Mithridātes
（
Μιθριδάτης) and
Mithradātes (
Μιθραδάτης). A name given to
certain kings of Parthia and Persia. The name is derived from the Persian
Mithra, “the sun,” and probably means
“sungiven.”
1.
Mithridātes I., king or, more properly, satrap of
Pontus, was son of Ariobarzanes I., and was succeeded by Ariobarzanes II., about B.C. 363.
The kings of Pontus claimed to be lineally descended from one of the seven Persians who had
conspired against the Magi, and who was subsequently established by Darius Hystaspis in the
government of the countries bordering on the Euxine Sea. Very little is
known of their history until after the fall of the Persian Empire.
2.
Mithridates II., king of Pontus (337-302), succeeded his father
Ariobarzanes II., and was the founder of the independent kingdom of Pontus. After the death
of Alexander the Great, he was for a time subject to Antigonus; but during the war between
the successors of Alexander he succeeded in establishing his independence. He died at the age
of eighty-four.
3.
Mithridates III., king of Pontus (302-266), son and successor of
the preceding. He enlarged his paternal dominions by the acquisition of great part of
Cappadocia and Paphlagonia. He was succeeded by his son Ariobarzanes III.
4.
Mithridates IV., king of Pontus (about 240-190), son and
successor of Ariobarzanes III. He gave his daughter Laodicé in marriage to
Antiochus III. He was succeeded by his son Pharnaces I.
5.
Mithridates V., king of Pontus (about 156-120), surnamed
Euergĕtes, son and successor of Pharnaces
I. He was the first of the kings of Pontus who made an alliance with the Romans, whom he
assisted in the Third Punic War and in the war against Aristonicus (131-129). He was
assassinated at Sinopé by a conspiracy among his own immediate attendants.
6.
Mithridates VI., king of Pontus (120-63), surnamed Eupător, also
Dionȳsus, but more commonly “the Great,” was the son
and successor of the preceding, and was only eleven years old at the period of his accession.
We have very imperfect information concerning the earlier years of his reign, and much of
what has been transmitted wears a suspicious aspect. It is said that immediately on ascending
the throne he found himself assailed by the designs of his guardians, but that he succeeded
in eluding all their machinations, partly by displaying a courage and address in warlike
exercises beyond his years, partly by the use of antidotes against poison, to which he began
thus early to accustom himself. In order to evade the designs formed against his life, he
also devoted much of his time to hunting, and took refuge in the remotest and most
unfrequented regions, under pretence of pursuing the pleasures of the chase. Whatever truth
there may be in these accounts, it is certain that when he attained to manhood he was not
only endowed with consummate skill in all martial exercises, and possessed of a bodily frame
inured to all hardships as well as a spirit to brave every danger, but his naturally vigorous
intellect had been improved by careful culture. As a boy, he had been brought up at
Sinopé, where he had probably received the elements of a Greek education; and so
powerful was his memory that he is said to have learned not less than twenty-two languages,
and to have been able in the days of his greatest power to transact business with the
deputies of every tribe subject to his rule in their own peculiar dialect.
