The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy

by Adrienne Mayor

  Pontus had long-standing ties with Pantikapaion (Kerch, Ukraine), a city and fortress on the Chersonese (Crimea) guarding the Cimmerian Bosporus (Kerch Straits) connecting the turbulent, deep Black Sea to the shallow Sea of Asov. Across the strait on the Taman Peninsula was the citadel of Phanagoria. These two wealthy ports controlled the crucial salt-fish trade and grain from the Scythian steppes, bound for Mediterranean markets. In this region today, archaeologists (and tomb robbers) excavate many kurgans, grave mounds from Mithradates’ time. The magnificent gold jewelry, realistic golden death masks, weapons, fine pottery, exquisitely carved gems, and other grave goods give us a glimpse of the riches of these lands, which would later become part of Mithradates’ expanded kingdom.22

  Roiling pools of black oil, belching tar volcanoes, and fountains of ever-burning naphtha on both sides of the Cimmerian Bosporus had long inspired awe. Earthquakes periodically ravage this region. As a boy, Mithradates may have listened to the historian Theopompus of Sinope explain how the earth suddenly split open on the Taman Peninsula, spilling out the stupendous skeletons of monsters and giants (actually mastodon fossils). Instead of taking these sacred relics to be displayed in the temple, as cultured Greeks did, Theopompus said that the nomads simply heaved the fearsome bones into the Sea of Azov. A young prince in Sinope would be eager to see for himself the marvelous sights and curious peoples, the landscapes of legendary grandeur and exciting possibilities of the northern Black Sea.23

  Any child growing up in Sinope heard anecdotes about the city’s most famous citizen, Diogenes the Cynic (b. 403 BC). The eccentric philosopher, who called a capacious wine jug home and performed all bodily functions in public, was exiled from Sinope, but his unconventional ideas were very influential. Mithradates knew the famous story of Diogenes’ meeting with Alexander, who admired the philosopher’s way of life. Diogenes taught that wisdom flowed from decisive physical action. He advocated wandering the countryside with few possessions, living austerely off the land, and following a rigorous regimen of endurance training.

  Was young Mithradates influenced by Diogenes? He grew up with Persian-Macedonian luxuries, elaborate carved couches and thrones under golden canopies, lavish banquets and expensive tapestries and artworks, servants to read aloud to him and to think up diversions, silver nails in his boots, myrrh-scented baths, and perhaps even golden sand imported from Egypt for his playground. As king, he accumulated and enjoyed untold riches. But he knew that the greatest military leaders, Cyrus, Alexander, and Hannibal, were tough warriors who scorned the soft court life. Like them, young Mithradates looked after his own armor, weapons, and horses, and reveled in the outdoor life and hardship that were part of his own education. And as we shall see, young Mithradates would eschew luxury and live for several years much like Diogenes, sleeping under the stars, rambling in the mountains, and devising his own bodybuilding program.24

  MAP 3.1. Anatolia, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and the Near East. Map by Michele Angel.

  FIG. 3.4. The Argo sailing toward the rising sun and Colchis, on the Black Sea. German artist unknown.

  But before he set out on that adventure, Mithradates was schooled in history and geography. Sinope traded with Greek and barbarian outposts all around the Black Sea. Beyond the mouth of the Danube ranged seminomadic warrior tribes of Moesia and Thrace. Neighboring Bithynia was the traditional gateway between Asia and Europe, and inland lay Galatia (settled by Gauls in the third century BC) and rough Paphlagonia. Far south rose the snow-capped Taurus Range of Cappadocia (Persian Katpatuka, “land of fine horses”). To the east lay the rich mountain kingdom of Armenia, named after one of Jason’s Argonauts. Hannibal had designed Armenia’s heavily fortified royal capital, Artaxata (Artashat, “Joy of Truth”), after he lost the Second Punic War to the Romans (at Zama, 202 BC). Even Hannibal had spent time in Mithradates’ homeland.25

  HANNIBAL IN ANATOLIA

  Young Mithradates probably memorized Hannibal’s adventures down to the last detail, taking in every success and setback in the Carthaginian’s relentless wars against Rome. Mithradates knew that, as a little boy, Hannibal had taken a sacred oath to never cease fighting the detested Romans. Hannibal kept his vow until his death at age seventy, in 182 BC, about fifty years before Mithradates’ birth.

