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

by Adrienne Mayor

  FIG. 3.6. Medea in her Chariot of the Sun. The sorceress of Colchis wears a mantle and a Persian-Phrygian cap, like those worn by Zoroastrian Magi and Amazons. Detail, Lucanian calyx-crater ca. 400 BC. Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1991.1.

  Mistress of poisons and magic, granddaughter of the Sun god, Medea could tame mysterious fire from the black oil pools of Baku on the Caspian Sea, to create unquenchable flames. Her potions bestowed superhuman strength or deathlike sleep and made one invulnerable to fire or sword. Medea knew the secrets of deadly dragon’s blood and all the antidotes for serpent venom. It is easy to picture young Mithradates, future toxicologist, enthralled by the description of Medea alighting from her Sun-chariot to gather pharmaka.

  In the gloom of night, clothed in black, murmuring eerie incantations, Medea climbed higher and higher into the Caucasus Mountains. There, springing from the ichor that had flowed out of Prometheus’s side, a flower the color of saffron bloomed on tall twin stalks. From the fleshy root, blood-red sap oozed. This crimson liquid Medea captured in a pure white shell from the Caspian Sea.33

  THE MIGHTY HERCULES

  In young Mithradates’ eclectic pantheon of mythic role models, the Persian sorceress Medea was joined by Hercules, the Greek superhero who rescued Prometheus from his torture. In the course of his adventures, Hercules had traveled across the towering Caucasus Mountains into Scythia, where he won a duel with Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons. The natives of the city of Pergamon believed they were the descendants of Hercules’ son Telephus. Like Alexander, Mithradates also claimed descent from Hercules. Three remarkable marble statues show how deeply Mithradates identified with Hercules. The first, a sculpture in Pergamon—probably created in 88–85 BC when Mithradates established royal headquarters there—depicts a fatherly Hercules wearing his signature lionskin cape, holding his infant son Telephus. Recent analysis of portraiture in contemporary coins and sculpure suggests that the model for the little boy was none other than Mithradates!

  The child’s profile and hairstyle strongly resemble portraits of the adult Mithradates on his early silver coins. The pudgy face was not meant to be a good likeness of Mithradates as a toddler. But the similarity to Mithradates’ coin portraits—and the message—would have been immediately recognized by everyone. The likeness was so obvious that, after his defeat of Mithradates in 63 BC, the Roman general Pompey seized this statue of Baby Mithradates to show off in Rome.34

  FIG. 3.7. Hercules and his son Telephus, Pergamon. The boy was intended to resemble Mithradates, who claimed Hercules as a forefather. Chiaramonti Museum, Vatican. Scala/Art Resource, NY.

  Another statue group, discovered in 1925 at the Great Altar of Pergamon, shows a youthful Hercules freeing Prometheus. The young man in the lionskin is a lifelike portrait of Mithradates on the verge of manhood. It is similar to another well-known portrait statue in the Louvre that is securely identified as the adult Mithradates, also wearing Hercules’ lionskin (fig 6.1). The image of Mithradates as Hercules liberating the chained Titan had great symbolic value for Greeks and the people of the East, because it depicted the king as a savior-liberator.

  FIG. 3.8. Young Mithradates as Hercules freeing Prometheus, marble sculpture group, Pergamon. Berlin, Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, NY.

  ALEXANDER AND DARIUS

  Portraits on coins show that Mithradates copied Alexander’s flamboyant shoulder-length hairstyle. Alexander’s charisma, military genius, grand dreams—and tragic death just before his thirty-third birthday—had made him a cult figure, not just for Greco-Persians like Mithradates, but for many Romans too. Even as a child, Mithradates discovered much in Alexander’s life story that matched his own, and much to emulate. To portray Mithradates as the new Alexander, the antithesis of uncivilized Rome, Mithradates and his circle loved to draw comparisons between the two. Incidents like Mithradates’ taming of the wild stallion, described above, fostered popular associations between the beloved Alexander and the prince of Pontus.35

  Like Alexander, Mithradates had a magnetic personality. Did young Mithradates consciously mirror his hero’s well-known mannerisms? Alexander had a habit of tilting his head to the left; some sculpted portraits of the youthful Mithradates not only resemble Alexander but also show his head inclined leftward. Alexander was also said to have a “certain melting look in his eyes.” We can imagine young Mithradates perfecting his version of Alexander’s “melting gaze” on his friends Dorylaus and Gaius, his little sisters, and other children in Sinope. Alexander’s companions had even claimed that his body and clothing exuded a pleasant, sweet fragrance. That, too, was something Mithradates could achieve, with myrrh and other perfumes used by men and women in Persian-influenced courts.36

