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

by Adrienne Mayor

  In its shocking visual impact, the dramatically staged execution of Aquillius recalls Mithradates’ public stabbing of his nephew Ariathes in full view of the opposing armies in Cappadocia. A generation later, in 53 BC, the king of Parthia copied Mithradates and poured gold down the throat of another rich Roman invader loathed for his greed, M. Licinius Crassus. The raw symbolism of death by molten gold catapulted this atrocity into a byword for cruel—if poetically just—revenge in the Middle Ages and beyond. The image of angry, colonized people forcing the imperialist to have his fill of gold was still deeply seared into the popular consciousness some fifteen hundred years later. European historians and artists appropriated the same scene to imagine how Moctezuma, the last king of the Aztecs, punished the Spanish conquistadors’ insatiable lust for the yellow metal.2

  FIG. 8.1. The horrific execution by molten gold—just deserts for greedy Romans—became an icon of poetic justice after 88 BC, when Mithradates ordered the death of Aquillius. This image shows the execution of M. Licinius Crassus by the Parthian king, in imitation of Mithradates’ execution of Aquillius a few years earlier. Pierre Coustau, Pegma, 1555, Glasgow University Library, Special Collections.

  In 88 BC, however, Mithradates’ vicious execution of one detested Roman was soon overshadowed by an even more horrific event: the cold-blooded massacre of tens of thousands of Italian-speaking residents in Provincia Asia.

  DEATH TO THE ROMANS

  After Mithradates shattered the Roman coalition armies and began his sweep down through central Anatolia, Romans and their sympathizers fled before him to the coast. Among them were Chaeremon of Nysa and his family and the Roman general Cassius. Mithradates’ decrees offering rewards for Chaeremon cast new light on the situation in the Roman province, not fully explained in the ancient texts. The inscriptions tell us that Italian refugees—bringing their households and slaves—were flowing into Ephesus, Adramyttion, Caunus, and other major cities near the coast.

  So, in the months before the massacre of 88, great numbers of Romans and Italians were already camping out in temple sanctuaries for safety. Soldiers from the defeated Roman legions also joined this stream of refugees. This means that the Latin-speaking populations of these cities soared in the months before the order to kill them was actually carried out. By converging in a few major cities, the desperate fugitives became even more vulnerable. This mass exodus helps account for the terrible success of Mithradates’ order, which effectively wiped out the Roman presence in Asia Minor.

  The adventures of one Roman who survived are hinted at in the ancient sources. It was rumored in Rome that the former provincial officer, Rutilius Rufus, had escaped death during the massacre because he disguised himself in Greek clothes. Some Italians did avoid the fate of their countrymen by wearing distinctive Greek clothing, but it is more likely that Rutilius Rufus was spared because he was so respected in Anatolia for trying to protect the province from ruthless tax collectors. It was well known that the Roman Senate had punished Rutilius for his leniency, convicting him on trumped-up charges. In 92 BC, he had settled in Smyrna, north of Ephesus, where he was welcomed by the populace with honors and flowers.

  It seems that friends in Smyrna warned Rutilius about the massacre and arranged for his safe passage to Mytilene, Lesbos, the same island where Aquillius was captured. Italian scholar Attilio Mastrocinque recently suggested that Rutilius may have played a role in turning Aquillius over to Mithradates. The ancient historian Theophanes of Mytilene had even spread a story implicating Rutilius in the planning of the massacre of 88 BC. In any event, we know that Rutilius survived to write an influential memoir about the Mithradatic Wars. Sadly, Rutilius’s Memoriae no longer exists, like so much of the literature of the ancient world.3

  Appian reported that a few Italian refugees gathered on Rhodes. Among them were Cassius, Aquillius’s cocommander in the fiasco, and the sons of Chaeremon of Nysa. His sons survived, but Chaeremon remained in Ephesus and was believed to have died with the other Romans inside the temple. The stories of why Rutilius lived and why Chaeremon chose to stay behind are just two of the thousands of personal tales of heroism and cowardice, survival and slaughter, now lost to history.

