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

by Adrienne Mayor

  The next day, Sulla was busy auctioning off captive slaves, while his officers laid siege to Athens’ last garrison on the Acropolis. Thirst compelled Aristion and his companions to surrender some days later. Sulla seized the Acropolis treasure, six hundred pounds of silver and forty pounds of gold. He gave a curt speech praising the Athens of antiquity, boasting that he had spared the city from burning, and pardoned some citizens who had survived on the Acropolis. Then, as the skies opened up and poured down rain, too late to save the holdouts, Sulla executed Aristion, the last elected leader of democratic Athens.

  Nearly three centuries later, the Greek historian Pausanias decried the merciless destruction inflicted in 86 BC on Athens by Sulla, whose “cruelty surpassed even what you might expect from a Roman.” Athens did not begin to flourish again until two hundred years later.19

  Unable to wait any longer for besieged Piraeus to surrender, Sulla now brought all his troops, catapults, battering rams, and siege towers to strike Archelaus with savage force. Sulla led the attack himself, riding his large white warhorse among the troops, shouting encouragement, promising lavish rewards. His men, “spurred to their work by love of glory and pride in the idea that it would be a splendid thing to conquer such impressive walls as Pericles’ fort at Piraeus, pressed on like madmen.”

  The Romans’ frenzied surge astounded Archelaus. A wise tactician, and eager to fight another day, he ordered his men to abandon the walls and run for their ships in the fortified harbor. Behind them, the enraged Sulla ravaged the city of Piraeus, setting fire to Philo’s magnificent Arsenal, the navy yard, and all the other buildings admired since antiquity. Victory was finally his, yet Sulla had nothing to show for it but loot, ashes, and ruins. He had no ships to pursue Archelaus. Burning with frustration, Sulla watched as Mithradates’ intrepid general escaped with his army of ten thousand.20

  CHAERONEA

  When Archelaus joined Mithradates’ other forces in Thessaly, he learned tragic news from Arcathius’s cocommander Taxiles, news that would deal a grievous blow to Mithradates in Pergamon. The king’s beloved son Arcathius had fallen ill in Macedonia and died near Mount Tisaion, Thessaly. Despite his untimely death, I think Arcathius was the happiest of Mithradates’ many sons. His father placed absolute confidence in him. He died a victorious war hero who knew nothing but pride and love from Mithradates—unlike his brothers, who would end up enmeshed in betrayal and suspicion.

  The combined Mithradatic army was now 120,000 strong, with 90 scythed chariots. Each nationality in this polyglot mass had its own general, with Archelaus as supreme commander. This horde marched south as Sulla advanced north. In late summer of 86 BC, the two armies converged in Phocis. Archelaus led out his multitudes again and again, trying to provoke a battle. But Sulla held back. According to Appian, Sulla’s troops numbered only about 30,000 or 40,000.

  As Archelaus anticipated—and Sulla understood—the sight of Mithradates’ milling throngs of warriors from so many unfamiliar lands presented a fearsome spectacle for the Roman soldiers. The sheer opulence of the barbarians’ equipment awed the Romans. “Huddled in their trenches,” the soldiers eyed the fine swords inlaid with precious gems, flashing armor “embellished with silver and gold, the rich colors of the Median and Scythian corselets and mail, all intermingled with gleaming bronze and glinting steel.”21

  The clamor of dozens of different languages filled the air. Mithradates had gathered recruits from a vast area: joining the former Roman slaves, Greeks, and pirates were Thracians, Macedonians, Bastarnae, Sarmatians, Scythians, Taurians, Maeotians; from the Caucasus came Colchians, Heniochoi, Albanoi, Iberi; there were Pontians, Bithynians, Phrygians, Paphlagonians, Cappadocians, Chaldeans, Cilicians, Galatians, Turret-Folk, Chalybians, Tibarnae, Armenians, Medes, and Syrians. Some of the Eastern groups brought camels, presenting the Romans and their horses with strange sights and stranger smells. Many of the barbarians wore their hair long and adorned themselves with golden, copper, and silver earrings, wristlets, and necklaces. Warriors from Thrace, Sarmatia, Scythia, Trapezus, and Colchis proudly sported extensive tattoos as signs of manhood and battle prowess—a confusing concept for the Romans, who inflicted tattoos to brand slaves and punish runaway soldiers. Swaggering about and shouting out insults and boasts, the barbarian multitude intimidated the Roman soldiers—even though no one could understand their speech.22

  Indeed, so many language and culture differences posed problems for Mithradates’ generals. The unruly barbarians often ignored the chain of command and even raided towns and villages in Boeotia while they waited for the battle to commence.

