The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy

by Adrienne Mayor

  16. Sulla’s motives, Mastrocinque 1999, ch 4; McGing 1986, 130–31.

  17. Sulla’s haste and soldiers’ disgust, Holland 2003, 151–52; Plutarch Sulla 24.4; Diodorus 38–39.8.

  18. Contrary to his promise not to punish M’s supporters, Memnon 25 says Sulla “forced many cities into slavery.” Many cities ruined and impoverished, Reinach 1890, 209–11; Buitenwerf 2003, 308–9. Pausanias, Greek native of Anatolia, 2nd century AD, emphasized the brutality of Sulla and other Romans—he did not regard them as “liberators” of Greece or Anatolia, see Habicht 1998, 120–22. Sulla’s punishment of Ephesus, Lewis and Reinhold 1990, 1:200–211. Appian 63. Duggan 1959, 85–86. Iasus, Bean 1989, 53.

  19. Sulla’s exorbitant taxations, penalties, and plunder help explain his success in the Civil War, Mastrocinque 1999, 91–93. Sulla’s plunder: Pausanias 9.7; Habicht 1998, 121–22; Mastrocinque 2009.

  20. Strauss 2009, 18, 21.

  21. “The deed of Mithridates, deemed so terrible, in slaughtering all the Romans in Asia in one day, was regarded as of slight importance in comparison with the numbers now massacred and their manner of death” at the hands of Sulla. Cassius Dio frag 30–35, quote 109.8. Plutarch Sulla 27–34. Augustine City of God 3.28. Triumph, Pliny 33.5.16. Beard 2007.

  22. See McGing 2009, reassessing M’s pride in Persian heritage, long-term goals, and policy of “steady escalation” and “raising the stakes,” instead of compliance with Rome.

  23. Duggan 1959, 87–89, 94. Bosporan Kingdom, Logan 1994; Saprykin and Maslennikov 1995.

  24. The preceding events involving Mithradates the Younger and Archelaus are from Appian 64. Effects of hemlock and opium, Stuart 2004, 111–12.

  25. Iphigenia used her sword to sacrifice animals to Athena: Cassius Dio 36.11.

  26. “That jackal” Murena, Ford 2004, 178; Murena’s war, see 161–86. “Pathless route,” Appian 64–65. Memnon 26 says M’s envoys to Murena were traitors, McGing 1986, 133–35.

  27. Suetonius Julius Caesar 4; Plutarch Caesar 2.6–7. Caesar’s clever escape, 80–75 BC, Mayor 2009, 162 and nn.

  28. Murena’s war, see McGing 1986, 133–36; Mastrocinque 1999, 94–98; Appian’s reliance on Strabo, 103–8. Appian 66. Athenais’s mother unknown: Sullivan 1980, 1137, 1139. Reinach 1890, 298, Athenais’s mother was Monime, and she was betrothed to Ariobarzanes’ son.

  29. Appian 66 and Strabo 14–15 provide details; also see Ammianus Marcellinus 23.6.32–37; Xenophon Cyrus 8.5.25–26 and (prayer) 8.7.3; Mitchell 1995, 2:22; Widengren 1959, 250–51; Champlin 2003, 225–29.

  • 11 •

  LIVING LIKE A KING

  1. Plutarch Sertorius 23; Appian 67. North Vietnam’s massive Tet Offensive of 1968 elicited a groundswell of international support, turned the US public against the war, and led the United States to withdraw from Vietnam. In 2004, during the US Iraq War, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld expected Islamic insurgents to deliberately copy the Tet Offensive to win “psychological victory.” Oberdorfer 2004. In an AP news story (2007) the US commander in Iraq predicted a sensational “mini-Tet” offensive by “Islamic extremists” to destroy US support. Justin 37.1.6–9; Cicero Pro lege Manilia. Goodkin 1986, 207, “Losing the battle [was] another source of glory” for M.

  2. Plain equipment, Plutarch Lucullus 6. M’s restraint, Duggan 1959, 96–100. Achaeans: Appian 67, 69; Reinach 1890, 76–77, 305, 396. Achaea is modern Abkhazia.

  3. Aulus Gellius 16: M publicly ingested poisons “to show his immunity.” M tested drugs on himself, on friends, and on criminals, Scarborough 2007. Galen De compositione medicamentorum per genera 13.416 K; De antidotis 14.150 K. Zopyrus: Totelin 2004, 5.