  The awful events that day in Ephesus, Pergamon, Adramyttion, Caunus, Tralles, and other cities were recounted in chapter 1. Other pro-Mithradatic cities where massacres occurred include Nysa, Apamea, Cnidus, Miletus, Smyrna, Erythrae, and the Aegean islands of Cos, Lesbos, and Chios. We know they were regarded as complicit, because these places were singled out for severe punishment by Sulla, the Roman general who came to avenge the massacre.4

  The massacre raises a host of questions. How was it coordinated? When exactly did it occur? Where was Mithradates? How could he be so certain that so many people would carry out the command? We’ve already seen how deep resentment arose over harsh Roman occupation, taxation, and slavery in the Greek world and Anatolia. Mithradates’ victories had the hated Romans on the run. But the savagery of the attacks in 88 BC tells us that Italian settlers were loathed to an extraordinary degree, by all classes of society. The reasons are multilayered.

  The Roman historian J.P.V.D. Balsdon documented Rome’s “good and bad press” gleaned from ancient authors. Many observers admired traditional Roman culture and battle prowess, courage, and virtue, but Balsdon notes that Romans of this era were also widely disliked for their “insensitivity and offensiveness abroad.” Marcus Cornelius Fronto, a prominent Libyan-Italian orator (b. AD 95 in Carthage), wrote that the “Romans lack warmth; they are a cold people.” Diodorus of Sicily, a Greek historian who wrote just after the Mithradatic Wars, remarked that “in days of old, the Romans adhered to the best laws and customs [and] over time they acquired the greatest and most splendid empire known to history. But . . . the ancient practices gave way to pernicious tendencies.” Relations between Roman officials and the colonies tended to be poisoned by “mutual suspicion and power imbalance,” even among local elites. Arrogance and superiority led to a stereotype of the “Ugly Roman” businessman aggressively seeking profit and power, bankrupting and enslaving local families.

  Typical Roman views of the indigenous people of the Near East were stereotyped too. Romans considered Anatolians stupid and inferior, natural slaves. The physical attributes of enslaved populations were crassly compared. For example, Romans claimed that Syrians, Jews, and Greeks of Asia Minor were naturally submissive. They purchased Bithynians and Syrians for bearing litters because of their height; Gauls were said to be better than Spaniards for tending herds, and so on. Romans tossed off insulting proverbs and odious ethnic slurs, such as “Carians are only useful for testing poisons” and “All Phrygians improve with beating.”5

  Mithradates’ personal and political motives for the massacre were even more complex. It’s interesting to speculate whether he knew of the similar massacre of Romans in Numidia during the Jugurthine War. In Vaga during a festival, ordinary folk and nobles together had carried out the premeditated slaughter of Roman soldiers and their families garrisoned in the town (108 BC). Marius, a veteran of the Jugurthine War, may have described this massacre to Mithradates at their meeting, but Mithradates could have heard it from any number of other sources. Did the slaughter at Vaga and similar reprisals against Roman immigrants and traders during Jugurtha’s war serve as a model for the massacre of 88 BC? If so, did Mithradates anticipate a harsh Roman response to his own plan? After Vaga, the avenging Roman general Metellus ordered his soldiers to chop all the inhabitants into little pieces. Mithradates had to know that Rome would seek revenge for his order, but he must have believed that troubles at home in Italy would prevent a quick response. He may also have anticipated the devastating financial collapse that the Roman losses in Asia precipitated. He thought he had time to secure Greece and take Rhodes, so that war with Rome could be fought far from his Pontic homeland and would be confined to crushing Sulla’s legions on Greek soil.6

  The ruthlessness and scale of the massacre—among other dark inci
dents—raises questions about Mithradates’ psychology, for moderns anyway (notably, no ancient writers thought him mad). Danish scholar Tønnes Bekker-Neilsen recently considered whether Mithradates possessed a “borderline” or “psychotic” personality disorder, based on a checklist of modern psychiatric characteristics. Some traits exhibited by Mithradates—a grandiose sense of self-worth; a charismatic, manipulative personality; theatricality; impulsive and callous behavior; criminal versatility—appear to match the patterns of some psychopaths. Other traits, however, such as promiscuous sexual behavior, paranoia, and seeking opportunities to exert power, even political murders, were normal in the cutthroat world of Hellenistic kings. Some psychopathological traits do not apply, since Mithradates reportedly experienced deep emotions including love, anxiety, remorse, and depression; he took responsibilty for his own actions; maintained long-term relationships; and planned long-term goals. The recently created category, “successful psychopath,” might best describe Mithradates: one who exhibits ruthless, exploitative, grandiose behavior, but whose mitigating social traits and intelligence allow that person to achieve success and acclaim. Today such people succeed in politics, law, medicine, and sports, areas that Mithradates also excelled in (see appendix 1).7