  Sulla hunkered down and set onerous tasks to distract his nervous soldiers: digging ditches and taking over forts in the area. He reasoned that they would soon tire of the drudgery and be eager to fight. Meanwhile he sent out spies, communicating with them secretly. One of Sulla’s methods was to inflate a pig bladder like a balloon and dry it out. A message was written on the inflated bladder, dried out, and stuffed into an oil jar. Oil carefully poured into the neck of the bladder caused it fill and adhere to the inside of the jar. The recipient broke open the jar and replied by the same method.23

  Sulla’s spies informed him that Archelaus’s army had moved southeast and camped in the rocky hills above Chaeronea. It seemed a clever choice—defensible high ground with a good view of the plain below. Obviously Archelaus did not expect to fight here. Two pro-Roman Greeks from Chaeronea, Anaxidamos and Homoloichos, approached Sulla with a plan. They knew a hidden path high above Archelaus’s encampment. They proposed to sneak up this trail and rain down stones on the enemy tents, forcing the army out onto the plain in disorder. Sulla agreed. While the raiders set off, Sulla moved to occupy a broad meadow with an advantageous slope facing the cramped enemy encampment. If he could force Archelaus to muster his army in haste on uneven ground, they would be hedged in by boulders and outcrops, unable to maneuver or retreat.

  The sneak attack worked! Suddenly boulders crashed down on the unsuspecting barbarians. Crowded together, they stumbled in confusion down the steep cliffs, some falling on their own spears. The attackers leaped down and finished off at least three thousand men. The survivors rushed down to the lower main camp, causing a domino effect of terror and chaos. This was Sulla’s chance—he immediately charged Archelaus’s snarled army.

  Archelaus’s advantage of higher numbers was lost. There was a cacophony of shouted commands in many languages, as Archelaus sent out cavalry to meet Sulla’s attack. But his horsemen were driven back onto the rocks. Desperate now, Archelaus launched sixty scythed chariots to rip through Sulla’s legions. The goal was to replay the shock charge that had routed Nicomedes in 89 BC. But the situation was far from ideal. War chariots require a very long start on smooth ground, a target in disarray, and the element of surprise. The chariots failed to get up enough speed in the confined, rocky space and everyone saw them coming. Plutarch says the Romans burst out in guffaws and simply stepped aside, mimicking the evasion used by Alexander’s army in 331 BC. Scythes whirling impotently in the empty air, the chariots passed through the openings. All the chariot drivers were cut down by the javelins of Sulla’s rear guard. Applauding uproariously, the Romans shouted for more chariots, as if they were at the races in the circus at Rome.

  As Sulla’s forces steadily advanced, Archelaus organized his remaining men in the craggy cliffs. The barbarians resolutely locked their shields together and held their spears out before them. As the Romans marched forward, they were astonished to see that Archelaus’s front lines consisted of fifteen thousand Roman slaves! These men, freed by Mithradates’ proclamations since 88 BC, were probably identified by their slave tattoos and a special standard. Jeering in rage, the Roman soldiers dropped their javelins and drew their short swords, ready to slash through the wall of lowly slaves to get to the “real” soldiers. But Plutarch reported that the dense ranks of former slaves, boiling with hatred of everything Roman, demonstrated tremendous courage and grace under pressure
. They held steadfast for a very long time. At last they fell back under the storm of fire bolts and javelins unleashed by Sulla’s rear guard.

  Now Archelaus himself led a cavalry charge. It was a wild success, cutting the Roman formation in half. Slashing at the surrounded Romans, inspired by their commander at their side, the barbarians fought “at the highest pitch of valor.” Mithradates’ general Taxiles led his Bronze-shield barbarians into the fray. In the din of men, horses, and weapons echoing off the hillsides, Sulla plunged into the maelstrom, yelling out directions. His cavalry struck with an impetuous charge, joined by Murena’s cohorts.

  Both wings of Archelaus’s army gave way. In the constricted space, blinded by swirling dust and fear, many of his men ran headlong into the Roman lines; others scattered into the hills. Archelaus desperately tried to rally, but there was no room to regroup. The cheering Romans crushed the fleeing troops against the rocks. Hacking and stabbing, Sulla’s men demolished the enemy. Mithradates’ Greek liberation army was shredded. The Romans took thousands of prisoners, and only 10,000 men of the original 120,000 escaped. The survivors straggled to Archelaus’s ships and retired to Chalcis, their haven in Euboea.

