The First Mithridatic War (89–85 BC) was a large conflict in Anatolia and ancient Greece in opposition to the Roman Republic by the Pontic kingdom ruled by Mithridates VI Eupator. Although the Roman general Sulla was largely victorious on the battlefield, factional struggle in Rome forced him to end the war on a precarious stalemate.
The war began after more than a decade of geopolitical manoeuvring by Mithridates, who managed to considerably extend his realm despite constant Roman attempts to restrain him. In 90 BC, a Roman delegation headed by Manius Aquillius provoked Mithridates into war, as Aquillius hoped to receive its command. The following year, Mithridates rapidly captured the Roman province of Asia, exploiting local resentment of Roman tax collectors to massacre the Roman settlers. Taken by surprise while it was fighting a large revolt of its allies in Italy, Rome was initially unable to respond. This allowed Mithridates to encourage more defections from Greek cities, most notably Athens, where he installed the tyrant Aristion.
In Rome, the attribution of the command of the Mithridatic War led to civil strife, which was won by Sulla after he made a coup by marching his army on the city in 88 BC. However, once Sulla left Italy, his enemies Marius and Cinna seized power and declared him a public enemy. As a result, Sulla waged the war on his own as a rogue general. His campaign was swift: in 86 BC, he took Athens, then crushed Mithridates' general Archelaus in central Greece at the battles of Chaeronea and Orchomenos. Meanwhile, the official Roman government dispatched its own army to fight Mithridates, led by Lucius Valerius Flaccus, who was murdered by his lieutenant Fimbria. The latter then crossed into Asia and successfully conducted his own campaign against Mithridates.
At this point, Sulla realised that Fimbria could rob him of his victory, so he offered a generous peace to Mithridates called the treaty of Dardanos, restoring the situation to its pre-89 BC state. Soon after, Sulla convinced Fimbria's soldiers to defect and forced him to commit suicide, thus removing the last threat to his private empire in the East. In 83 BC, Sulla left Greece to fight the Cinno-Marians, against whom he won a civil war, which enabled his rule as dictator in Rome. However, Sulla's settlement of the East was short-lived; hostilities rapidly resumed in the Second Mithridatic War (83–81 BC), fought on the Roman side by Murena, the lieutenant that Sulla had left behind in Asia.
Origins of the war
Pontic expansion
Rome entered for good in Asia Minor in 133, when the last king of Pergamon, Attalus III, bequeathed his kingdom to the Republic. The province of Asia was created in its place in 129, which put the Roman borders close to several kingdoms located in the area. The largest of those was that of Pontus, ruled by the Mithridatids, a dynasty of Persian origin, claiming descent from Darius the Great. Their control of the Greek city-states of the northern coast of Anatolia added a significant Hellenistic touch to the kingdom.
Mithridates VI Eupator became king c. 120 at 13. At his majority, he started an expansionist policy towards the coast of the Black Sea and the interior of Asia minor. In 107 he obtained Lesser Armenia and Colchis, an area rich in timber used for building ships, but the details of these acquisitions are unknown. He provided military assistance against the Scythians to the Greek cities of the Black Sea, such as Apollonia Pontica, Olbia, Odessus, and Tyras, which made alliances with him. After he was bequeathed the Bosporan Kingdom (in modern Crimea), Mithridates controlled all the eastern shore of the Black Sea by the end of the 2nd century. Mithridates also expanded into Asia Minor, thanks to his alliance with Nicomedes III of Bithynia. The two kings first invaded Paphlagonia in 108–107 and shared the land between them. The same year, Mithridates occupied a part of Galatia, the area in central Anatolia populated by three Celtic tribes. He also murdered the king of Cappadocia c.100 and placed his son on its throne, but this time Rome reacted and forced Mithridates and Nicomedes III to release Paphlagonia and Cappadocia, on which throne Ariobarzanes was placed.