  According to Memnon, Mithradates “killed 80,000 Romans scattered throughout the cities of Anatolia because he received word that they were hindering his designs.” Rose Mary Sheldon, a historian of ancient espionage, suggests that Mithradates may have learned that the Roman community was forwarding intelligence to Rome to sabotage his plans. Memnon’s claim and Mithradates’ drastic order suggest that a resistance or saboteur movement had already arisen, led by Romans and their supporters. This notion is also supported by Mithradates’ “Wanted” posters for Chaeremon.8

  Mithradates may have ordered the massacre to show solidarity with the Italian rebels, in response to their requests for aid in defeating the Romans. Some have suggested that besides removing opponents and potential troublemakers, confiscations of Roman property brought much wealth to Mithradates. Certainly the resulting collapse of credit in Rome, which had been based on exorbitant taxation and profits in Asia, was a boon to Mithradates. The satraps of the murderous cities promised to divide the confiscated Roman property with Mithradates. But it seems safe to say that money was not his main object—he was already richer than the legendary kings Midas and Croesus combined. When Mithradates later accused Chios of not sharing the confiscated property with him, it was a matter of punishing traitors, rather than a concern for lost profit.9

  Mithradates’ plans were subtle and carefully laid. In previous chapters, we saw how Mithradates employed oblique control, alliances, bribery, assassinations, military maneuvers, rhetoric, propaganda, and cunning diplomacy in the first two decades of his reign, to persuade the Romans that they should withdraw from Anatolia and Greece. Now it was outright war. It would seem that two pressing motives led Mithradates to order the elimination of the Roman people remaining in Anatolia. Although his victories sent many Romans—including thousands of legionaries—into flight, many remained, especially in the cosmopolitan ports. These cities were notorious for switching sides; as commercial centers they depended on business. Mithradates knew they could not be trusted to remain loyal should the war with Rome begin to go badly. He could not afford to allow a resistance movement to coalesce around resident Romans and their sympathizers in the lands he now occupied, while he was engaged in Greece and Rhodes.

  Second, the killing ensured and publicized the widespread credible commitment to his cause. All the cities and territories whose diverse but well-integrated citizenry—Greeks, Jews, and Anatolians—had agreed to murder Romans were now irrevocably bound to Mithradates. Another benefit of the “ethnic cleansing” included freeing numerous slaves and debtors who would join his forces, bolstering the king’s reputation for generosity toward non-Romans, rich and poor alike.10

  Mithradates may have issued the order from Ephesus, but his location on the day itself is unknown. Scholars of ancient intelligence wonder how the clandestine order was delivered—orally? in writing? in code? Numerous ancient accounts describe top-secret missives inscribed on wax tablets or hidden in the soles of sandals, inside dead rabbits, under horse blankets, braided into women’s hair or horses’ tails, or even tattooed on the shaved scalps of messengers. Mithradates’ “intelligence coup” is still a great puzzle, remarks Sheldon. “We do not know, to this day, how Mithridates coordinated this feat, how he communicated with his agents, or how he kept such a deadly plan secret” for a month, especially in places like Tralles, where the order was discussed in the assembly.11

  The year 88 BC was crammed with gripping events. It is impossible to determine the exact sequence of the execution of Aquillius, the massacre of Romans, the battle for Rhodes, and the Greek campaign. But one thing is certain: the massacre plot was set in motion at least thirty days in advance, allowing Mithradates to concentrate on his two-pronged operation: the all-important liberation of Greece and the conquest of Rhodes.