  Few believed Sulla’s preposterous claim to have lost fewer than twenty men at Chaeronea. But he still commanded a sizable body of troops. His men piled up a mountain of barbarian weapons, scythed war chariots, and spoils. After selecting the best things for his Triumph in Rome, Sulla “burned the heaps of spoils as a sacrifice to the gods of war.” He planned his victory festival in Thebes—but to punish the city for its earlier support of Mithradates, he seized half its territory and dedicated it to the gods. With this cynical act, Sulla claimed to have paid back the treasures he had “borrowed” from the gods at Delphi, Epidaurus, and Olympia.24

  Sulla erected two victory monuments at Chaeronea, one of the greatest battles in ancient history. To celebrate the two decisive moments in the battle, Sulla’s monument followed the archaic Greek style of a battle trophy (Greek tropaion, from trophe, “turning point”), a branching tree festooned with the armor, shields, and weapons of the vanquished. The exotic arms and armor of Mithradates’ colorful barbarian warriors, carved in marble, made an especially striking display.

  Plutarch, who lived his whole life overlooking the “dancing ground of Ares,” saw the Roman victory monuments himself (and they were still standing in the time of Pausanias, in AD 180). Sulla placed his first trophy on the precipice where the rolling stones had routed the barbarians. The base was inscribed with the names of Mars, Zeus, and Aphrodite, and those of the two Chaeroneans who masterminded that exploit. The other monument stood on the battlefield by the brook where Archelaus’s troops first gave way.

  FIG. 9.5. Sulla’s marble victory monuments at Chaeronea and Orchomenus took the form of a typical Roman trophy, a tree draped with barbarian armor and weapons, in this case of the Dacians. Cast of Trajan’s Column, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

  Sulla’s first monument was discovered in 1990, by archaeologist John Camp and students of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. Their discovery allowed modern historians to pinpoint for the first time the precise location of the ambush with stones. The Greek inscription matches Plutarch’s account. Just below the monument, Camp found a crude rubble wall, the remains of the barbarians’ crushed encampment, still known in Plutarch’s day as “Archelaus.”25

  Sulla featured his two trophies on coins issued in Greece (and later in Rome). After his triumph at Chaeronea, Sulla began to refer to himself as Felix (“Lucky”) and bragged in his memoirs that Greek oracles predicted another great victory soon in the same neighborhood. But Mithradates’ wily general Archelaus was still free, with a substantial army and navy. Sulla, still lacking a fleet, was helpless to pursue him. Archelaus sailed here and there among the Greek islands—venturing as far west as Zacynthos across from Italy—requisitioning and raiding more supplies and money at will. Appian remarked that Archelaus and his men returned to their headquarters in Chalcis “more like pirates than soldiers.”26

  ORCHOMENUS

  Meanwhile, bad news from Rome overshadowed Sulla’s battlefield victory. Under Cinna and Marius, there was a mass slaughter of Sulla’s supporters in 86 BC. Cinna’s newly elected coconsul, Flaccus, was officially named as Sulla’s replacement in the war against Mithradates. Flaccus, inexperienced and unpopular with his troops, was accompanied by a young officer named Fimbria. They were hurrying to Greece with two legions to take over Sulla’s command—and they had orders to make war on Sulla if he resisted. Compelled to turn his back on Mithradates, Sulla had to prepare to fight his Roman rivals. The fortunes of Sulla the “Lucky” were seesawing wildly. As he marched west to meet Flaccus and Fimbria, Sulla received equally alarming news from the Greek front he’d just left behind. Somehow, Mithradates’ forces had regained Boeotia.

  In Pergamon, by all ancient reports, Mithradates was appalled to hear the bad tidings from Chaeronea. The disaster took him by surprise and struck fear into the heart of a father already grieving over the death of his son Arcathius. Some in his court suggested that only treachery could account for such lopsided losses. But Mithradates reacted quickly and forcefully. For the first time, he collected taxes in Anatolia. Gathering another enormous army from all his subject lands, he sent his most trustworthy friend from Pontus, Dorylaus, to the rescue.