  4. Illusions of immunity, magic, and sleight of hand with poisons, Corner 1915, 225–26; Magi and magic, Widengren 1959, 252. Bierman 1994, 8, snakebite trickery.

  5. Housman, “Terence, this is stupid stuff,” in A Shropshire Lad. Tolerance of local venoms, Aelian On Animals 9.29. Mayor 2009, 92–96 and 272 nn23–24; Majno 1991, 381; Cilliers and Retief 2000.

  6. Juvenal Satire 6.659–61, written ca AD 80. Emerson, “Mithridates.”

  7. Bioactives in Mithridatium, Norton 2006; ingredients, Totelin 2004. Plants counteract venom, Raloff 2005; Alam and Gomes 2003. See Pliny’s bks 24–26 for plant pharmaka and antidotes, theriacs, and Mithridatium; see 25.3.5–7 for M’s toxicology; 25.32.69 for centaury plant, discovered by Pharnaces I of Pontus; betony seeds; aristolochia to reverse effects of poisons. Smith 1890, sv “Theriac.” Watson 1966. Illustrations of medicinal and lethal plants, Stuart 2004, 74–75, 109–31. Lemnian earth: Hall and Photos-Jones 2008.

  8. Pliny 25.6, 25.26, 25.29. Corner 1915, 223. History of Mithridatium and details of compounding, Bierman 1994, Griffin 1995, Baley 1585.

  9. Pliny 25.3.5–8; and see bk 25 on antidote plants. Cilliers and Retief 2000, 88–89; 91–95 (known poisons in antiquity). Hindu and Chinese versions, Majno 1991, 415–17. Islamic, Hindu, Chinese theriacs, Mithridatium, and longevity elixirs, Nappi 2009.

  10. Cilliers and Retief 2000, 89. Zopyrus, Norton 2006, 2. Oscan, McGing 1986, 85 and n70. Pliny 25.2.5–6; Galen De antidotis 14.2 K: 14.150K. Asclepiades was extremely long-lived, Pliny 7.37.124. Ophiogenes and Marsi: Pliny 7.2.13–15. Caucasian vipers: Hopkins 1995.

  11. Poison plants, Pliny bk 25; see 29.8.24–26: some individual Mithridatium ingredients weighed “one-sixtieth of one denarius,” and “cinnabar, red lead,” used in many theriacs, is “poisonous.”

  12. Arsenic, Newman 2005, 8–9; ducks and rats, Stuart 2004, 113–14. Aulus Gellius 16: M mixed duck blood with “drugs that expel poisons” to create “the most celebrated antidote, the Mithridatios.”

  13. Pontic honey both toxic and healthful, Aelian On Animals 5.4. See Totelin 2004 for full discussion of Pliny on Mithridatium. Skinks and salamanders exude toxins, included in M’s recipe, Bierman 1994, 5–6. Venoms, Metz et al. 2006. Hormesis, thanks to Dr. Stephen Galli, Pathology Department, Stanford, per cor March 5, 2008. Raloff 2005 and 2007, 40.

  14. Vogel 2001; Moore et al. 2000. It is still unknown exactly how the process wards off so many toxins.

  15. Juvenal 14.251–55. Sulla and Juvenal, Cilliers and Retief 2000, 89–90. Poisoning in Rome, Stuart 2004, 113–15.

  16. Asclepiades, Totelin 2004, 3–4. Caesar’s doctor Aelius: Norton 2006, citing Galen Opera Omnia vol 14, De Antidotus, bk 2; Scarborough 2008.

  17. Impossible to recover original Mithridatium, Totelin 2004, 13 and nn for Paccius inscription. Baley 1585 chastises the ancient “historyographers” for neglecting to preserve M’s recipe. Ancient Chinese apothecaries sold incense, medicines, and antidotes, Nappi 2009. Reinach 1890, 293. Celsius, Galen, Paul of Aegina, and Scribonius Largus cited Paccius, who left his formula to Tiberius.

  18. Andromachus’s recipe, Griffin 1995; Bierman 1994, 5; Pain 2008; Baley 1585. Vat, Ciaraldi 2000.

  19. Celsus On Medicine 5.23.3. Griffin 1995; Corner 1915; Swann 1985; Norton 2006.

  20. Islamic and Arabic treatises on chemistry of plant, mineral, and animal toxins and royal obsession with poison: Stuart 2004, 116. Arab physicians Rhazes (d. AD 854) and Avicenna (d. AD 1037) praised M’s antidote: Griffin 1995; Corner 1915. Averroes: J. Ricordel, “Le traité sur la thériaque d’Ibn Rushd (Averroes),” Revue d’Histoire de la Pharmacie 48 (2000): 81–90. Mithridatium in China, Nappi 2009.

