Mithradates’ experiences with winter battles in Achaea and Cyzicus, and the battles on ice fought by his general Neoptolemus in the Bosporus, as well as details in Xenophon’s March of the Ten Thousand, could have helped him to anticipate the dangers of crossing the high snowfields. Xenophon had trekked forty-five miles over snowbound mountains from Armenia to Pontus, a shorter journey at a lower elevation but with a much larger army. He was harassed by hostile tribes, something Mithradates could avoid. The freezing north wind cut Xenophon’s men’s faces like a knife; many animals and soldiers were lost in snowdrifts. The men suffered frostbite and snowblindness. Remove your boots at night and shade your eyes with dark cloth, advised Xenophon.36
In planning his mountaineering expedition, Mithradates enjoyed three crucial advantages over Pompey. His small army was lightly armed, mountain trained, and locally supplied; the Iranian-influenced tribes in the central Caucasus were his allies; and he possessed local information and friendly guides.
According to Strabo, the strenuous passage through the Daryal Pass was a journey of about 130 miles, perhaps a week in good weather. But 2,000 or 3,000 people traveling single file would stretch out at least 5 miles. Mithradates’ crossing may have taken a month. Although the elevation of this route is consistently higher than the highest passes of the Alps, Strabo remarked that this pass could be traversable by early spring—but only with the right equipment. In Dioscurias, Mithradates could provide his army with winter clothing and boots, dried food, and hardy pack animals, all paid for with gold coins from the Sinora hoard.
Snow gear could be obtained from the mountain people wintering in Dioscurias. For ascending the summits, Strabo described their snow-shoelike footwear: “The people fasten to their feet broad ‘shoes’ made of rawhide, like drum covers, furnished with spikes to grip the snow and ice.” Others “tie large spiked wooden disks” to their boots. For transporting loads, they made sleds of animal hides. On this route, continued Strabo, “whole caravans are often swallowed up in the snow by extremely violent blizzards” and avalanches. For this reason, says Strabo, travelers carry long, hollow sticks, which they can push to the surface of snow drifts to breathe and signal their location so they can be dug out. He also told how to find drinking water trapped in large air bubbles under the ice and even mentioned the clouds of tiny, high-altitude insects that hatch in the snow.37
Mithradates’ allies would have kept him informed about Pompey’s movements in the winter and spring of 65 BC. Pompey’s early spring expedition to the Caspian provided Mithradates the opportunity to sneak up to the Daryal Pass, avoiding the garrison at Armazi.
The adventure of setting off once again into the unknown was reminiscent of Mithradates’ previous daring journeys with loyal entourages. Now he was about sixty-nine years old, vigorous and optimistic, this time accompanied by the love of his life, Hypsicratea. Let us follow them as they ascend the trail north along the Phasis torrent. The oak, almond, and maple trees give way to beech, spruce, and pine. Golden finches flit through the forest. The band crosses alpine meadows dotted with the first purple primroses and cobalt gentians of spring. The path begins to climb, crossing stone bridges over tremendous waterfalls and gaping gorges, up steep switchbacks. Each night, the long line of soldiers make campfires; they sleep wrapped in furs wherever they have halted on the narrow trail.38 There is game to hunt (ibex, mountain goats, hares), but there are dangers too: bears, Persian leopards, wolves, and frostbite, blizzards, and avalanches.
Here and there, the travelers glimpse Caucasian wallcreepers, tiny crimson birds often mistaken for butterflies clinging to the sheer granite walls. Turning east, the guides lead Mithradates’ band across the dangerous ice fields of the high Mamisson Pass, then the Roki Pass. As they approach the snow line at 9,000 feet, trees disappear, the temperature drops, oxygen thins. The desolate call of the Caucasian snowcock echoes in the bare rocks. Then, as the army turns north to join the main Daryal footpath, ahead looms the 16,500-foot peak of Mount Kazbek, mantled in perpetual snows. Large Eurasian griffon-vultures soar over the black basalt crags, the fabled site of Prometheus’s ordeal. Single file, Mithradates’ army threads through the narrow “keyhole” of Daryal, two perpendicular walls of rock (the “gates”) less than 30 feet apart, surrounded by glacier-capped peaks.39
FIG. 14.5. The approach to the Daryal Gorge from the south, with Mount Kazbek looming ahead. Photo courtesy of Hans Heiner Buhr, Tbilisi, Georgia, www.hansheinerbuhr.com.