  Dorylaus sailed to Chalcis with a large fleet and 80,000 fresh, highly trained, disciplined soldiers, eager to take back Greece and get even with Sulla for the humiliating losses at Chaeronea. Behind Sulla’s back, Dorylaus and Archelaus, with a combined army of about 90,000 soldiers, secured Boeotia. The two generals decided to camp at Orchomenus, east of Chaeronea. For an army like theirs, with a superior cavalry of 10,000 horsemen, the sweeping, treeless plain along the River Melas was the best battleground in Boeotia. But they made notes to avoid the reedy swamps at the margins of the plain.27

  Sulla was forced to turn away from Flaccus and Fimbria and rush back to Orchomenus. Observing the landscape’s advantages and disadvantages, Sulla immediately dug wide trenches that would funnel the enemy into the treacherous marshes. But Archelaus and Dorylaus responded with a bold cavalry charge that sent the edgy Romans into flight. Sulla rode back and forth in the mad dash, but his soldiers were terrified of Mithradates’ fearsome nomad horsemen. Finally, Sulla leaped off his horse, grabbed up a standard, and pushed past his soldiers, bellowing: “Romans, I’ll win an honorable death here without you! When they ask where you betrayed your commander, you’ll have to tell them about Orchomenus!”

  His words spurred his men to surge back. In the ferocious fight, both sides struggled bravely. Archelaus’s son Diogenes, a cavalryman, was cut down. The barbarian archers were so hard-pressed by the Romans at close quarters that they couldn’t draw their bows. Grabbing handfuls of arrows, they wielded them like swords to hold off the Roman soldiers. But Archelaus and Dorylaus passed a dismal night collecting their dead. Incredibly, they had lost fifteen thousand men.

  Tasting blood, Sulla fell upon the decimated enemy camp the next morning, exhorting his men to finish the job once and for all. He had to make certain that Archelaus could not escape yet again and raise yet another army. Archelaus roused his men and the terrible last battle began. His defenders leaped down from a wooden parapet and stood with their swords drawn against a cohort of Romans, advancing behind their shields. For an excruciatingly long moment no one moved.

  The standoff seemed to last forever. Suddenly the spell was broken—a daring Roman soldier dashed out and chopped down the man in front of him. Then all hell broke loose. “There was a great rush and shouting on each side, followed by many valiant deeds,” wrote Appian. Mithradates’ second grand army was driven into the marshes that Archelaus strove to avoid. Many barbarians fell into deep pools and drowned. Others perished as they pleaded for mercy in their strange tongues, mocked by their slayers. The corpses of Mithradates’ warriors choked the stagnant ponds where the Boeotians
used to gather reeds for their famous flutes. Their commander, Archelaus, was presumed dead.

  Two hundred years after the battle, Plutarch and his fellow Chaeroneans often dragged up from the mud bows and arrows, embossed helmets, bronze shields, fragments of fine armor, and decorated spears and swords, all of barbarian manufacture. Even today, metal remnants emerge from the soggy ground, the only memorial to Mithradates’ Greek liberation warriors from distant lands.

  Sulla’s tactical skills and amazing personal power over his troops were factors in the spectacular upsets in Boeotia; his battle-hardened legions’ loyalty and courage constituted another. Mithradates’ infantry was just as valiant and determined, but they suffered from significant disadvantages. The ancient historian Memnon reported that the barbarians did not understand how to manage supply lines; Sulla ambushed them when they carelessly foraged for food. Each barbarian group had its own dialect and distinctive style of fighting. Managing such diverse cultures, groups that had never fought together before, presented problems of coordination and discipline. Dorylaus’s units trained in old-fashioned Greek hoplite combat proved cumbersome and slow in the face of the efficient, fast, and flexible new Roman formations, part of Marius’s military legacy.

  Sulla erected another monument to mark this victory at Orchomenus, won against daunting odds. He also minted coins depicting his three victory monuments. And on his meaty, freckled fingers, the signet ring commemorating Sulla’s triumph over Jugurtha was joined by another large agate ring carved with a design depicting his three trophies.28

  In 2004, a Greek farmer plowing his cotton field at Orchomenus uncovered Sulla’s victory monument of 86 BC. The farmer scooped up the marble column and broken pieces with a bulldozer and deposited them anonymously at the local archaeological institute. Eventually the farmer was located, and Greek archaeologist Eleni Koundouri unearthed the rest of the trophy. This monument from another of the most spectacular battles in Greek history was more extravagant and much more complete than the one found at Chaeronea in 1990. Standing twenty-three feet high, it also took the form of a branching tree draped with the defeated enemy’s arms and armor. The marble fragments represent a pair of greaves, a breastplate, spears, and other weapons and equipment, including a chariot wheel to commemorate Mithradates’ scythed chariots. The inscription celebrates Sulla’s victory over King Mithradates and his allies, and thanks Aphrodite for the victory.29