  21. By the 1st century AD, production of Mithridatium had already become a “showy parade of art and science,” Pliny 29.8.24–26. M’s theriac stimulated the earliest concepts of “regulated medicine”: Griffin 1995, 3, for European royalty who took Mithridatium; Bierman 1994, 8, for Mithridatium in Rome in 1984. Baley 1585. See Duffin 2003 and Swann 1985 for longevity of M’s trademark antidote.

  22. Cassius Dio 37.13, M built resistance to poison by taking “precautionary antidotes”; Appian 111, M accustomed himself to poisons by taking “Mithridatic drugs.” Celsius On Medicine 5.23.3 attributes M’s immunity to antidotes only, not poison intake. Pliny 25.3.5–7.

  2
3. Pliny 29.8.24–26, 23.77.149, and Totelin 2004, 7 and table 1, 18–19. Critics of Mithridatium, Corner 1915, Swann 1985, Bierman 1994, Griffin 1995.

  24. Pompey burned Sertorius’s papers, Plutarch Sertorius 27. Touwaide’s theory cited in Totelin 2004, 9 and nn39–40.

  25. Residue of Mithridatium, Ciaraldi 2000. Touwaide (2008) analyzes residues in medicine containers from 1st century BC/AD shipwrecks and studies ancient “recycled” botanical texts retrieved from bindings of Byzantine books. Residue labeled “Mitridatio” in deluxe 1500s medicine chest from Chios: Burnett 1982, 333 no 36. Black Sea’s anaerobic deep waters result in remarkable preservation of organic material in ancient shipwrecks, King 2004, 18–19; West 2003, 166–67; Markey 2003. Thanks to Dr. Serguei Popov for discussion of current “antidote” research. Popov’s Mithradates-like work on poisons and antidotes, see “Biowarriors” Interview, Nova, PBS, www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bioterror/biow_popov.html.

  26. Royal tasters, Xenophon Cyrus 1.3.9–10; Newman 2005, 31. Electrum, Pliny 33.1 and 33.23. Q. Serenus Sammonicus Liber Medicinalis 60.5. Chelation, Zammit-Maempel 1978, 218.

  27. Pliny 33.5.15, 33.6.25–26, poison rings. Poison pills for friends, Plutarch Pompey 32.

  28. Sources of agates included Phrygia, Crete, Lesbos, Rhodes, Egypt, Cyprus, and Persia. Zachalias (Hellenized Hebrew for Zacharias), Pliny 37.60.139–43 and 169; M’s work on amber, 37.11.39, and cf Champlin 2003, 135, Nero’s love of amber, “tears of the daughters of the Sun.” Heliotrope also called bloodstone. Healy 1999, 264–65, 269.

  29. Pliny 37.5–6, 33.6.22–28. Appian 115. M’s gem portraits, esp those resembling Alexander, Vollenweider 1995, no 218; and Neverov 1973; Erciyas 2006, 148–51, 160–62, figs 73, 74, and 85. Højte 2009c on M’s gem portraits. Thanks to Robert Proctor for discussions of M’s agates and their provenance.

  30. Alexander used Darius III’s luxurious tent, ornaments, and furniture; wore vintage Persian finery and armor; and used frankincense, myrrh, and other exotic perfumes. Reinach 1890, 278–93, quote 285; Plutarch Alexander 32. Balsdon 1979, 144–45. Bactrian camels and trade routes, Casson 1974, 55, 123–24; Stuart 2004, 92.

  31. Mithradates krater first published in 1745, for inscription, Ward 1749–50; Erciyas 2006, 125.

  32. Patron of arts and sciences, Appian 112; Orosius 6.4.6. McGing 1986, 92. Reinach 1890, devoted a chapter, 276–300, to the character of M, the “Hellenistic sultan,” the “soul” of the Pontic-Bosporan Empire. Cavafy, “Darius,” 1920, “exultation” sometimes translated as “intoxication” or “exhilaration.”

  33. Stratonice: Plutarch Pompey 36. Reinach 1890, 296–97.

  34. Kabeira and Kainon Chorion (Caenum) near Niksar, Turkey: Strabo 12.3.30–40. Plutarch Pompey 36–37. Kainon Chorion and M’s strongholds, Munro 1901, 60–61. Talbert 2000, map 87, 2:1233, 1241. Cramer 1832.

