Mithridates: The Roman Republic’s Greatest Enemy [Re-uploaded, FIXED]

This video is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform where entrepreneurs can easily create and customize their own personal and professional websites. More on Squarespace later in the video.

Welcome back to Biographics! I’m your host, Cosmic Horror Madman Eric Malachite, and today we’re diving into some Roman and Greek history, focusing on Mithradates the Great, the Roman Republic’s deadliest enemy, with a script penned by Ru Alexander. Be sure to give Ru your thanks for this script, as he does not have social media yet for you to follow.

With that said, let’s get to it. Mithradates was a man about whom one cannot speak except with concern, nor yet pass by in silence. He was ever eager for war, of exceptional bravery, great in spirit, and sometimes in achievement. A general in bodily prowess, a soldier in hatred of the Romans—he was like a Hannibal. Mithradates, the king of Pontus, took a small kingdom and turned it into a regional power right on Rome’s doorstep. He was ambitious, cunning, at times ruthless, and pursued his goals with an unrelenting tunnel vision that ultimately became his downfall. In the end, Mithradates did not best Rome; it had simply become too powerful. But he went down as an unyielding and implacable symbol of defiance that made even his greatest enemies fear and respect him.

Mithradates VI, also spelled Mithridates, was born around 135 BC in the Kingdom of Pontus, probably in the capital city of Sinope. Pontus is not one of the better-known kingdoms of the ancient world, so some of you may be wondering what and where it is. Fortunately for us, the Greek historian and geographer Strabo happened to be from Pontus, so he was able to provide the world with a detailed description of his homeland. Pontus was divided both culturally and geographically into two regions: the coast and the interior, separated by the Pontic Alps. The coast was rich in food and resources, so most of the big cities were located there and were Greek, while the Persian culture was more predominant throughout the inland region, which was inhabited by various local tribes.

In Mithradates’ time, Pontus was a relatively small kingdom on the southern coast of the Black Sea, known as Pontus Euxinus in Latin, occupying a part of the Anatolian Peninsula, also known as Asia Minor. By the time he would be finished, though, Pontus would occupy almost the entire peninsula, plus territories on the northern, western, and eastern coasts, enveloping the Black Sea.

Centuries earlier, Pontus and its southern neighbor Cappadocia were part of the Persian satrapy belonging to the Achaemenid Empire, having been conquered by Darius the Great. By then, the Persian Empire was itself conquered by Alexander the Great. After Alexander’s death, his top generals began fighting each other for power, dividing the empire into smaller chunks. Ambitious kings and warlords stepped up, looking to get a piece of the pie, and that is where the Mithradates lineage comes in.

The first Mithradates that we know of ruled over a Greek city in Asia Minor named Cius. Mithradates II was in charge when Alexander died and remained in power by becoming a vassal of Antigonus, one of Alexander’s generals. However, Antigonus soon changed his mind and had Mithradates II killed in 302 BC. He also wanted to kill his son, Mithradates III, but the latter managed to escape and outlasted Antigonus, who died the following year. With no pressing threat, Mithradates III traveled to the northern region of Anatolia, where he founded the Kingdom of Pontus and pressed the reset button on his lineage, becoming Mithradates I of Pontus.

Here on Biographics, we talk in detail about people who shaped the ancient world, but how can you in this modern day and age get noticed without having to challenge all of Rome to do it? That’s where the sponsor for today’s video, Squarespace, comes in. With Squarespace, you can build a professional website at an affordable price with flexible, easy-to-use tools. Your site can be up and running quicker than the presidency of William Henry Harrison.

So what are these tools? Squarespace has introduced a new guided design system called Squarespace Blueprint. With this tool, you can choose from professionally curated layouts and styles to build your site easily from the ground up. Not only will you create a unique website with a few clicks, but your site will also be fully optimized for all devices. Even getting discovered is fast with Squarespace’s integrated SEO tools. If you’re a creative and want to take the design of your website further, Squarespace also has the tools for that. Their next-generation web design system, Fluid Engine, gives you the power to customize every detail of your pages by simply dragging and dropping them around. If you want your website to look different on desktop and mobile, you can do that with Fluid Engine too.

But we’re not done talking about the tools available to you. Squarespace websites can be equipped with a seamless checkout if you want to use your site to sell your products, services, or time. Once set up, you can accept payments from credit cards, Apple Pay, and PayPal in eligible countries. Your customers can also buy now and pay later with Afterpay and Clearpay. Interested? Well, head to squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, go to squarespace.com/biographics to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using the code “biographics.”

Now back to the past. As you can already tell, there are a lot of Mithradates involved in the story, but this video is only about one of them. So we’ll skip ahead until we reach Mithradates VI, the father of our subject for today. He had a long reign of approximately three decades between 150 and 120 BC. He was married to a Seleucid princess named Laodice VI, and Mithradates VI was their eldest son. Unlike his father, Mithradates VI was an enemy of Rome and helped them during the Third Punic War against Carthage. He was assassinated by poison in 120 BC. Junior was around 13 years old when his father died, so his mother ruled as regent.