  FIG. 3.5. Hannibal drinking poison to avoid capture by the Romans. Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles homes et femmes maleureux, ca. 1470–83, British Library. HIP/Art Resource, NY.

  After Rome had devastated the Carthaginian army, Hannibal was forced to flee North Africa (195 BC). He spent the rest of his life in Anatolia, advising other enemies of Rome. He convinced King Antiochus III of Syria to make war on Rome by invading Greece. But Hannibal and Antiochus suffered a disastrous defeat at Thermopylae (191 BC). That battle held special meaning for Mithradates, because of the notorious prophecies of the Syrian ghost who rose from the dead and the raving Roman general, predicting that a savior-king would rise in the East to punish Rome.

  After another decisive defeat of Antiochus by the Romans at Magnesia (south of Pergamon) in 189 BC, Hannibal was welcomed to Bithynia by King Prusias. With his new ally, Hannibal continued to wage war on Rome and its client kings. In a naval battle, Hannibal was outnumbered by Rome’s client, King Eumenes II of Pergamon. Young Mithradates, with his interest in poison snakes and cunning tactics, would have appreciated Hannibal’s ploy. He sent his sailors ashore to collect venomous vipers, which they stuffed into clay jars. Hannibal won the day by catapulting the writhing snakes onto the decks of Eumenes’ ships.

  The old general’s last hours were dramatic and uncompromising. In the end, King Prusias betrayed Hannibal to the Romans. As the Romans closed in, Hannibal—one-eyed since crossing the frozen Alps—holed up in his castle in Bithynia, fitted with secret doors on every side. But escape was impossible now. An ugly death at Roman hands loomed. Hannibal took control of his fate. He slipped off the golden ring he always wore, pried open the hidden compartment, and swallowed the dram of deadly poison. With that last defiant act, Rome’s first great enemy entered the realm of legend.26

  THE POISON GARDENS OF MAD KING ATTALUS

  More recent resistance to Rome also fired young Mithradates’ imagination. The revolt of several Anatolian cities against Roman rule, while Mithradates was a boy, was a raw memory of imperial might. The insurrection was led by an idealistic young rebel named Aristonicus, a son of King Eumenes II of Pergamon and a harpist’s daughter from Ephesus. Aristonicus was the younger stepbrother of Attalus III, who succeeded Eumenes. King Attalus was peculiar, paranoid, reclusive. He was called crazy for preferring science to governing, and he had no heirs. As a boy, Mithradates heard rumors accusing Attalus of poisoning enemies and relatives. Withdrawing from court life, letting his hair and beard grow long and scraggly, Attalus set aside his crown and took to wearing simple garments. He spent his days tending his gardens, studying botany, pharmacology, and metallurgy. He died suddenly of sunstroke in 133 BC.

  But was Attalus really insane, as portrayed by Justin and other historians? A revised view was proposed in 1988 by Kent Rigsby. Rigsby reasoned that the king’s reputation for murder and madness was distorted by those who wanted to make Attalus seem unfit to name his successor. Pointing out that scientific and philosophical pursuits were typical of sophisticated Hellenistic monarchs, Rigsby suggested that “in reality, Attalus was a scientist and scholar.” The king may have been eccentric, but his activities represent serious scientific research. Pergamon, with its great library, active scientific community, and the healing temple of Asclepius, was the center of medical learning.

  But the remarkable significance of Attalus’s research has been overlooked by Rigsby and other historians. Justin’s most damning example of Attalus’s madness was his obsession with “digging and sowing in his garden” and his bizarre practice of concocting “mixtures of healthful and beneficial plants, drenched with the juices of poisonous ones,” which he presented as “special gifts to his friends.” The historian Plutarch
tells us that Attalus cultivated toxic plants such as “henbane, hellebore, hemlock, aconite [monkshood], and belladonna in his royal gardens and became an expert in their juices and fruits.” Galen, the celebrated physician from Pergamon (b. AD 129), added that Attalus also experimented with antidotes against the venoms of spiders, scorpions, toxic sea slugs, and snakes. Galen praised the king for testing his mixtures only on condemned criminals.27

  Can it be a coincidence that the youthful Mithradates engaged in the very same sort of activities and experiments as had mad King Attalus? We know that Mithradates created his renowned “universal antidote,” the Mithridatium, by mixing tiny doses of deadly poisons with antidotes. Mithradates—who would achieve lasting fame as the world’s first experimental toxicologist—may well have been inspired at a young age by his grandfather Pharnaces’ discovery of a panacea and by the unusual research first begun by the last king of Pergamon, “mad” Attalus.