Mithradates’ trek over the highest passes of the snowbound Caucasus Mountains in early spring, with an army, was an epic journey in a long career distinguished by daring exploits. The exhilaration of accomplishing this astonishing feat, while Pompey searched in vain for his quarry on the other side of the mountains, must have restored Mithradates’ sense of invincibility and destiny.
ACROSS SCYTHIA TO THE CRIMEA
The descent through alpine pastures was relatively easy, onto the steppes of what is now south Russia. Here the enormity of the land and sky stuns the senses, with monotony so vast that it achieves majestic proportions. The sight of unbroken horizons in every direction overwhelms some travelers, but I imagine that for someone like Mithradates (and Hypsicratea), who loved to ride and hated to be boxed in, the sea of grass represented freedom. The only features on the flat prairie were kurgans, tomb mounds, some ancient, others recent. It has been said that the steppes seem incomplete without a horse and rider, and these soon appeared to meet Mithradates’ army. In the territories of “strange and warlike Scythian tribes,” says Appian, they traveled “partly by permission and partly by force, so respected and feared was Mithradates still, even though he was a fugitive” (see plate 10).40
Around the Azov and across the Don, nomadic chieftains and their bands rode out to greet Mithradates, bestowing gifts and horses and escorting him to the next territory. His reception was very different from that of Darius—it must have thrilled Mithradates to be welcomed in these immense, fertile lands of his fellow nomads. Appian points out that he was a celebrity here: his deeds were legendary, his great empire renowned, and most of all, his courage and perseverance in defying Rome deeply admired. An exuberant Mithradates renewed alliances, heartily promising to send his beautiful daughters to marry the chieftains and engaging them in his grand design to march across Europe and over the Alps to destroy the Roman wolves in their den.
FIG. 14.6. The Kerch Straits between the Crimea (Pantikapaion) (left) and Phanagorea on the Taman Peninsula (right), looking toward the Sea of Azov. Steel engraving by W. H. Bartlett, 1838, courtesy of F. Dechow.
Meanwhile, in Pantikapaion (Kerch), Machares was stunned to hear that his father had crossed the Caucasus by way of the Scythian Gates. Knowing his father’s fearsome temper, Machares killed himself. His brother Pharnaces welcomed his father—Mithradates was often heard to say Pharnaces would be his successor. Taking charge of his Kingdom of the Bosporus and Scythia, Mithradates put to death several disloyal former friends there, including some Romans who had plotted against him. Mithradates’ eunuch Gauros was said to be the instigator of many cruel tortures and executions. True to his ideals, Mithradates spared inferiors who acted out of loyalty to corrupt superiors. There were two shocking exceptions, however. Mithradates killed a son named Exipodras for conspiracy. And he was enraged by Stratonice’s bargain with Pompey. Betrayal by sons or women he loved was unendurable to Mithradates, and his revenge was particularly spiteful. He seized their son Xiphares and killed him on the deck of a ship in view of Phanagoria’s castle. He threw the body overboard while Stratonice in her tower watched in anguish.41
In this descent into suspicion and cruelty, Mithradates resembled Alexander, who near the end of his life became violently suspicious, seeing plots and conspiracies everywhere, spying on companions and torturing friends. But perhaps Mithradates’ paranoia and fury were exacerbated at this time by a serious illness. According to Appian, the king withdrew from public view because of an outbreak of nasty ulcers on his fa
ce. For some time, he remained inside his palace on the acropolis (Mount Mithradates) overlooking Pantikapaion. Only three eunuch-doctors were allowed in his presence. Had the king been poisoned?
This intriguing ancient medical mystery has not been seriously investigated by modern historians. Duggan supposed Mithradates suffered a rash caused by “strange food eaten during his terrible journey.” It seems more likely that the lesions resulted from a severe case of frostbite, from the trek over the Caucasus. Frostbite causes the skin to blister and redden, resulting in hard, purple-black areas of necrosis and gangrene.42
Another strong possibility is that the facial ulcerations—as well as the episode of acute paranoia—were the result of long-term ingestion of arsenic, part of Mithradates’ antipoisoning regimen. Prolonged exposure to arsenic can cause bouts of mental imbalance, hallucinations, and paranoia. Arsenic also causes keratoses, which progress after ten to twenty years to skin cancers. Notably, frostbite causes arsenic-related skin cancers to putrify. Frostbite, combined with a lifetime of tiny doses of arsenic and other photosensitizing toxins such as rue and Saint-John’s-wort, appears to be the best explanation of Mithradates’ skin ailment.43 Appian says the ulcers were “healed” (or perhaps covered up) by the eunuch-doctors. It is unknown how long Mithradates remained out of the public eye—apparently some months—curtailing crucial face-to-face contact with his followers.