We now briefly enter the realm of legend to tell you how Mithradates supposedly made himself immune to all poisons. Some historians claimed that his mother was behind his father’s death and that she also wanted to do away with him to either claim power for herself or her other son, who was also named Mithradates. After a few failed attempts on his life, Mithradates decided to escape and lived for years in the wild where it was safe. Eventually, he came of age and returned to successfully claim his throne, removing both his mother and brother from their positions.

However, this experience left Mithradates paranoid about being poisoned, leading him to become obsessed with toxicology. Following decades of research, he supposedly developed an elixir out of over 50 different ingredients that was a universal antidote to all known toxins, known as Mithridate. He ingested this concoction regularly, allowing him to consume deadly substances such as arsenic or venoms with no ill effects. By the end of his life, Mithradates had reportedly become completely immune to all poisons. Unfortunately, he never bothered to write the recipe down, so this miraculous panacea has been lost forever.

The reality is that we don’t know exactly how Mithradates came to rule on his own. Both his mother and brother simply disappeared from the historical record around 115 BC. Whether they were killed, imprisoned, or something else happened entirely, we can’t say, but the end result is the same: Mithradates VI was now the king of Pontus.

Right off the bat, Mithradates had grand ambitions of growing his empire, and it didn’t take him long to find an opportunity. The cities and kingdoms on the Crimean Peninsula were under threat from the Scythians. They were willing to give up their independence and accept the rule of Pontus if Mithradates could protect them from the Scythian kingdom led by King Silarus. Mithradates agreed and went on a warpath, although the actual fighting seems to have been done by one of his generals named Diophantus.

The Pontic army geared up and marched to Crimea, subjugating the region of Colchis on the eastern coast of the Black Sea along the way. After that, the Bosporan Kingdom on the northeast coast willingly handed over its territory to Mithradates. The main destination was Chersonesus, the Crimean city that originally requested aid from Mithradates. They provided the most detailed account of this conflict, thanks to an inscription honoring Diophantus. It states that as soon as the Pontic general arrived in Crimea, he was faced with a surprise attack from Pakus, the son of Silarus. Diophantus was victorious, becoming the first foreign invader to conquer the Scythians.

After warding off the initial strike, Pontus launched a counterattack deep into Scythian territory. The ancient account becomes vague, simply stating that Diophantus achieved many great things in a short time, managing to conquer several Scythian cities, including the capital of Neapolis. Once that was done, all the others surrendered. Crimea was now part of the Kingdom of Pontus.

However, this did not last long. At one point, the Scythians rebelled against Mithradates and allied themselves with a group of people called the Rhoïlani. Diophantus made his way north once more with an army of 6,000 soldiers against 50,000 Scythians and Rhoïlani. Despite the numerical disadvantage, the Pontic general defeated his enemies, thanks mainly to superior weaponry, training, and military skill, forcing the Scythians to come to terms again.

On his way back home, Diophantus made a pit stop to solve another issue in the Bosporan Kingdom, which was experiencing seller’s remorse. The king, who willingly abdicated power to Mithradates, had been assassinated by a group led by a man named Samus. They wanted independence again now that the Scythians were no longer a threat. Diophantus had to wait until Mithradates sent him reinforcements, but once he did, the general crushed the revolt, captured Samus, and sent him to Pontus, where we assume many unpleasant things happened to him.

Although most of the Black Sea coastline was now either part of the Kingdom of Pontus or a protectorate that paid tribute, it was not enough to quell the ambitions of Mithradates. He began looking south and west to the rest of the Anatolian Peninsula and liked what he saw. However, there was one problem: Rome also had its eyes on the region.

At the time, there was another power in Asia Minor, the Kingdom of Bithynia, ruled by King Nicomedes III. Although he and Mithradates weren’t exactly allies, they also saw no reason to fight each other for the time being. There was more value in becoming allies than enemies. Around 108 BC, the two invaded Paphlagonia, easily conquering it and dividing it between their kingdoms. Afterward, Mithradates subjugated Galatia as well. This kind of activity was bound to attract the attention of the Roman Republic, which considered Asia Minor under its sphere of influence. It was not surprising that Rome wouldn’t want a regional power to grow so close to its own borders.

At the time, Rome wasn’t exactly in a position to make demands. It was trying and failing to win a war with Numidia led by King Jugurtha in Northern Africa, so all it could do was wag its finger at Mithradates in a disappointing manner. While Mithradates was busy with Galatia, Nicomedes invaded Cappadocia.

The next part gets a little tricky, mainly because we can only speculate on the true intentions of everyone involved. The queen of Cappadocia was Laodice, Mithradates’ sister, who ruled the region for her underage son, Ariarathes VII. Her husband, Ariarathes VI, had recently been assassinated by a Cappadocian nobleman named Gordius on her brother’s orders. Why? We’re not sure, but Laodice then agreed to marry Nicomedes. When Mithradates heard about this, he invaded Cappadocia and successfully drove Nicomedes back to Bithynia. With their alliance officially crumbled, Mithradates restored his young nephew to the throne. However, instead of Laodice ruling as regent, the Pontic king insisted that Gordius assume the role. This could suggest that Mithradates no longer trusted his sister or perhaps had a far more devious plan in mind all along.