  ATHENION, MITHRADATES’ ENVOY IN ATHENS

  Greeks in Anatolia, the Aegean islands, and mainland Greece saw Mithradates Eupator as a heroic freedom fighter who could restore democracy to democracy’s homeland. In the months before the massacre, the citizens of Athens voted to send the philosopher Athenion to Pergamon for an audience with Mithradates, requesting him to free Greece from Rome’s grasp. It was traditional for philosophers to act as ambassadors, but this must have happened over the objections of Romans in Athens or perhaps in secret.

  Mithradates warmly welcomed Athenion and presented him with typically sumptuous gifts—a gold and agate ring carved with the king’s likeness and a fine purple robe. The men became good friends. Athenion wrote many letters home assuring the Athenians that Mithradates would restore their democratic constitution and cultural life, promising peace and great benefits, including relief from debts.

  Athenion’s story is recounted, in a negative light, by the supercilious, imperial-era author Athenaeus, who lived in Egypt in the late second century AD. In his Learned Banquet, a miscellany of Roman gossip and popular culture, Athenaeus wrote that “after all Asia had revolted to join the King,” the philosopher Athenion sailed back to Athens. All Athens—men, women, and children, citizens and foreigners—turned out in the parklike setting of the Kerameikos, the cemetery along the Sacred Way, to welcome Athenion as he entered the great Dipylon Gate. Athenaeus’s description, written two hundred years later during the height of the Roman Empire, is filled with sarcasm directed at all those who had once placed their hope in Mithradates’ “revolution.” But Athenaeus’s sources did have access to contemporary, possibly eyewitness reports of Athenion’s return. Keeping in mind that Athenaeus certainly twisted the story for the amusement of his smug, elite imperial audience, we must read between the lines to imagine the emotions of the Roman Athenians of Mithradates’ day.12

  Athenaeus berates Athenion as a “preposterous freak of fortune,” a demagogue who traded his “ragged philosopher’s cloak for a purple robe” to be “conducted with obnoxious pomp into Athens in a silver-footed litter.” Athenaeus portrays the Athenians as credulous fools to hope that Mithradates could bring them a “glorious” future. He ridicules the adoring crowds who gathered outside the philosopher’s new “mansion adorned with costly couches, paintings, statues, and displays of silver plate.” Athenaeus depicts the procession by litter, the rich garments, and the flashy gold ring as signs of Athenion’s arrogance, hypocrisy, and greed. Obviously, however, all these things had been traditional gifts from King Mithradates, intended to show the Athenians that Athenion was his true envoy.

  The Kerameikos and the Sacred Way were filled with throngs of excited citizens converging on the Agora, the public square where Athenion was to speak. Along the way, speeches, sacrifices, and libations were offered in his honor. In the Agora, Athenion climbed onto a large wooden platform in front of the Portico of Attalus, the grand covered marketp
lace. On the stage where the Roman generals who controlled Greece held tribunals, Athenion delivered his dramatic message from King Mithradates to the assembled people of Athens. Athenion began with a self-effacing comment, traditional in democratic Greek oratory. “O Athenians, the state of affairs of my country compels me to tell you what I know. But the situation and the magnitude of the news to be discussed overwhelm me!” At this, a great cheer went up from the audience, urging him to continue.

  I tell you, then, of things which could never have been hoped for, nor imagined in a dream. King Mithradates is now master of Bithynia and of Cappadocia, and he is master of all Asia, as far as Pamphylia and Cilicia. The kings of the Armenians and Persians are his guards, he is lord of all nations around the Black Sea and Pontus. Mithradates’ dominions now encompass a vast territory. The Roman commander, Oppius, has surrendered and is in the king’s retinue as a prisoner. Manius Aquillius, the consul who once celebrated a Triumph in Rome for his victory over Sicilian slaves, is now dragged around behind a horse ridden by the giant ogre Bastarna. The Romans living in Asia are bowing down before the gods, others are donning Greek clothing, and many recent Roman citizens are reverting to their original nationalities.

  Every city in Asia is honoring Mithradates with divine honors and calling him a god! Oracles everywhere promise him dominion over the whole world. He is sending armies to Thrace and Macedonia and even Europe is coming over to his side. Not only are the Italian rebels sending ambassadors to Mithradates, but the Carthaginians too, all begging to ally with him for the destruction of the Romans.