Mithridates the Great: Rome’s Relentless Rival

[Music] Mithra data's the great was a king of a kingdom of Pontus which surrounded the Black Sea in his time Mithra data's came to several great confrontations with the Roman Republic facing off against great generals like sulla and Pompey he was one of Rome's greatest and most persistent enemies his life is a story of ambition old determination and futility this is his story Mithra Daddies was born in 135 BCE in a kingdom of Pontus he was of Persian and Greek ancestry and was supposedly descended from great kings such as Cyrus the Great Darius the Great and Alexander the Great regardless of whether these claims were true or not it was a lot of pressure for him to live up to his early life was chaotic when his father Mithridates v was assassinated in 120 the young Mithridates was forced to flee the kingdom and go into hiding only several years later as an adult was he able to return and be declared the king of Pontus it was evident that Mithradates had great ambition wishing to take pontus from the small backwater to a formidable Mediterranean power he also had the drive charisma and energy to pursue these ambitions first he conquered colchicine 'dom east of the Black Sea then he clashed with the nomadic skiffins on the steppe accepting several black sea states into his kingdom in exchange for protecting them against the skiddy ins the war was a great victory for pontus ending with the sofyan submitting to subject status by the end of these wars Mithridates as pontus was the dominant power in the Black Sea with his horizons expanding Mithridates set his sights upon dominating Anatolia this would bring him into his first confrontation with Rome which controlled territory in the southwest he sought to incorporate parts of central Anatolia including Cappadocia which brought him into conflict with the kingdom of bethey Nia Mithridates played some politics and acted as a friend to Rome but eventually he moved with full military force into Cappadocia drawing him into war with Rome the series of wars that came to be known to the Romans as the Mithra Dadich or Pontic wars began with a stunning victory for Mithridates he defeated a combined Roman Baths in Ian's invasion of his territory and marched unopposed into the newly conquered territories of Anatolia all of Asia Minor was swiftly taken under Pontic control the population cheered his army everywhere it passed it was here that Mithradates made himself infamous he knew he had to wipe Rome from the map in this region of the world but perhaps he took it a little too far he ordered a systemic massacre of all Roman or its Halleck people's living in Anatolia his soldiers executed thousands and enthusiastic locals killed thousands more it's estimated that eighty thousand people were killed in what was essentially a small scale genocide Mithra daddy's is Pontic kingdom had widespread appeal to both Persian and Greek peoples Mithridates himself claimed that his dynasty descended from the greatest kings of Greece and Persia and he promoted the spread of both Persian and Greek culture throughout his territory at one point it seemed he might become the new vanguard of the eastern Mediterranean against the looming power of Rome his power grew so formidable that he moved into Greece itself which had been a Roman province for decades and was welcomed with open arms by the citizens of the Greek cities including Athens he besieged the last remaining Roman forces in the area and dared the Romans to do something about it here however he experienced a taste of the full power of Rome Lucius Cornelius sulla a great Roman general who would later become the dictator of Rome led several legions through Greece in 87 BCE and cowed most of the Greek cities into submission Athens with strong walls held down under siege but it too fell in early 86 several attempts by Madrid eighties to reassert the initiative in Greece failed with sulla defeating every army and displaying Roman superiority on the battlefield after Pontic defeat in several battles Roman forces pushed into Asia Minor and re-established Roman holdings Mithridates was now looking for peace as well as sulla who had to deal with another civil war from his rival Gaius Marius in Italy issues persisted throughout the Roman command structure in 86 a mission was sent under valerius flaccus from Rome with the objective of bringing sulla to justice and concluding the war against Mithridates flaccus was assassinated by one of his lieutenants Flavius fimbria in a mutiny and although the army did go on to defeat Mithra Dedes in Anatolia it was all useless because Mithridates and sulla reached a peace settlement with the Treaty of Dardan notice this treaty was essentially a status quo peace with her ladies would renounce all ambitions on Roman client states in Anatolia as well as pay Roman annual indemnity fimbria upon hearing the solo was free to come kill him committed suicide before that could happen resulting in the disintegration of his army many soldiers went back to sulla but a sizable part of the army went over to me through Davies Roman citizens were so fed up with Rome that they were defecting to a foreign King in practice there was no enforcement of the treaty so Mithridates continued to exercise control over much of Anatolia including parts of the disputed kingdoms of athenian and cappadocia the kingdom of pond has remained a formidable power the strongest in the region despite having to pay a large indemnity to Rome Mithridates was very pleased with what he had managed to accomplish the second war between