After this setback, Mithridates turned to his eastern neighbour Armenia, where a new king ascended to the throne in 95: Tigranes II, to whom he gave his daughter Cleopatra in marriage. In exchange, in 92, Tigranes II invaded Cappadocia, expelled Ariobarzanes, and gave the land to Mithridates. This new aggression prompted Rome to intervene again; as propraetor, Lucius Cornelius Sulla was sent there and engaged Cappadocian troops led by the Pontic general Archelaus. At the same time, Mithridates took possession of Bithynia by expelling his nephew Nicomedes IV—the son of his former ally—, then removed Ariobarzanes from Cappadocia a second time after Sulla had left. The Social War that had started between Rome and its former Italian allies in 91 emboldened Mithridates to conquer his neighbours, defying Roman orders.
Aquillius' embassy (90–89 BC)
At the end of 90, after hearing the complaints of the kings in exile Ariobarzanes and Nicomedes IV, the senate sent a new embassy, headed by Manius Aquillius, a former consul, the son of the homonymous consul of 129 that had won the war against Aristonicus. Aquillius and Manlius Mancinus, another ambassador, were notably Gaius Marius' friends. After having restored the two kings without a fight, the embassy requested that they attack Pontus; deep in debts with Rome, Nicomedes complied and ravaged Pontus up to Amastris to recover his wealth. Mithridates did not oppose him, but still started recruiting soldiers from the Black Sea area. The king wanted to gain time and sent his ambassador Pelopidas to last chance negotiations with Aquillius in Pergamon, which took place in the spring of 89. These negotiations were marred with sophistry and spurious agreements; Mithridates listed his claims over Cappadocia and Bithynia and presented himself as a victim of Nicomedes' pillage, while the latter detailed how Mithridates breached the treaties and prepared for war. In a second meeting several weeks later, as Aquillius had already sided with Nicomedes, Pelopidas accused him of acting for his own benefit and threatened to go directly before the senate, which angered the commissioners and ended the talks, making war inevitable.
Aquillius wished the negotiations to fail, by compelling Pelopidas to leave the talks twice. His intentions were likely to force a war to which he would have been appointed commander. Although Mitridates' aggressive expansion was a major factor, modern historians put most of the immediate responsibility of the war on Aquillius, who "act[ed] out of greed and personal ambition", against the will of the senate. T. J. Luce suggested that Aquillius was working on the behalf of his friend Gaius Marius, who was eyeing a comeback at the centre of Roman politics by getting the command of the war against Mithridates. Marius had conspicuously made a private trip in the area in 98, during which he met Mithridates.
A minority opinion on the origins of the war is given by Kallet-Marx, who thinks that the blame placed on Aquillius found in the work of Appian initially came from the lost Memoirs of Rutilius Rufus, a former consul who was forced into exile in Mytilene after he confronted some publican friends of Marius in Asia. Kallet-Marx instead thinks that the commissioners only wanted to restore the two kings and were taken by surprise by Mithridates’ reaction into a full-scale war.
Phase 1: Mithridates' conquest of Asia and Greece (89–88 BC)
Failure of Nikomedes' offensive
War began in the late summer of 89. Rome adopted a defensive position, by blocking the roads in order to prevent Mithridates from leaving Pontus: Aquillius was in Paphlagonia, on the main road to Pontus; the proconsul of Asia Gaius Cassius was at the border between Bithynia and Galatia, to the northeast of Ancyra (modern Ankara); the praetor Quintus Oppius guarded Lycaonia, on the road to the Euphrates river. The Roman navy commanded by Minucius Felix and Popilius Laenas also blockaded the Bosporan straits with their navy. There was no Roman legion in Asia, only local levies.
According to Appian, Mithridates could rely on a massive army of 240,000 men, 40,000 horsemen. Rome had less than half that number, although Nikomedes could provide 50,000 men and 6,000 cavalry. Army numbers are nevertheless suspicious as ancient authors have the tendency to exaggerate the number of troops engaged, especially when describing Roman enemies. Mithridates’ number of ships is more reliable. He had a navy of 300 cataphracts (decked ships) and 100 dikrotai (ships with two banks of oars), which gave him "immense naval superiority" throughout the war.
While Rome was on a defensive stance, the attacking role was given to Nikomedes. The king of Bithynia personally led all his troops, which outnumbered the Pontic army in the area, commanded by the brothers Archelaus and Neoptolemus. The first battle of the war took place near the River Amnias. Nikomedes initially had the upper hand, but was caught off-guard by Scythian chariots at the service of Mithridates and was soundly defeated. He retreated through the path he had come to the Roman camp of Aquillius, from which he rapidly fled at the news of the advancing Pontic army.
