west over the mountains “by a pathless route.” Mithradates and Gordius drove the rest of Murena’s garrisons out of Cappadocia. The entire country welcomed Mithradates as liberator. The brilliant victory over Murena was a much-needed jolt of good news. Ebbing popular devotion surged back, and Mithradates Eupator was again hailed as the people’s savior-king against rampaging Romans. He was still the “Good Father�
�� who drove off the ravening wolves.26
At some point in this period, a young patrician in the Marius faction named Julius Caesar (b. 100 BC) enlisted in the Roman army. Sailing to Anatolia, he was captured by Cilician pirates and held for ransom—Caesar escaped by a clever ruse involving poison wine. He earned his first battle honors at Lesbos, where Romans killed five hundred soldiers allied with Mithradates and enslaved six thousand people. Caesar was sent to Bithynia to request ships from Nicomedes IV. It seems that Caesar’s sojourn in the Bithynian court took much longer than necessary. For the rest of his life, Caesar’s enemies taunted him with the nickname “Queen of Bithynia,” claiming that he had become Nicomedes’ lover.27
In Rome, meanwhile, Sulla had been urgently scrambling to try to stop Murena, before his foolish war obliterated Sulla’s victory over Mithradates. Sulla sent a stern tribune, Gabinius, to threaten Murena with severe punishment. As Sulla’s peacemaker, Gabinius also arranged a conference between Mithradates and Ariobarzanes, whose throne in Cappadocia was wobbling again. Mithradates, arguing from a position of righteous indignation and military strength, had his conditions ready. He betrothed his little daughter Athenais, age four, to Ariobarzanes to seal their new friendship under Mithradates’ terms. As part of the alliance, Mithradates stipulated that he not only retain western Cappadocia but receive another large chunk of central Cappadocia. Desperate to ensure stability in the region where Mithradates suddenly held all the cards, Gabinius and Ariobarzanes had to agree.
Then everybody attended a lively Persian-Macedonian-style banquet hosted by an expansive and jubilant Mithradates. As in the old days before the wars, Mithradates was the master of ceremonies, surrounded by happy friends and beautiful consorts. He bestowed lavish rewards on the best singers and cithara players, the most amusing jesters, and the most amazing jugglers. He doled out prizes of gold to those who excelled in boisterous drinking and eating contests. According to Appian, everyone at the party—Ariobarzanes, Gordius, Dorylaus, even Monime—joined in the jolly excess, everyone except for the glum Roman at the foot of the table, Gabinius.28
FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN
Mithradates also celebrated his victory over Murena with a solemn ritual, a mountaintop fire ceremony to thank Zeus and Mithra. Appian described this ceremony, which he says Mithradates performed according to the ancient traditions of his ancestors, Cyrus and Darius. He had learned the ceremony at his father’s side as a boy in Sinope.
FIG. 10.2. Persian Magus-king performing fire ritual. Mithradates’ fire ceremony was carried out in the traditional manner of his Persian ancestors. Detail, red figure vase 3297, side A, Underworld Painter, 4th c BC. Staatliche Antikensamm lungen und Glyptothek, Munich.
Mithradates and his entourage ascended Buyuk Evliya Dag, to the sanctuary of Zeus the Warrior. Archaeologists have discovered many inscriptions in this important site of native Anatolian and Iranian- influenced worship. At this and many other similar shrines in Cappadocia, Zoroastrian priests, called “Fire-keepers,” tended an eternal flame (the source was petroleum) on the altar. Mithradates’ Magi, wearing high felt turbans, murmuring incantations, and waving their barsoms (myrtle wands), sacrificed white animals to fire, earth, wind, and water. Then, following old Persian custom, the chief Magus Mithradates himself dragged logs to the hilltop, creating an immense woodpile. Around the altar, he arranged trestles made of logs and branches and laid out a feast of meat and bread for the celebrants.
Mithradates donned a purple headdress studded with silver stars and the pure white cape of the Magus over his purple robe of kingship. He climbed to the top of the woodpile to pour the sacred libations: milk, honey, wine, and oil. Throwing handfuls of sweet-smelling frankincense and myrrh over the offerings, Mithradates recited a heartfelt prayer to the gods. His prayer was not recorded, but it was probably something like the prayer offered by Cyrus, according to Xenophon: “O ancestral Zeus and Helios and all of the gods, accept these offerings as tokens of gratitude for help in achieving many glorious enterprises.” After the king descended, the Magi knelt at the bottom of the high woodpile and kindled a fire with laurel fans, taking care not to pollute the sacred flames with their breath.