Mithridates in Rome was fairly inconclusive one of solos lieutenants seeking further glory and a triumph for himself led troops into pontus which prompted a battle that Mithradates won forcing the Romans back to their territory eventually a peace settlement was negotiated by Sola but metadata's had made advances into Cappadocia and Pontic Authority was there to stay in the aftermath method ADEs worked on securing his Swift conquests in the past decade he strengthened his alliance with the kingdom of armenia where his relative tigran us the great ruled together they consolidated their respective spheres of influence Teague Ranas who is also known as the great brought Armenia to dominate a large part of the Near East and achieved its greatest territorial extent throughout this interim period Mithridates was in correspondence with a rogue Roman general Sartorius Sartorius was an ally of Gaius Marius and while sulla had gone back and asserted his dominance in most of Roman territory Sartorius continued to hold out even after maurices death in the province of hispania he used guerrilla warfare and the loyalty of the locals to successfully resist Roman Authority for over a decade Mithridates saw a great opportunity here he proposed to Sartorius that they coordinate a joint campaign to destroy Rome and authority from both sides it would be a slow process and take time but perhaps that could besieged Roman power and eventually lead to a fracturing in the world finally in the year 73 BCE Mithridates decided that his preparations were sufficient he called up his armies which he had been building up for the better part of a decade as well as his ally of Armenia and invaded the Roman allied Kingdom or methania the third Roman war was on Mithridates was not messing around Appian tells us that he had as his allies the Armenians skiffins torian's Sarmatian durations Achaeans Cal Cal Callie Bess Heaney okay Luke oh Syria he he had a lot of allies there were plenty of people who didn't like Rome and felt attracted to Mithridates as a rival center of power he quickly moved through all the kingdoms of Asia Minor finding once again willingly loyal populations it seemed as though Rome would again be losing everything east of Europe assembled around Mithridates as he besieged the last room and hold out City and Asia was an army of massive size ancient sources claim it was three hundred thousand strong but a lower figure of one hundred thousand seems more reasonable in any case it was massive and represented a great segment of the Near East United against Roman power all under the leadership of Mithradates the Romans sent Lucius lucullus a consul and experienced general with an army 30,000 men strong to fight Mithridates in Asia he would soon become one of Rome's greatest generals first lucullus managed to trap Mithra de DS on a peninsula while he was besieging the last Roman city with lucullus having swiftly seized hills and mountains he controlled all supply lines leading to Mithridates his army eventually Mithra days was forced to lift his siege and attempt to flee just as the worst onset of winter came the journey back to pontus was grueling lucullus is numerically inferior army harassed Mithridates his massive army constantly further depleting its supplies and defeating him in a couple one-sided battles many more of the soldiers simply died of cold or starvation the army slowly wasted away by the time winter was over and Mithridates was safe in Pontus his army had been reduced to a mere 20,000 effective fighting men he was forced to be in hasty preparations for a defense of Pontus Nikolas came in 72 with his army now strengthened by Anatolian locals would come back to the Roman fold if heard ADEs attempted to use Nikolas and strategy against him by targeting the room and supply lines however the Romans were sure to reinforce their supply trains with soldiers leading to devastating results one attack on a Roman supply train by Ponza cavalry saw the horsemen mauled by the steadfast defense of Roman infantry another attack this one of ponta cavalry was caught in a bottleneck and largely destroyed word of these defeats filtered back to the Pontic camp the defeats were relatively minor but tensions were already high and both leaders and soldiers alike were easily unsettled in his tent upon hearing of this defeat Mithridates broke down in a panic he had been in the situation before but never had things been so desperate were so pressing he knew that his army outnumbered stood no chance in an open battle it was a difficult decision but he decided to flee he called on his highest officers to make preparations and their baggage was assembled at the gates of the camp unfortunately the soldiers saw the preparations they caught wind of what was happening there officers were about to abandon them they acted fast and with all the hasty desperation of a mob gone wild they pillaged looted and burned their own camp before fleeing in all directions Mithridates himself attempted to take control of the chaos by making a speech but no one listened his army disintegrated he was calling the chaos and barely got away with a small force of bodyguards Pontus was lost Mithridates fled to armenia under the protection of his ally de Grasse he was nearly penniless the king of Armenia was so dishonored and shamed by his performance in the war that he refused to grant Mithridates who was his blood relative the right to even meet with him it must have been a difficult decision but Mithridates sent a servant with an order to the Pontic capital to kill all of his wives concubines and