Unsurprisingly, Ariarathes VII did not want his father’s killer as his regent, and even though he was a child, he was ready to go to war against his uncle. Things never got that far, though, because Mithradates had him assassinated around 100 BC. The Pontic king then installed his own underage son, also called Ariarathes IX, as the new ruler of Cappadocia, with Gordius as his regent. It is possible that this was Mithradates’ intention all along. Cunning as it might be, the plan didn’t work. The Cappadocians did not want Ariarathes IX as their king, and the underage monarch had trouble holding on to his power when his father wasn’t around. Instead, he was deposed by Ariarathes VI, the younger brother of Ariarathes VII, son of Ariarathes VI, and cousin to Ariarathes IX. Confusing enough for you? Don’t worry, it’s almost over.

This compelled Mithradates to invade Cappadocia again and put his son back on the throne. Driven into exile, Ariarathes VII died of an unknown disease. Mithradates might have hoped that this would finally calm things down, but if anything, they were only about to get much worse. All these shenanigans in Cappadocia finally prompted Rome to stand up and say enough is enough. The Senate delivered a warning to Mithradates: be stronger than the Romans or obey their commands in silence. At first, Mithradates tried diplomacy. He and Nicomedes sent envoys to Rome to argue why their candidates were legitimate enough to claim the Cappadocian throne. Rome, however, was having none of it and decided that if they couldn’t play nice together, then neither one could have it.

The Senate ruled that Pontus and Bithynia must restore independence not only to Cappadocia but to Paphlagonia as well, or else this was a fork in the road for Mithradates. Did he obey or defy Rome? He chose to obey for now—no point in starting a fight he couldn’t win. He returned his troops to Pontus and saw Rome install a puppet king named Ariobarzanes in Cappadocia. If Mithradates wanted to take them on and stand a chance, he would need time to prepare and find new allies.

His first ally came in the form of Armenia, which was starting to emerge as a powerful kingdom under its new king, Tigranes II. Mithradates wasted no time in securing an alliance by marrying Tigranes to his daughter. He even persuaded Tigranes to invade Cappadocia and restore Ariarathes IX to the throne. But then the Romans came along and installed Ariobarzanes again. This would happen a few times over the next few years as the two sides played hot potato with Cappadocia.

Mithradates didn’t offer any resistance when the Romans came for the moment. He was content with building up his army and forging new alliances. In 90 BC, a Roman legion led by a general named Manius Aquillius was really pushing his buttons at this point. Both Rome and Pontus knew that war had become inevitable, but each side wanted to have a casus belli, aka a justification for war. Aquillius’ actions were likely intended to provoke an armed response from Mithradates. He even convinced the new king of Bithynia, Nicomedes IV, to invade and plunder lands belonging to Pontus—something Nicomedes was compelled to do because he owed Rome a lot of money for keeping him in power.

The armed response from Mithradates did not come, at least for now. Instead, he allowed Bithynia to trample his land so he could play the victim card. This way, he could lodge an official complaint with the Senate against Bithynia while also gaining sympathy from local kingdoms, particularly the Greeks, who were getting fed up with how Rome kept swinging its short sword around. Mithradates ran a good PR campaign and made a few friends: Armenia, Parthia, Egypt, and the Greeks were on his side—or more accurately, they were against Rome, the enemy of my enemy and all that.

Only one thing was left now, and that was war. It began in 89 BC, as was tradition, with the invasion of Cappadocia and the kicking out of Ariobarzanes. After that came Ionia and then the rest of Asia Minor, which could offer little resistance to a force that had been preparing for almost a decade. It was at this point that the Kingdom of Pontus reached the peak of its power, controlling almost all of Anatolia plus the coast of the Black Sea. Mithradates had picked his opportunity well; Rome was busy with the Social War against other Italian tribes that lasted until 87 BC and couldn’t immediately send troops to Asia Minor. So, the Pontic king had almost two years to gain as much ground as possible.

In 88 BC, Mithradates planned and carried out the massacre known as the Asiatic Vespers, targeting Romans and Latin speakers in Asia Minor. Between 80,000 and 150,000 people were killed, depending on the source. There was no going back. The first Roman response came from Manius Aquillius, who was in the area and itching to go to war against Pontus anyway. Well, he certainly got his wish, only to discover that he was severely outnumbered and was defeated on the battlefield. Aquillius fled, tail tucked between his legs, to the safety of the Greek islands. Except that there was no safety to be had; he tried hiding in Mylasa, but the people there hated the Romans as much as Mithradates did, so they captured the Roman general and turned him over to Pontus. Mithradates paraded Aquillius as a prisoner of war and then had him executed, supposedly by pouring molten gold down his throat.

This was just the starter, though, and Rome was getting ready to deliver the main course: a large army commanded by General Sulla. So far, we’ve been talking about all the capers and conspiracies going on in Asia Minor, but Rome was dealing with its own issues at the time. There was