The first steps of his career were marked by blood. He is said to have murdered his mother,
to whom a share in the royal authority had been left by Mithridates Euergetes; and this was
followed by the assassination of his brother. In the early part of his reign he subdued the
barbarian tribes between the Euxine and the confines of Armenia, including the whole of
Colchis and the province called Lesser Armenia, and even extended his conquests beyond the
Caucasus. He assisted Parisades, king of the Bosporus, against the Sarmatians and
Roxolani, and rendered the whole of the Tauric Chersonesus tributary to his kingdom. After
the death of Parisades the kingdom of Bosporus itself was incorporated with his dominions. He
was now in possession of such great power that he began to deem himself equal to a contest
with Rome itself. Many causes of dissension had already arisen between them, but Mithridates
had hitherto submitted to the mandates of Rome. Even after expelling Ariobarzanes from
Cappadocia and Nicomedes from Bithynia in 90, he offered no resistance to the Romans when
they restored these monarchs to their kingdom. But when Nicomedes, urged by the Roman
legates, invaded the territories of Mithridates, the latter made preparations for immediate
hostilities. His success was rapid and striking. In 88 he drove Ariobarzanes out of
Cappadocia and Nicomedes out of Bithynia, defeated the Roman generals who had supported the
latter, made himself master of Phrygia and Galatia, and at last of the Roman province of
Asia. During the winter he issued the sanguinary order to all the cities of Asia to put to
death, on the same day, all the Roman and Italian citizens who were to be found within their
walls. So hateful had the Romans rendered themselves, that these commands were obeyed with
alacrity by almost all the cities of Asia, and eighty thousand Romans and Italians are said
to have perished in this fearful massacre. Meantime Sulla had received the command of the war
against Mithridates, and crossed over into Greece in 87. Mithridates, however, had resolved
not to await the Romans in Asia, but had already sent his general Archelaüs into
Greece at the head of a powerful army. The war proved unfavourable to the king.
Archelaüs was twice defeated by Sulla with immense loss near Chaeronea, and
Orchomenus in Boeotia (B.C. 86). About the same time Mithridates was himself defeated in Asia
by Fimbria. (See
Fimbria.) These disasters led him
to sue for peace, which Sulla was willing to grant, because he was anxious to return to
Italy, which was entirely in the hands of his enemies. Mithridates consented to abandon all
his conquests in Asia, to pay a sum of two thousand talents, and to surrender to the Romans a
fleet of seventy ships. Thus terminated the First Mithridatic War (B.C. 84). Shortly
afterwards Murena, who had been left in command of Asia by Sulla , invaded the dominions of
Mithridates (B.C. 83) under the pretext that the king had not yet evacuated the whole of
Cappadocia. In the following year (B.C. 82) Murena renewed his hostile incursions, but was
defeated by Mithridates on the banks of the river Halys. But shortly afterwards Murena
received peremptory orders from Sulla to desist from hostilities, in consequence of which
peace was again restored. This is usually called the Second Mithridatic War. Mithridates,
however, was well aware that the peace between him and Rome was in fact a mere suspension of
hostilities, and that the Republic would never suffer the massacre of her citizens in Asia to
remain ultimately unpunished. No formal treaty was ever concluded between Mithridates and the
Roman Senate; and the king had in vain endeavoured to obtain the ratification of the terms
agreed on between him and Sulla.
The death of Nicomedes III., king of Bithynia, at the beginning of 74, brought matters to a
crisis. That monarch left his dominions by will to the Roman people; and
Bithynia was accordingly declared a Roman province; but Mithridates asserted that the late
king had left a legitimate son by his wife Nysa, whose pretensions he immediately prepared to
support by his arms. He had employed the last few years in forming a powerful army, armed and
disciplined in the Roman manner; and he now took the field with one hundred and twenty
thousand foot soldiers, sixteen thousand horse, and a vast number of barbarian auxiliaries.
This was the commencement of the Third Mithridatic War. The two Roman consuls, Lucullus and
Cotta , were unable to oppose his first irruption. He traversed Bithynia without encountering
any resistance, and when at length Cotta ventured to give him battle under the walls of
Chalcedon, the consul was totally defeated both by sea and land. Mithridates then proceeded
to lay siege to Cyzicus both by sea
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Coin of Mithridates the Great.