  Mithradates could probably recite the life story of Alexander (b. 356 BC), who set out at about age twenty-two to conquer the most powerful empire in the world. The Persian Empire under Darius III ranged over three continents and ruled about 25 million diverse people. But by the time Alexander died (in 323 BC, almost two hundred years before Mithradates’ birth), Darius’s empire had been incorporated into the new Macedonian Empire, stretching from Greece and Anatolia to Egypt and all the way to the Himalayas.

  The mesmerizing story of Alexander and Darius III held many lessons for Mithradates. The Macedonians were outnumbered two to one, yet Alexander overwhelmed Darius’s army at Issus (333 BC). Darius made a daring escape in his chariot and recruited 200,000 more warriors from the fringes of his empire, backed by armored cavalry, ranks of dread scythed chariots, and war elephants. The two armies met again at Gaugamela (331 BC). But Alexander’s brilliant maneuvers again decimated the Persians. This time, Darius was able to slip away on horseback. At his defeat, Darius had expressed admiration for Alexander, even approving him as his successor to rule the Persian Empire. Fleeing to the far eastern reaches of his empire, Darius was murdered by his closest generals. Mithradates knew that Alexander famously wept over Darius’s corpse and buried him with great honors at Persepolis. Rejecting the traditional Greek hatred of barbarians (non-Greeks), Alexander welcomed his new subjects into his inner circle. Their mutual esteem and courtly gestures made Darius and Alexander into perfectly matched noble adversaries, like brave knights in a medieval tale of chivalry. Mithradates took great pride in his connections to both commanders and embraced a visionary dream of fusing Persia and Greece to overcome Rome, the barbarous empire of the West.

  After his conquest of the Persian Empire, Alexander had adopted Persian customs and Persian dress. The ancient historians tell us that Mithradates wore old-fashioned Persian costumes. This seemingly eccentric habit was a way of honoring—and calling attention to—his Persian heritage and another way to imitate Alexander too. We know that Mithradates inherited antique furniture and other treasures from Darius I. On rainy days in the palace at Sinope, the boy could visit the storerooms and open cedar treasure chests filled with Persian tiaras, golden earrings, bracelets, and necklaces, rings and carved gems; jars redolent of exotic perfumes, and vintage finery, long white robes edged with purple and embroidered with gilded hawks and lions.

  Mithradates knew that Alexander had taken care not to dress in the extravagant fashion (ridiculed by the plainly dressed Greeks) of the Medes, the ancient kinsmen of Persian kings. Nor did Alexander chose to wear the full royal Persian costume, a fancy long robe over trousers and turned-up slippers, topped with a tiara. Instead, Alexander combined Greek and Persian styles into a modest but elegant fashion statement: a simple, short, pure white tunic belted with a Persian sash that held his dagger, and sandals, no trousers or crown (the Macedonians considered the Persian tiara and trousers outlandish). Some of Alexander’s armor included antique pieces.

  Young Mithradates also designed his own dashing, hybrid ensemble, probably after experimenting as a boy. Like Alexander, he wore a simple diadem (a purple and white ribbon tied around his head) and a brilliant white tunic, modestly embroidered with purple hems. The tunic was belted wi
th a Persian-style, jewel-encrusted sash to hold the golden scabbard of his dagger against his thigh. Old-fashioned Persian trousers and leather boots with turned-up toes completed the king’s outfit.37

  THE KING IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE KING

  During his boyhood in Sinope, mythic deeds, historical models both good and bad, and his scientific poison projects occupied Mithradates’ thoughts. He spent his days collecting rocks and reptiles, riding and hunting with his friends, reading and daydreaming. It must have seemed a happy and idyllic time, with only fleeting clouds.