PETITION FOR PEACE
Mithradates usually went to war as a last resort after what he saw as rejection of his attempts to negotiate with the Romans. Now that he had regained the Bosporan Kingdom and in light of recent events (including Tigranes’ humiliating surrender to Pompey), Mithradates first considered options for avoiding further wars with Rome. He felt optimistic that he could make a deal similar to that given to Tigranes. So it came to pass that while Pompey was busy annexing Syria in 64 BC, he received a message from Mithradates. Not only was the indestructible renegade king alive in the Crimea, but he had kept track of Pompey’s movements.
Mithradates promised that if Rome would restore his paternal Kingdom of Pontus, he would pay tribute to Rome. His request asked for nothing more than what Tigranes had received. But Pompey rejected the petition—demanding that Mithradates pay obeisance in person as Tigranes had done. Understandably wary and characteristically proud, Mithradates refused. But he offered to send an adult son (probably Pharnaces, his designated heir) to petition Pompey.
DENIED
Pompey rejected this offer too. Ignoring Mithradates, he pushed further south, seeking adventure and glory. He made war on the Jews in Palestine, capturing their king and the holy city of Jerusalem. In late summer of 64 BC, Pompey attacked the Nabataean Arabs in Petra (Jordan). Some of his soldiers began to murmur that their general was evading his patriotic duty to destroy Rome’s real enemy, Mithradates. They had heard rumors that the “new Hannibal” was preparing to march a new army across the Alps to invade their fatherland.44
Indeed, Mithradates always had contingency plans and usually found the means to carry them out. He had “fought the Romans over a period of 46 years with intermittent successes,” wrote the historian Justin. He had suffered “defeat before Rome’s greatest generals—only to rise again greater and more glorious than before in renewing his struggle.” As Cassius Dio remarked, “relying more on his willpower now than on his actual power, Mithradates did not falter.” Sustained by his dream of saving the East from Roman rule and by his own astonishing resilience, Mithradates prepared to make war for what would prove to be the last time.
His illustrious ancestors must have been much on his mind at this point in his life. Darius had sent spies to Italy and contemplated an invasion of Carthage, Persia’s great rival empire across the Mediterranean. Alexander, who dreamed of conquering all India, had persevered despite great dangers and obstacles. Like his hero, Mithradates had suffered grievous wounds and shared hardships and treasures with his soldiers, “drinking from rivers fouled with blood, crossing streams bridged by corpses, surviving on grass and seeds, digging through snowbound mountains,” sailing rough seas, and traversing parched lands. Yet, inspite of all the setbacks dealt by Fortune, all the “sieges, pursuits, revolts, desertions, riots of subject peoples, and defections of kings,” Mithradates, like Alexander, set his mind on “high enterprise,” clung to his “high hopes [and] refused to submit to defeat.”45
Believing that his request to rule peacefully in his homeland of Pontus was unfairly denied, Mithradates had three options: surrender, flee, or attack. Accept Pompey’s unconditional terms, groveling like Tigranes? Out of the question. Mithradates rejected flight, too, but if he stayed, war with Rome was inevitable. He chose a bold offensive strategy. The king resumed his Hannibalistic plan to invade Italy.