children he might lose them but the Romans would never have them dear honest thought he would have better luck in dealing with the Romans in 69 and BC he raised a massive army and when Mithridates advised him to fight asymmetrically against the Romans dear Anna's scoffed he met the Romans in battle at di grano Sirte in 69 BCE the battle was going well for the Armenians at first who severely outnumbered the Romans or so it seemed lucullus had sent a force of cavalry behind the Armenians to occupy a hill and after the Romans feigned to retreat the Armenians broke order to pursue the Roman cavalry charged downhill and mauled the Armenian army resulting in a total rout further defeats for the Armenians led to Grannis to finally avoid the Romans on the battlefield Mithridates while the Cullis was bogged down conquering armenia snuck back to pontus with small detachments of soldiers and quickly retained the loyalty of his people retaking his kingdom McCullough's himself was forced to take his army back to asia minor but his soldiers would not fight they accused him of being greedy and taking them on campaigns that yielded nothing while Teague rawness and mithra days again prepared for another confrontation lucullus left he was to be replaced by another great general Pompey later to be known as Pompey the great completed the trio of greats that would fight this final stage of the Roman Wars he wasted no time in pressing Mithridates with his new army countless Roman defeats had worn pontus and Mithridates down now they shied away from direct battle and attempted to star of poppies army out however pontus was not a large kingdom and Pompey supply lines were easily able to keep up eventually Papi's army caught up with me 3rd eighties the battle was a sad affair both the Pontic soldiers and the great king himself seemed broken when Pontic riders rushed back to camp to mount horses for a confrontation the rest of the army felt they were fleeing and the entire army once again disintegrated through day DS got away again he fled north around the eastern shores of the Black Sea stopping in the kingdoms he had conquered so many years ago and extracting as much money and assistance as he could it wasn't much those who followed him had nearly lost faith but we're still following him simply because of how great he had once been while he made his circuit Pompey was busy destroying the last armies of Tigres in Armenia which he finally subjected to the state of Roman vassal in 65 BCE my 63 BCE Mithridates had reached the Bosporus after completing a circuit of the Black Sea his meager army was nothing to fear but he wanted to die like a king he rallied his men and informed them of his plan to march on Italy the plan would surely fail they would surely die but they would go out as martyrs this plan was not well received even his family members organized several conspiracies he was forced to kill most of them he spared his closest son for in a seize but everyone could see the writing on the wall Farne seize went around the camp and stirred up a mutiny in the middle of the night Mithra Dedes was awakened by shouting from the pin he sent messengers to find out what was going on a messenger came back to him and said quietly we want your son to be king we want a young man and you are an old one one who was ruled by eunuchs the Slayer of so many of his sons his generals and his friends Mithra daddies fled the camp he had nothing his son was king and his people had abandoned him now his kingdom would surely surrender to Rome he was huddled in a shack not far from the camp only two of his daughters and a slave accompanied him he makes some poison and prepared to die giving some to his daughters they dropped dead swiftly as he looked on but for him the poison had no effect in his youth the King had built up an immunity to all varieties of toxins to protect against poison and now when he wanted to die he could not so he asked his slave to kill him his slaves obeyed thus he died his slave stabbed him multiple times through the chest and he bled out he was 72 years old and had ruled pontus for 57 years Mithra daddy's was a great king that much is undeniable his feats the magnitude of which cannot be overstated or unprecedented never before had such an upstart power presented such a real challenge to the power of room near its height he took a backwater kingdom and raised it to become the greatest power in the region he fought Rome for nearly three decades maintaining obstinate resistance until the very end and refusing to surrender and he died exactly how he wanted an honorable death far from the prying eyes of jeering crowds and ignoble defeat in life he may have failed but in death he had the privilege of the most spiteful victory in a way the third eighties was David fighting against an unstoppable Goliath his remarkable bravery and determination in fighting for an impossible victory more than earned him the title of the great he dedicated his life to fighting against Rome and he left this world never having given up after every defeat every setback every time he had to sacrifice everything to continue the fight he was a shell-shocked and utterly broken man and yet one must imagine as he lay upon the floor bleeding out from stab wounds and gasping his last beside the bodies of his dead daughters met for the first time in a long while he was free free of worry he could at last let go he was satisfied he was happy [Music]

Channel: Thucydides Logographos

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Length: 22min 4sec (1324 seconds)

Published: Tue May 26 2020