  Mithradates’ father held many feasts for courtiers and honored guests, with enthusiastic drinking, slabs of venison and lamb and Black Sea tuna, bread and olives, cherries and peaches. In 120 or 119 BC, Mithradates celebrated his birthday, his fourteenth or fifteenth. According to Persian custom, a birthday called for a banquet of special magnificence. A whole ox, camel, or donkey was roasted inside a giant brick oven. Each course was served separately, along with a great deal of wine. A flight of many different honeyed sweets followed, while conjurers from Parthia, Indian snake charmers, Syrian tumblers and dancers entertained, and harpists and drummers filled the great hall with music.38

  At one of his lavish banquets, Mithradates’ father suddenly clutched his throat. Lurching out of his chair, he fell dead, his heavy silver cup rolling silently across the thick carpet. In that one moment, Mithradates’ whole world was thrown into tumult.

  Mithradates V Euergetes was assassinated in about 120 BC in Sinope, poisoned by persons unknown. The deed was done while the king’s friend, General Dorylaus, was away in Crete, recruiting for Pontus’s army. When he received the news of the murder, it was too dangerous to return. He remained in Crete.39

  Paranoia suddenly replaced Mithradates’ vague mistrust of his mother. Was he next? Who could be trusted? He turned to his closest companions and best friend, young Dorylaus. Perhaps he also found support among some teachers and courtiers. Comparisons to the assassination of Alexander’s father, Philip of Macedon, were inevitable, and the parallels must have been chilling for Mithradates. Philip was murdered at a wedding banquet. Alexander had blamed his father’s great enemies, the Persians, but many suspected his mother Olympias. Characterized by ancient historians as a jealous, murderous witch, Olympias terrified men with the huge, tame snakes she bred for Dionysian orgies. Mithradates had heard the ghastly stories about what happened after Philip’s violent death. Olympias had burned Alexander’s infant half brother to death and poisoned Alexander’s other half brother with drugs that destroyed his mind.40

  In Sinope, some worried that Romans might have been behind the assassination of Mithradates’ father, but the ancient evidence points to a palace coup. Was Mithradates’ own mother, Queen Laodice, really a wicked witch, as Olympias was reputed to have been? To modern readers, the idea of murderous mothers seems like a Grimms’ fairy tale, but Mithradates knew of many ambitious queens in neighboring kingdoms who seized power through intrigue, murder, and poison. The mother of Prince Ariathes of Cappadocia, for example, had poisoned Ariathes’ five younger brothers one by one. Mithradates noticed that his mother doted on his little brother Mithradates the Good. The murder of Mithradates’ father supports Justin’s statement that there were plots to do away with Mithradates himself. As modern historians point out, Mithradates’ life really was in danger: the unknown murderers of his father were embedded in the palace among his guardians and tutors. It is easy to believe that Queen Laodice was complicit.41

  After his father was buried in the royal mausoleum at Amasia (the old Pontic capital), young Mithradates was crowned king of Pontus, in 120 or 119 BC. His father’s will apparently left the kingdom to the joint rule of Queen Laodice, Mithradates, and his brother Mithradates the Good. Since both princes were underage, Laodice retained all power as regent, and she favored her younger, more malleable son. Laodice’s love of luxury made her a compliant client of Rome. Over the next few years, she accepted their bribes, and her extravagance pushed Pontus into debt.

  In 119 BC, a marvelous omen suddenly appeared in the sky. The spectacular comet with the long scimitar tail, observed before Mithradates’ birth, returned, just as he was crowned king. The Magi and people in Persian-influenced lands rejoiced: this heavenly sign affirmed that Mithradates was indeed the savior-king sent by Mithra, the great leader who would rescue the East from Rome, as promised by the comet of 135 BC and widely known prophecies. The rare coins depicting a comet may have been minted just after his coronation (see fig. 2.1).

  But Mithradates knew he had to devise a survival plan, or he would never live to fulfill his destiny. He began carrying his dagger with him at all times. At night he kept the blade under his pillow, just as Alexander had done.42

  THE POISON PRINCE

  What was the poison that killed his father? This compelling question recalled other unsolved royal deaths, like that of Alexander. Alexander’s companions believed that he had been murdered with a nameless poison, a mysterious substance of curious lore, an ice-cold “dew” collected from the mossy rocks where the River Styx cascaded over a high cliff in Greece. The “dew” was so corrosive that it dissolved metal and could be stored only in the hoof of a mule. Modern toxicologists have been unable to identify this poison. The ancient descriptions point to an acidic substance: a likely culprit may be a recently discovered, naturally occurring, extremely toxic acidic bacteria found in calcium carbonate crusts that leach out from limestone bedrock.43

  But Mithradates had to consider more easily available possibilities closer to home. Was his father the victim of some noxious plant? They were myriad: henbane, yew, deadly nightshade, hemlock, mandrake, monkshood, hellebore, poppies, mushrooms, oleander. . . .