The spectacular bonfire to the gods burned for many days, lighting up the night sky. The heat was so intense that no one could approach the altar. The towering flames could be seen for a distance of 1,000 stades, about 115 miles, visible to Mithradates’ ships at sea. Gazing up at the fire on the mountain, Mithradates and his followers could still fervently believe in his grand destiny.29
11
Living Like a King
LIKE a wrestler ready for another bout,” marveled Plutarch, Mithradates “had risen to his feet, despite the blow Sulla had dealt him.” And now, wrote Appian, after his resounding victory over Murena, Mithradates “was at leisure.”
The war for Greece had ended in disaster, with terrible casualties and the destruction of Athens. Yet in a way, the result was an ancient forerunner of what modern military strategists call the “Tet Offensive effect.” The phenomenon was named after a massive assault by the North Vietnamese in 1968 during the Vietnam War. The offensive failed on a grand scale—but the nominally victorious U.S. and South Vietnamese forces were demoralized by the strength and determination of the enemy. The North Vietnamese gained international support and eventually won the war. The “Tet effect” describes a disastrous major military campaign against a more powerful enemy, which nevertheless becomes a public relations victory, with renewed support for what is seen as a righteous cause. The concept of glorious failure, noble defeat, was well known in antiquity: the Spartans at Thermopylae, Hannibal, Aristonicus, and Spartacus are some famous examples. Justin described a Tet-like effect for Mithradates, who “went down in defeat before the greatest generals . . . only to rise again all the more redoubtable for his losses.” In Rome, Cicero sought to account for Mithradates’ remarkable ability to draw reinforcements after so many losses. Somehow, exclaimed Cicero, Mithradates “has done more by being defeated, than if he had been victorious!”1
Sulla’s reign of terror continued in Rome. A great many of Marius’s Populars fled Italy. These exiles—veterans and statesmen who had held high offices under Popular rule—regrouped on the eastern and western frontiers of the empire and raised banners of revolt. Some went to Spain to join Sertorius, the Roman commander leading an insurgent army of native Spaniards. Others joined Mithradates in Pontus. These experienced Roman officers brought six thousand soldiers—a full legion—and trained Mithradates’ new armies in Roman discipline and tactics.
From now on, Mithradates’ war chest no longer paid for ostentatious equipment—which had simply provided rich booty for the enemy. No more lavishly decorated ships with silk canopies and luxurious pools on the decks for entertaining concubines; no more armor, shields, and weapons inlaid with gold tracery and precious stones.
Mithradates maintained peaceful coexistence under the Peace of Dardanus, which he knew he had been lucky to win from a very distracted Sulla. But he was determined to keep his Black Sea Kingdom secure. According to Appian, Mithradates took an army to subdue the Achaeans of northern Colchis. A fierce tribe that claimed descent from Greek heroes of the Trojan War, the Achaeans were notorious for luring ships to wreck on their rocky shores and then sacrificing the sailors to their gods. Fighting in their mountainous terrain was harsh. Mithradates lost a great many men to ambushes and freezing snow. The Achaeans were never defeated; their allegiance could not be counted upon, although some Achaeans later joined Mithradates’ army, and the experience of mountain warfare was valuable.2
Mithradates remained ever vigilant for both opportunity and threat. But for nearly a decade, he ruled in relative peace.
AGATES FOR MY MEAT, STRYCHNINE IN MY CUP
Mithradates loved spectacle and theatricality—he often staged dramatic performances to demonstrate his remarkable ability to dine on poison-laced meat and wine. Such evenings not only provided entertainment but enhanced the Po
ison King’s carefully crafted reputation of invincibility. And, of course, the morbid proceedings also furthered his experimental research.
Let us imagine one of these banquets. The evening might feature the poisoning of someone condemned to die for a heinous crime—Mithradates followed the “ethical” approach of Attalus III of Pergamon, experimenting only on criminals. In the Greek world, capital punishment was usually carried out with poison hemlock. But Mithradates was systematically studying the effects of known and rare pharmaka, and men on death row were his scientific subjects. In at least one instance, we know that Mithradates received a messenger carrying a letter and package from his friend Zopyrus, the royal physician in Alexandria. Zopyrus’s letter informed Mithradates that the messenger was sentenced to death, and invited the king to test the accompanying antidote on him.3
So, as the guests take their places on couches, turbaned Hindus might charm cobras with sinuous flute music, and Psylli serpent handlers allow themselves to be bitten by Libyan adders. Scythian shamans milk venom from the fangs of a steppe viper. Dipping an arrowhead in the poison, a Scythian archer shoots the criminal, the arrow zipping over the heads of the guests. On another evening, the old root-cutter Krateuas might measure out some dread plant poison. With a flourish, he sprinkles it atop a tasty dish and serves it to another condemned man. Mithradates provides learned commentary as everyone observes the result of the poison. Suspense builds as servants proffer the same dish to the guests—minus the poison, of course. Meanwhile, the dying victims were quickly carried out of sight for secret experiments with antidotes (see plate 1).