  Attalus’s sudden death in 133 BC, about a year after Mithradates’ birth, set in motion the chain of events that would eventually lead to Mithradates’ wars on Rome. Attalus’s will shocked everyone: he bequeathed his kingdom to Rome. This unexpected inheritance became the basis for Rome’s vast and lucrative “Province of Asia.”

  Was Attalus’s will a Roman forgery, as Mithradates would later claim? What ruler in his right mind would will his kingdom to Rome? Attalus’s stepbrother Aristonicus immediately organized a popular rebellion, to claim the throne and keep the Romans from annexing the kingdom.

  ARISTONICUS AND THE CITIZENS OF THE SUN

  Aristonicus established rebel headquarters at Leucae, founded by a Persian rebel leader in the fourth century BC. Attalus’s navy quickly joined Aristonicus. Pro-Roman officials in Pergamon attempted to appease the population by granting citizenship to foreigners, mercenaries, and freedmen, but numerous cities joined Aristonicus, including Colophon, Myndos, Tralles, Nysa, Phocaea, Thyateira, Stratonicea in Mysia, Apollonia, and the island of Samos. The Stoic philosopher Blossius, a supporter of democratic principles and an exile from Rome, also supported Aristonicus’s cause.28

  The city of Ephesus, allied with Rome at the time, sent a fleet against Aristonicus at Cyme. He lost the battle and fled far inland. All seemed lost. But now the story of Aristonicus’s revolt gains real momentum, with much to enthrall young Mithradates. The rebel leader eluded capture, traveling to his base of support in the Persian-influenced central Anatolian highlands. Here Aristonicus established a utopian city-state, called Heliopolis, “City of the Sun.” The citizens were free and equal, and Aristonicus promised to liberate all slaves and cancel debts, eradicating evils that were particularly identified with Rome. He assembled a great army of Heliopolitae, “Citizens of the Sun,” indigenous Anatolians and descendants of Alexander’s Macedonians, poor and middle classes, debtors and slaves. From his new stronghold, Aristonicus issued coins asserting his royal claim. All these developments greatly alarmed the Romans, already beset by slave revolts and indigenous uprisings in Italy.

  Most modern pro-Roman historians downplay the revolutionary nature of Aristonicus’s insurrection, suggesting that his motive for mobilizing “resourceless people” and slaves was nothing but “desperation” after the naval defeat. They point out that Aristonicus defended monarchy. But in Anatolia, independent “democratic monarchy” was a traditional, popular, anti-Roman concept. Aristonicus’s ideology and his campaign—the first popular Anatolian uprising against Roman domination—might well have been a model for Mithradates’ own war on Rome, his appeal to followers, and his policies of erasing debts and freeing slaves. The tale of the young rebel from Anatolia (“land of the rising sun”) battling overwhelming odds and Roman treachery would have appealed to Mithradates, who was a boy when the uprising was quelled. Later, Mithradates’ own campaigns against Rome could be seen as keeping the faith of Aristonicus’s insurgency, as well as Hannibal’s boyhood vow. As we shall see, Mithradates frequently alluded to Aristonicus’s revolt in his speeches.29

  The names chosen by Aristonicus for Heliopolis and its “Citizens of the Sun” receive scant comment from Roman historians, and contemporary Romans apparently missed the significance too. But these names radiated mystical and political symbolism in Greco-Persian lands. Notably, a Zoroastrian tribe of Armenia called themselves by a similar name, Arevordik (“Children of the Sun”), and prided themselves on never submitting to tyrants. For Mithradates, and for Aristonicus’s followers, “citizens” and “polis” reflected Greek democratic traditions. “Of the Sun” evoked the ancient Persian god Mithra, Mithradates’ namesake. The name “Citizens of the Sun” announced that Aristonicus and his army were fighting on the side of Light and Truth against the forces of Darkness.