Appian called this scheme “chimerical.” Modern historians debate whether it was a rational strategy or the sign of a desperate, even deranged mind. McGing, analyzing Mithradates’ foreign policy, wondered whether the “wildly unrealistic” plan was invented by the Romans or Pharnaces to paint Mithradates as a would-be world conquerer. But, notably, in 74 BC, when the Senate financed Lucullus’s campaign, Rome had believed that Mithradates intended to invade Italy by sea. It is telling that Roman historians of this era argued over whether or not Alexander the Great could have successfully invaded Italy, as Hannibal had done. As we saw, Mithradates had promised the Italian rebels that he would come to help them when the time was right. Some Romans thought his invasion plan was feasible. In the Senate, Cicero declared that Mithradates, despite “having lost his army and having been driven from his kingdom, is even now planning something against us in the most distant corners of the earth.”46
Adaptability, surprise, and creativity were strong features of Mithradates’ character. Duggan saw the plan as the “stupendous fantasy of a solitary mind,” yet he appreciated the logic of it. From the Crimea, it was an easy march across friendly lands to the mouth of the Danube. Following the Danube to the Alps was a journey of about six hundred miles—half the distance Mithradates’ beleaguered band had traveled from Pontus to Colchis and on to Pantikapaion. After the first obstacle, the Iron Gates gorge in the Carpathians, the Alps crossing (over Brennus Mons, Brenner Pass, 4,500-foot elevation) would be easy compared to that of the Scythian Keyhole in the Caucasus. One would emerge in the lands of the Gauls and Etrurians, chafing under Rome’s rule. Reinach also recognized the feasibility of the plan. Who could predict what would happen, he asked, if suddenly a vast army of 100,000 barbarians, led by an invincible and brilliant king, appeared on the plains of northern Italy?47
“By nature attracted to grand projects,” wrote Cassius Dio, Mithradates considered his many victories and failures and decided, “nothing ventured nothing gained.” Should he fail, “he preferred to perish along with his kingdom, with pride, honor, and liberty intact.” Mithradates directed his commanders, Roman officers, and Pharnaces to prepare for war on Italy. They levied heavy tributes and taxes to make up for the loss of his wealth in Pontus, began a massive fort-building program, and drafted workers and soldiers. By 64 BC, his new army numbered six thousand crack troops trained in Roman-style fighting and “a great multitude of others”—steppe nomads, mountain fighters, archers, lancers, and slingers. Mithradates minted coins at a high rate; stored grain and other supplies; cut timber for ships and seige machines; set up factories to make armor, spears, swords, and projectiles; and killed many plowoxen, whose tough sinews were needed for catapults.48
These war preparations dismayed and burdened many in the peaceable Kingdom of the Bosporus, so far untouched by Rome’s Mithradatic Wars. Then, in 64/63 BC, a frightening natural calamity—a strong earthquake—seemed to portend a regime change. Some recalled the devastating quake that had foretold Tigranes’ loss of Syria. The earthquake was described by Cassius Dio, Livy, and Orosius: it occurred while Mithradates was celebrating the festival of the goddess Demeter. The epicenter is unknown, but the tremor was severe at Pantikapaion, according to evidence disco
vered by Russian archaeologists in the ruins of the fortress and other structures. According to Cassius Dio, the quake was felt even in Rome. Several cities allied with Mithradates suffered destruction, which fueled anxiety about the old king’s future.49
REVOLT IN THE BOSPORUS
In order to secure both sides of the Bosporus, Mithrdates dispatched his eunuch Trypho (a Hebrew name) to take charge of Phanagoria.50 Inside the citadel, under the care of other eunuchs, were Stratonice (mourning her murdered son Xiphares) and Mithradates’ children Artaphernes, Eupatra, Orsabaris, Cleopatra the Younger, and their little brothers Darius, Xerxes, Cyrus, and Oxathres.
Things seemed to be proceeding according to plan, until an act of revenge and terror intervened. A citizen of Phanagoria rushed up and stabbed the eunuch Trypho. The killer, a Greek named Castor, incited Phanagoria to revolt. Inflamed by Mithradates’ unpopular war preparations, a mob set fire to the citadel to smoke out the royal family. Artaphernes and the children were taken prisoner. One courageous daughter—Cleopatra the Younger—resisted and escaped on a ship sent by Mithradates to rescue her.
The rebellion at Phanagoria sparked a domino effect in the Bosporan Kingdom. Mithradates distrusted his army—compulsory service under a commander perceived to be unlucky was a formula for mutiny. He quickly gathered his daughters in Pantikapaion’s harem. Guarded by palace eunuchs with an escort of five hundred soldiers, these girls were sent to the Scythian chieftains to whom they had been promised, with an urgent request that they send reinforcements to Pantikapaion. The two youngest girls, Nyssa and Mithradatis, betrothed to the kings of Egypt and Cyprus, remained with Mithradates.
Mithradates’ overbearing eunuch advisers were despised by the soldiers, because they isolated the king from his subjects and carried out purges. The caravan to Scythia was not long on the road before the soldiers killed the eunuchs and kidnapped the young princesses, intending to deliver them to Pompey for a reward. Appian expresses wonder at Mithradates’ energetic and resourceful response to these new calamities. “Although bereft of so many of his children and castles—and of his whole kingdom—and too old for war and and unable to expect any immediate help from the Scythians, there was still no trace of humility befitting his present circumstances!”51
The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy Page 40