MITHRADATES, or, as it is often wrongly spelt, Mithridates (i.e., “given by the god Mithras ”), was a favourite name of the Pontic kings in the third and second centuries b.c., and was also common in Persia and the neighbouring countries. The dynasty of Pontus was a Persian family, claiming descent from the Achaemenidae, and the earliest of them known in history was satrap under the Persian empire. When that empire was destroyed Mithradates II. made himself king of Pontus; and he and his successors gradually spread their power over a great part of Cappadocia and Paphlagonia. Several of them intermarried with the Seleucidae and other Greek royal families, and something of the Hellenic civilization was engrafted on the native non-Hellenic character of the kingdom. The names Mithradates, Pharnaces, and Ariobarzanes, all non-Hellenic, alternate in the family. The province of Phrygia was sold in the most scandalous way by the Roman consul Aquillius to Mithradates V., who died probably in 120 b.c. He was succeeded by his son Mithradates Eupator, sixth of the name, one of those remarkable conquerors that arise from time to time in the East. He was a boy when his father died, and for seven years lived the wandering life of a hunter pursued by assassins. His courage, his wonderful bodily strength and size, his skill in the use of weapons, in riding, and in the chase, his speed of foot, his capacity for eating and drinking, and at the same time his quick and penetrating intellect, his wonderful mastery of twenty-two languages,— all these qualities are celebrated by the ancients to a degree which is almost incredible. With a surface gloss of Greek education, he united the subtlety, the superstition, and the obstinate endurance of an Oriental. He was a virtuoso, and collected ...curiosities and works of art; he assembled Greek men of letters round him; he gave prizes to the greatest poets and the best eaters. He spent much of his time in practising magic arts, the interpretation of dreams, and other superstitious ceremonies; and it was believed that he had so saturated his body with poisons that none could injure him. He trusted no one; he murdered his nearest relations, his mother, his sons, the sister whom he had married; to prevent his harem from falling a trophy to his enemies he murdered all his concubines, and his most faithful followers were never safe. He once disappeared from his palace, no one knew whither, and returned after some months, having wandered over all Asia Minor in disguise. Except in the pages of romance or the tales of the Thousand and One Nights it would be difficult to find anything to rival the account given of Mithradates by the gravest of historians. These qualities fitted him to be the opponent of Roman arms in Asia Minor, to be the champion of the East in its struggle against the destroying and yet civilizing power of the West. He resisted the Romans for eighteen years, yet we can hardly credit him with much real generalship or organizing power. He could collect masses of men and hurl them against the Roman legions; everything that boundless energy and boundless hatred could do he did; but the strength of his opposition to the Romans lay in the fact that all the dislike inspired by Rome in the worst and most cruel time of her rule was arrayed on his side.
No direct collision took place between the Romans and Mithradates for thirty-two years, though the republic took away Phrygia from him in 120 b.c., and several times thwarted his designs in Paphlagonia and Cappadocia. The rupture came about the time of the Social War. Mithradates, prompted, it is said, by envoys from the Italian allies, took advantage of the intestine struggles in Italy. War broke out in 88, on the ostensible cause of disputes about the kingdom of Bithynia; Mithradates rapidly overran Galatia, Phrygia, and Asia, defeated the Roman armies, and made a general massacre of the Romans resident in Asia. He also sent large armies into European Greece, and his generals occupied Athens. But Sulla in Greece and Fimbria in Asia defeated his armies in several battles; the Greek cities were disgusted by his severity, and in 84 b.c. he concluded peace, abandoning all his conquests, surrendering seventy ships, and paying a fine of 2000 talents. Murena invaded Pontus without any good reason in 83, but was defeated in 82. Difficulties constantly arose between the two adversaries, and in 74 a general war broke out. Mithradates defeated Cotta, one of the Roman consuls, at Chalcedon; but Lucullus worsted him in several engagements, and drove him finally in 72 b.c. to take refuge in Armenia with his son-in-law Tigranes. After two great victories in 69 and 68, Lucullus was disconcerted by mutiny among his troops and the defeat of his lieutenant Fabius (see vol. xv. p. 56). In 66 he was superseded by Pompey, who completely defeated both Mithradates and Tigranes. The former established himself in 64 at Panticapaeum, and was planning new campaigns against the Romans when his own troops revolted, and, after vainly trying to poison himself, he ordered a Gallic mercenary to kill him. So perished the greatest enemy that the Romans had to encounter in Asia Minor. His body was sent to Pompey, who buried it in the royal sepulchre at Sinope.
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