  Mithradates’ father, and the rulers of Bithynia, Cappadocia, Ephesus, and Paphlagonia, were nervous about Rome’s reaction. They agreed to send troops against Aristonicus. But the Citizens of the Sun persevered. It appeared that Aristonicus would be acclaimed king of Pergamon and Greater Phrygia. The Roman Senate dispatched its own legions in 131 BC, commanded by P. Licinius Crassus. But Crassus was bent on plundering Attalus’s palace instead of leading a campaign. His disorganized army was routed in a battle near Leucae. Crassus, surrounded by a hostile mob, poked a Thracian in the eye with his whip. The enraged barbarian stabbed Crassus to death. The Roman’s head was presented to Aristonicus.

  The Citizens of the Sun won more victories. Rome sent M. Perperna to put down the spreading insurgency. Perperna, fresh from suppressing a slave revolt in Sicily, captured Aristonicus alive. Although Perperna suddenly died (reportedly of disease), Aristonicus was sent in chains to Rome, along with Attalus’s fabulous treasures from Pergamon. The rebel leader was cast into the Tullianum, a stone dungeon twelve feet deep, described by the historian Sallust as “repugnant and fearsome from neglect, darkness, and stench.” The state executioner strangled Aristonicus in his cell in 129 BC.

  In Cyme, where Aristonicus’s navy had been defeated, it was said that the statue of Apollo wept. Inspired by their leader’s martyrdom and Rome’s ineffective campaign—and perhaps seeing Perperna’s sudden death as a good omen—the Citizens of the Sun continued to resist. The Senate dispatched the ambitious consul Manius Aquillius to crush the insurrection and establish Roman provincial government in Pergamon. It must have impressed Mithradates that the cities loyal to Aristonicus still held fast, protecting the Sun Citizens inside their fortified walls.

  Aquillius faced a series of long-drawn-out sieges before he could occupy the land and set up the new government. To bring the war to a quick end, Aquillius resorted to a ruthless solution. He ordered his men to pour poison into the water supplies of the besieged cities. This biological weapon killed soldiers and noncombatants alike, and Aquillius’s army easily overran the cities. Even in Rome, however, some critics deplored such a barbarous tactic, declaring that Aquillius’s expedient victory dishonored old Roman military values.30

  Aquillius took over Pergamon and levied heavy taxes for personal profit. Aristonicus’s rebellion was over, and Rome’s allies were rewarded. Mithradates’ father received Greater Phrygia in thanks. But popular outrage was visceral in the territories coveted by Rome. Aquillius’s vicious victory through poison and his suffocating taxation intensified the loathing for Rome. Cities that had supported Aristonicus’s revolt were severely punished. Yet even the official “friends” of Rome experienced anxiety rather than security. Everyone was beginning to realize that Rome had a nasty habit of attacking former clients.

  During his childhood, Mithradates would have heard many details of Aristonicus’s Anatolian uprising that are lost to us. He may have known, for example, whether Aristonicus, grandson of a harpist, had been named after Alexander’s brave harpist friend Aristonicus who died gloriously in battle. Mithradates also would have learned which poison Aquillius had used to taint the wells. Hellebore, a common plant with a notorious military history, was probably the agent of death. Mithradates, who studied toxic plants an
d warfare, could recall the infamous story of a similar siege situation, some five hundred years earlier in Greece. The victorious generals—aided by a corrupt doctor—had annihilated the townspeople by poisoning the water supply with crushed hellebore.31

  MEDEA’S MAGIC POTIONS

  Wedged between Armenia and the sheer cliffs where the Caucasus Mountains plunged into the eastern Black Sea lay fabled Colchis (Georgia), a harsh land rich in gold and exotic minerals and plants. In Greek myth, Zeus had chained Prometheus, the rebel Titan who brought fire to mortals, on the highest peak in the Caucasus, sending an eagle to tear out his liver for eternity. Mithradates and his friends heard exciting myths set in their own native lands. In the epic poem about Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece, the Argo sailed east toward the “Sun’s golden treasure house,” along the southern shore of the Black Sea, stopping for adventures and founding towns.32 In Sinope, Mithradates might have played near the marble statue of his city’s founder, the Argonaut Autolycus.

  The Argonauts had marveled at Pontus’s iron mines and its weird towers of salt on the Halys River. Pressing on to Themiscrya, the great Amazon stronghold on the Thermodon River, the Argonauts sailed to far Colchis under the forbidding Caucasus Mountains. There Jason fell in love with Medea, the beautiful barbarian sorceress.