  35. Erciyas 2006, 43–46. Strabo 12.3.30–40.

  36. Xenophon Cyrus 5. Plutarch Antony 27.3–4 (Cleopatra). Aulus Gellius 17.17; Pliny 7.24.88–90, 25.3.6–7; Valerius Maximus 8.7; Quintilian 11.2. Aurelius Victor (AD 360) claimed M spoke 50 tongues. See Balsdon 1979, 116–45; Gleason 2006, 229; Summerer 2009. Thanks to Josh Katz for help with M’s languages.

  37. Pontic-Bosporan Empire, Reinach 1890, 213–75.

  38. Plutarch Lucullus 20. McGing 1986, 141.

  39. Justin 40; and see Olbrycht 2009 and Reinach 1890, 311–13, and ancient sources for Tigranes.

  40. Plutarch Sulla 36–38; Strabo 10.1.9; Valerius Maximus 9.3.8; Appian Civil Wars 1.105; Keaveney 2005, 175; McGing 1986, 136; Reinach 1890, 305–6; Scullard 1970, 86. Novelist Ford 2004, 157, was Sulla’s disease caused by M’s poisons?

  41. McGing 1986, 137; cf McGing 2009.

  42. Justin 40.1–2; Sallust Catiline War, Book of Judith, Josephus cited in Nazaryan 2005. Plutarch Lucullus 21.3–5. Strabo 12.2.9.

  43. Appian 92–93. Sertorius and M’s secret messages carried by pirates and traders, Sheldon 2005, 75, citing Cicero. Strauss 2009, 132–34.

  44. Sertorius was “seized with an overwhelming desire to settle in the islands and live in peace,” but pirate friends thwarted his plan. Plutarch Sertorius 9 and 11 (fawn); Pliny 8.50.117; Frontinus Stratagems 1.11 (fawn).

  45. Appian 68. Plutarch Sertorius 9 (quotes); McGing 1986, 137–39, 142.

  46. Obsequens in Lewis 1976, 128. For these events, see Appian 68. Plutarch Sertorius 23–24 (calls Marcus Varius “Marius”).

  47. Minting, Erciyas 2006, 130; Saprykin 2004; Levy 1994; Callataÿ 2000. Plutarch Sertorius 24. Balsdon 1979, 75, 122.

  48. Eutropius 6.6. “Miserable puppet,” Duggan 1959, 99. Reinach 1890, 319–20. McGing 1986, 144. Nicomedes IV’s will: Mitchell 1995, 1:62.

  49. Strabo 7.4.6; Appian 68–69.

  50. Appian 69. Tribes: Ammianus Marcellinus 22.8.18–30; Ovid Pontus 4 and Trist. 2.198; Strabo 7; Livy 40.58; Amazons, Justin 2.4.

  • 12 •

  FALLING STAR

  1. Appian 70. Sidonis Apollinaris’s poem 22, about the castle of Pontius Leontius (ca AD 460); Reinach 1890, 321 n2. This villa also had a painting of the siege of Cyzicus, below. Lee 1797.

  2. The king as chief Magus carried out the horse sacrifice, Widengren 1959, 251–52, horse sacrifice in Rhodes, citing Festus 181, ed. Muller. Trojans: Homer Iliad 21.132. Herodotus 7.113 and 1.215–16, Scythians sacrificed horses to the Sun, “offering the swiftest animal to the swiftest god.” Xenophon Cyrus 8.3.24 and March 4.5; Pausanias 3.20.4; Philostratus, Apollonius of Tyana 1.31; Tacitus Annals 6.37. Strabo 11.8.5. Alexander sacrificed bulls and golden cups to Poseidon in the Indian Ocean, Arrian Anabasis 6. 19.5. Helios and Poseidon worship in Anatolia, Mitchell 1995, 2:26.

  3. The speech and these events: Appian 70–71. Erciyas 2006, 26–27, M’s speeches and letters in various sources display the same style and complementary content, reflecting M’s format and tone. Reinach 1890, 321; Munro 1901, 56, on M’s invasion route. Some high-ranking Romans supported M, see McGing 1986, 145.

  4. Appian 70–71. Memnon 27 says M had 150,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, and 120 scythed chariots, and an equal number of workers, and that the Romans lost 8,000 at sea.