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and land. Lucullus marched to the relief of the city, cut off the king's supplies,
and eventually compelled him to raise the siege early in 73. On his retreat Mithridates
suffered great loss, and eventually took refuge in Pontus. Hither Lucullus followed him in
the next year. The new army which the king had collected was entirely defeated by the Roman
general; and Mithridates, despairing of opposing the further progress of Lucullus, took
refuge in the dominions of his son-in-law Tigranes, the king of Armenia. Tigranes at first
showed no disposition to attempt the restoration of his father-in-law; but being offended at
the haughty conduct of Appius Claudius, whom Lucullus had sent to demand the surrender of
Mithridates, the Armenian king not only refused this request, but determined to prepare for
war with the Romans. Accordingly, in 69, Lucullus marched into Armenia, defeated Tigranes and
Mithridates near Tigranocerta, and in the next year (B.C. 68) again defeated the allied
monarchs near Artaxata. The Roman general then turned aside into Mesopotamia, and laid siege
to Nisibis. Here the Roman soldiers broke out into open mutiny, and demanded to be led home;
and Lucullus was obliged to raise the siege, and return to Asia Minor. Meanwhile Mithridates
had taken advantage of the absence of Lucullus to invade Pontus at the head of a large army.
He defeated Fabius and Triarius, to whom the defence of Pontus had been committed; and when
Lucullus returned to Pontus, he was unable to resume the offensive in consequence of the
mutinous spirit of his own soldiers. Mithridates was thus able, before the close of 67, to
regain possession of the greater part of his hereditary dominions. In the following year
(B.C. 66) the conduct of the war was intrusted to Pompey. Hostilities were resumed with
greater vigour than ever. Mithridates was obliged to retire before the Romans; he was
surprised and defeated by Pompey; and as Tigranes now refused to admit him into his own
dominions, he resolved to plunge with his small army into the heart of Colchis, and thence
make his way to the Palus Maeotis and the Cimmerian Bosporus. Arduous as this enterprise
appeared, it was successfully accomplished; and he at length established himself without
opposition at Panticapaeum, the capital of Bosporus. He had now nothing to fear from the
pursuit of Pompey, who turned his arms first against Tigranes, and afterwards against Syria.
Unable to obtain peace from Pompey, unless he would come in person to make his submission,
Mithridates conceived the daring project of marching round the northern and western coasts of
the Euxine, through the wild tribes of the Sarmatians and Getae, and, having gathered round
his standard all these barbarous nations, to penetrate into Italy itself. But meanwhile
disaffection had made rapid progress among his followers. His son Pharnaces at length openly
rebelled against him. He was joined both by the whole army and the citizens of Panticapaeum,
who unanimously proclaimed him king; and Mithridates, who had taken refuge in a strong tower,
saw that no choice remained to him but death or captivity. Hereupon he took poison, which he
constantly carried with him; but his constitution had been so long inured to antidotes that
it did not produce the desired effect, and he was compelled to call in the assistance of one
of his Gaulish mercenaries to dispatch him with his sword. He died in 63. His body was sent
by Pharnaces to Pompey at Amisus, as a token of his submission; but the conqueror caused it
to be interred with regal honours in the sepulchre of his forefathers at Sinopé.
He was sixty-eight or sixty-nine years old at the time of his death, and had reigned
fifty-seven years, of which twenty-five had been occupied, with only a few brief intervals,
in one continued struggle against the Roman power. The estimation in which he was held by his
adversaries is the strongest testimony to his great abilities: Cicero calls him the greatest
of all kings after Alexander, and in another passage says that he was a more formidable
opponent than any other monarch whom the Roman arms had yet encountered. See Reinach,
Mithridate Eupator (Paris, 1890).
7.
Kings of Parthia. (See
Arsaces.)
8.
Of Pergamus, son of Menodotus; but his mother having had an amour with Mithridates the
Great, he was generally looked upon as, in reality, the son of that monarch. The king himself
bestowed great care on his education; and he appears as early as 64 to have exercised the
chief control over the affairs of his native city. At a subsequent period he served under
Iulius Caesar in the Alexandrian War (B.C. 48); and after the defeat of Pharnaces in the
following year (B.C. 47) Caesar bestowed upon Mithridates the kingdom of the Bosporus, and
also the tetrarchy of the Galatians. But the kingdom of the Bosporus still remained to be
won; for Asander, who had revolted against Pharnaces, was, in fact, master of the whole
country, and Mithridates, having attempted to expel him, was defeated and slain.