David Magie notes that the Romans' plan of letting Nikomedes do the attack was a "folly" as that they recklessly divided their forces into three armies posted too far from each other. The plan ended in a "total failure" as a result.
Pontic counter-offensive
In a subsequent cavalry clash near Mount Scorobas, 100 Sarmathians defeated 800 Bithynians, which prompted Aquillius to retreat westwards. While on the move, Aquillius' army was defeated by Neoptolemus at the battle of Protopachium, with the loss of 10,000 soldiers. Aquillius then went all the way back to Pergamum, the capital of the province of Asia. Cassius, joined by Nikomedes, was unable to properly train more troops, and likewise retreated to Apameia, while Oppius moved back to Laodicea. Cassius in turn was abandoned by Nikomedes, who fled to Pergamum and then to Italy, where he stayed for the remainder of the war.
Mithridates rapidly exploited the void left by the Romans' departure and captured Bythinia without opposition. Pontic armies went as far as the Bosporus, where they received the surrender of the Roman ships guarding the straits, thus opening the Aegean Sea for the Pontic navy. In Phrygia, Cassius could not hold Apameia as its defences had been weakened by an earthquake and fled to Rhodes. Then, Mithridates promised the citizens of Laodicea that he would not harm them if they brought him Oppius, leading to his capture. This swift conquest of Asia through Phrygia took place in early 88.
Mithridates had a generous policy towards the cities he took, by offering them war reparations and setting free their prisoners. Even Oppius was apparently well-treated and remained in Mithridates' court throughout the war. The Asian Greeks swiftly ditched Roman rule mainly because of the publicans, the Roman tax-collectors whose greed was deeply resented by the locals. However, while Mithridates received the support of many cities during his triumphal march, his sweeping conquests did not extend to southwestern Asia, where many cities are mentioned resisting him. He had to fine and place a garrison in Stratoniceia; Archelaus was wounded while taking Magnesia on the Meander; Tabai in Caria, Telmessus and Patara in Lycia resisted the entire war. The Pontic king also took the island of Kos in the Aegean sea, where the Ptolemaic queen Cleopatra III had left her treasury; likewise, he also captured the treasury of the Bithynian kingdom, the source of his debt-relief program.
The Ephesian Vespers (summer–autumn 88 BC)
While he was in Ephesus, Mithridates devised the massacre of the Romans and Italians living in Asia, including women, children, and freedmen. In late summer or early autumn 88, he gave orders to his overseers to attack the Italians on a day set in advance. To encourage the slaughter, slaves killing their masters would receive manumission, people would be relieved of half their debt if they killed their Roman creditor, and assassins would share the wealth of their Roman victims with Mithridates. These orders were carried with fervour in many cities, as Roman publicans were universally loathed by the population after 40 years of extortion. Apart from Ephesus, the temporary residence of the king, Appian writes that massacres took place in Pergamum, Adramyttium, Tralles and Caunus, showing the extensive range of the event, from Troad to Caria. Romans were hunted even in the temples, normally places of shelter, apart from the temple of Asclepius in Kos.
The death toll was said to have reached 80,000, a figure that likely came from contemporary authors, such as the Memoirs of Sulla. Plutarch inflated that number to 150,000. Both numbers were likely exaggerated. The massacre was a clever way for Mithridates to bind these Asian communities to him, as they knew that Rome would never forgive them. Moreover, the wealth he took from the massacre further enhanced his rule, as it funded his generous philanthropic policies.
Siege of Rhodes (88 BC)
Rhodes was the last significant power in the Aegean Sea that resisted Mithridates. It was an important Roman ally, where Cassius had also retreated with his army. In autumn 88, the Pontic forces landed on the island and besieged the city. The Rhodians however launched several sorties on both land and sea that were successful. Mithridates then built a huge siege engine named sambuca, but this bridge manned with catapults was too heavy and collapsed, which prompted him to lift the siege. He also failed to take the Lycian city of Patara on his return. In both occasion, Mithridates pretexted portents to explain his failures. From this point on, Mithridates avoided putting himself on the frontline, therefore risking his personal prestige, and let his generals, principally Archelaus, campaign in his name.