  5. Battles for Chalcedon and Cyzicus described in Appian 72–78 and Plutarch Lucullus 8–12; Strabo 12.8.11; Memnon 27–29. Reinach 1890, 318–42; McGing 1986, 146–53; Holland 2003, 154–64; Duggan 1959, 100–129. Matyszak 2008, 108–13. Lucullus and Third Mithradatic War, Keaveney 1992, ch 5; complicated chronology and ancient sources, 183–205. See also Hind 1994, 129–38, and Mastrocinque 1999, 103–5. The figure 300,000 is supported by the separately reported fact that M’s grain stores would feed that many for a year, see Ch 11.

  6. Plutarch Lucullus 5.5, 7 (Fimbrians). Rome feared that M intended to invade Italy by sea, Keaveney 1992, 85–86. Duggan 1959, 103. On Rome’s self-perpetuating search for profit by continuous warfare in booty-rich lands, Eich and Eich 2005, 14–15, 23–24.

  7. Plutarch Lucullus 8.5–7. Ford 2004, 203–4. It is not clear from the sources whether M was actually present.

  8. Stothers 2007, 87. This and other meteors in antiquity, D’Orazio 2007. Keaveney 1992, 77, “Both sides, recognizing an evil omen, withdrew.” Reinach 1890, 324. Cybele’s meteorite, Strabo 12.5.3; Mitchell 1995, 2:20. A “star” fell near M’s camp just before he withdrew from Rhodes, Ch 8. Meteorites could signal that a battle should not take place.

  9. Appian 72–78. Lucullus’s ruses at Cyzicus, Frontinus Stratagems 3.13.6.

  10. Plutarch Sertorius 26; Keaveney 1992, 79–80. Memnon 28.2.

  11. Campbell 2006, 139–43, M’s shipborne tower illustrated on 141. See Ford 2004, 215–18, for realistic description of the sambuca.

  12. This tactic described in Appian 73 and Frontinus Stratagems 4.5.22.

  13. Appian 73–78. Vinegar, Ch 4; Mayor 2009, 220–22.

  14. Appian 75; Plutarch Lucullus 10; Rigsby 1996, 341–42. McGing 1986, 148–50, omens and prodigies were examples of anti-M propaganda by the Romans. Notably, M’s rituals entreated male gods.


  15. Plutarch Crassus 8–11; Appian Civil Wars 116–20. Strauss 2009.

  16. Appian 75–76. Plague at Cyzicus, Mayor 2009, 120–22. Siege: Eutropius 6.6.

  17. Plutarch Lucullus 11. Mithradates’ camels, Ammianus Marcellinus 23.6.56.

  18. Strabo 12.8.11; Diodorus 37.22b; Plutarch Lucullus 11; Keaveney 1992, 83.

  19. Appian 75–76; Plutarch Lucullus 12; Memnon 35–36. Mastrocinque 2009.

  20. Plutarch Lucullus 12; Cicero Pro lege Manilia 1.8.

  21. Appian 77–78. Triumph laws in effect since 143 BC: Valerius Maximus 2.8.1. Enemy leaders executed at Triumph, Josephus Jewish War 6.423. Smith 1890, sv “Triumph”; Champlin 2003, 210–15; Beard 2007.

  22. Plutarch Lucullus 13.

  23. Aftermath of ancient sea battles, Strauss 2005. In this scene, I follow McGing 1986, 139, who suggests that M’s pirate rescuer was his good friend Seleucus. Black Sea notoriously dangerous in winter, West 2003, 166. Sailing speeds, Lee 2007, 169–70. Casson 1974, 149–62.

  24. Memnon 29.3–4. A plague struck Heraclea later, Konnakorix made a deal with the Romans, and the citizens were slaughtered, Memnon 35.

  25. Valerius Maximus 1.8.13; Ammianus Marcellinus 16.7.9.

  26. Memnon 29.6, 37.5. Was Metrodorus M’s messenger to Tigranes? see Ch 13.

  27. Plutarch Lucullus 14; Memnon 30. Strauss 2009, 181–94.

  28. Appian 78–79, 115. Detailed information on roads, terrain, and Pontic campaign, Munro 1901, esp 56–59. Themiscryans prepared zoological attacks in advance; I list wild beasts of the region. Insects and animals in ancient warfare, Mayor 2009, ch 6.

  29. Plutarch Lucullus 14; 15–20, on invasion of Pontus; see also Appian 78–83 and Keaveney 1992. Cherries, Pliny 15.30; Athenaeus 2.35. Lucullus’s army, Holland 2003, 160–61.

  30. Plutarch Lucullus 15. Scythian chiefs of these nomads: Frontinus Stratagems 2.5.30; Appian 79.