  Mithradates had dabbled in toxic experiments as a boy, goaded by fears of poisoning. But now it was a matter of life and death. According to Justin, when his enemies’ attempts on his life “failed because of the boy’s superior strength and skill, they tried to kill him with poison.” He began urgent investigations of pharmaka, secretly testing them on others and himself. For models young Mithradates could look to the mythical sorceress Medea, but also to his grandfather’s panacea, to Attalus’s misunderstood toxicological research in Pergamon, and to Alexander’s bold—nearly fatal—scientific experiments in Babylonia and India with naphtha and powerful potions. Alexander had prescribed drugs and antidotes for his companions and himself. In India, for example, Alexander’s men were dying gruesome deaths after being attacked with swords dipped in snake venom. Alexander dreamed of the plant that could save them, and consulted with Hindu doctors about antidotes for snakebite. Another time, Alexander was courageous enough to drink down a beaker of medicine that knocked him unconscious, almost killing him. Now Mithradates, too, would dare to search for the perfect formula to neutralize all poisons.44

  Toxic natural resources abounded in the Black Sea region. The nomads of Scythia dipped their arrows in a sophisticated concoction of viper venom and other pathogens; their shamans were experts in antidotes based on venom. In Armenia’s remote lakes lurked venomous fish, and Pontus boasted its own poisons. Wild honey, distilled by bees from the nectar of poisonous rhododendrons and oleander so profuse on the coast, could kill a man. Even the flesh of Pontic ducks was poisonous. The ducks thrived on hellebore and other baneful plants, and the bees enjoyed a strange immunity to poison. Did these mysterious facts inspire Mithradates to search for ways to inure himself to poisons?45

  Nefarious, rare minerals were mined in Pontus. Sinope was the center for processing and exporting Sinopic red earth, realgar, orpiment, and other glittering dark red and yellow crystals surrounded by magical and ominous folklore. Known by many different names, these minerals occurred in association with quicksilver (mercury), lead, sulphur, iron ore, cobalt, nickel, and gold. The mines exhaled vapors so noxious that they were said to be worked only by slaves who had been sentenced to death for terrible crimes. One of the most infamous of the mines was Sandarakurgion Dag (Mount Realgar), des
cribed by the geographer Strabo. On the Halys River near Pimolisa, gangs of two hundred slaves labored to hollow out the entire mountain. Strabo notes that Mount Realgar Mine was finally abandoned as unprofitable, because it was too expensive to continually replace the slaves as they dropped dead from the toxic fumes.46

  FIG. 3.9. Mine slaves, like those who worked in toxic Mount Realgar.

  The various ancient words for groups of related compounds make them difficult to sort out and identify today. Cinnabar, zinjifrah, vermilion, Sinopic red earth, ruby sulphur, miltos sinopike, sinople, orpiment, oker, sandaracha, sandyx, lithargyron, zamikh, arsenicum, arhenicum, zirnikhi, sindura, minium, Armenian calche, realgar, dragon’s blood: all were ancient names for the many forms of toxic ores containing mercury, sulphur, and/or arsenic. Sinopic red earth was used to waterproof ships; many of these costly substances were prized as brilliant pigments, varnishes, and textile dyes; they were also important in alchemy and medicine.47

  But Mithradates investigated their more sinister qualities. Arsenic—from the Persian word zamikh (“yellow orpiment,” Arabic, al-zarnikhi)—was a deadly, odorless, tasteless poison undetectable in food or drink—the ideal toxin for murder. The poison that someone slipped into his father’s meat or wine was most likely pure arsenic, produced by heating realgar (Arabic, rhaj al ghar, “powder of the mine”), red arsenic sulfate.

  Mithradates discovered a curious phenomenon. By ingesting minuscule amounts of arsenic each day, he learned that one could build up an immunity to larger doses that would otherwise be fatal. Perhaps he achieved tolerance to arsenic at an early age, since, as Justin states, the conspirators in the palace failed in their attempts to poison him while he was a boy. He took other precautions, too, like those suggested by the Roman satirist Juvenal: “Trust none of the dishes at dinner, those sweets are black with the poison your mother put in them, whatever she offers you, make sure another samples it first. Let your tutor test each cup you are poured!”48