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

by Adrienne Mayor

  The historian Cassius Dio stressed that Pompey did not subject the body of Mithradates to any indignities or desecration. Instead, Pompey consciously copied Alexander’s chivalrous treatment of the remains of his Persian enemy King Darius. Treating the corpse with respect, Pompey commended Mithradates’ bold exploits and declared him the greatest king of his time. He paid for a royal funeral and ordered that the body be placed with Mithradates’ forefathers. No other enemy of Rome had ever been accorded such honors. As historian Jakob Munk Høtje points out, by treating Mithradates as Darius had been treated, Pompey contrived to demote “the philhellene king to an oriental despot” while he himself appeared as the new Roman Alexander.11

  MORE QUESTIONS

  Where was the body buried? According to Cassius Dio, Mithradates was placed “in the tombs of his ancestors.” Plutarch and Appian believed that he was laid to rest “in the tombs of the kings at Sinope,” because that had become the royal residence of Pontus. In 1890, Reinach assumed that a new royal necropolis must have existed in Sinope. But the traditional mausoleum of Mithradates’ forefathers was the set of rock-cut tombs at Amasia, above the Iris River (see fig. 4.4). Extensive modern archaeology in Sinope has failed to turn up any tombs that would qualify as those of Mithradates or his royal ancestors. So the ambiguity surrounding the identity of Mithradates’ body is further compounded by uncertainty about his gravesite. Ambiguity over a venerated figure’s final resting place is one of the hallmarks of a mythic hero, a sure sign that Mithradates had passed into the realm of legend (see appendix 1).12

  The legendary aura and mystery surrounding Mithradates’ demise raises other questions unanswered in the ancient histories. What, for example, became of his devoted Amazon companion Hypsicratea?

  Fig. 15.5. Mithradates and Hypsicratea take poison together, with Mithradates’ daughters and Bituitus. Boccaccio, Des cleres et nobles femmes, ca. 1450. Spencer Collection, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

  If it was known or even rumored that Hypsicratea had been poisoned, killed, or captured, one would expect this to be included in the accounts of the fates of other members of Mithradates’ family and entourage. The disappearance from the historical record of this appealing figure, the brave horsewoman who was so intimately involved with Mithradates in his last years, leaves a blank page too tempting to ignore. “Queen Hypsicratea’s love for Mithradates knew no bounds,” declared Valerius Maximus; she was devoted to him “body and soul.” Her “extraordinary fidelity was Mithradates’ greatest solace and comfort in the most bitter and difficult conditions, for he considered that he was ‘at home’ even when wandering in defeat, because she was in exile with him.” Even Théodore Reinach fell under the spell of this romantic “passion sincère.” Reinach pictured Hypsicratea, “the last living embodiment of his lost kingdom,” tenderly comforting Mithradates in defeat.13

  The novelist Michael Curtis Ford accounted for Hypsicratea’s disappearance by imagining that she had been swallowed by a crevasse in the ice during the Caucasus crossing, leaving Mithradates in true mourning for the first time in his life. Medieval and Renaissance authors also speculated about Hypsicratea’s fate. In an illustrated manuscript (ca. 1450) of Boccaccio’s Famous Women, the artist depicted Mithradates and Hypsicratea drinking chalices of poison together with the king’s two daughters and their retainer Bituitus. Some French dramas of the 1600s about Mithradates also placed Hypsicratea in the tower, succumbing to poison with the king and princesses.

  Hypsicratea did possess the poison that Mithradates had given her after the defeat in the Moonlight Battle, and she could have committed suicide. But she was young, strong, resourceful, and free, not compelled to accept death like a courtesan trapped in the harem. An alternative story, in which Hypsicratea survived, is just as plausible.

  No ancient account speaks of Hypsicratea after the winter of 63 BC. But an exciting recent discovery by Russian archaeologists in Phanagoria proves that Hypsicratea did survive the Caucasus crossing and was with Mithradates after he regained the Kingdom of the Bosporus. An inscription, on the base for a statue of Hypsicratea, honors her as the wife of King Mithradates Eupator Dionysus. Unfortunately, the statue itself is missing, but the inscription tells us that Hypsicratea was commemorated as Mithradates’ queen in the Bosporan Kingdom. The inscription holds another extraordinary surprise, as we will see.14

  So Hypsicratea was in the Bosporus before Pharnaces’ revolt. But an idle life at Mithradates’ court in Pantikapaion might not have suited the independent horsewoman-warrior. It would not be unreasonable for Mithradates to assign her military duties associated with his war preparations. Perhaps she was away during Pharnaces’ revolt, carrying out some mission on his majesty’s service. Mithradates often employed close friends as envoys. Hypsicratea could have been dispatched to visit the nomads of the north or west, to prepare for the invasion of Italy. She and Mithradates might have expected to be reunited on the march.

  If Hypsicratea was in Pantikapaion in 63 BC, one would suppose that Mithradates arranged for her safety at the first signs of Pharnaces’ revolt. Was she among the soldiers escorting the princesses to Scythia? The only escape route would have been into Scythia; she and Mithradates might have hoped to meet there in triumph—or in exile if he received safe passage.

  Could Hypsicratea have been captured by Pharnaces and delivered to Pompey? If so, such a prize would have been displayed prominently in Pompey’s Triumph. But that is implausible, since her name is not included in the very detailed records of that celebration.

  REMEMBER YOU ARE MORTAL

  Pompey’s Triumph took place in 61 BC, two years after his victory. For two days, all Rome marveled at a spectacle of such magnitude and extravagance that it surpassed all previous triumphs. As Appian pointed out, no Roman had ever vanquished so powerful an enemy as Mithradates the Great nor conquered so many nations, extending Roman rule to the Euphrates and the Black Sea.

  There were 700 captured ships on view in the harbor and countless wagons loaded with barbarian armor and weaponry and bronze ship prows. Banners and inscriptions lauded Pompey’s capture of 1,000 castles and 900 cities. There were carts laden with an astounding 20,000 talents’ worth of silver and gold coins, vessels, and jewelry. Litters heaped with millions of coins, chests of carved gems—truly, the official records of Pompey’s incredible plunder were exhaustive and too exhausting to catalog in full here. It had taken Pompey’s secretaries 30 days just to make an inventory of the 2,000 onyx and gold chalices from Mithradates’ hoard at Talaura; and only a fraction of the loot was actually included in the procession. Not to be outdone by Lucullus’s lone cherry tree, Pompey even paraded two exotic trees from Judea, ebony and balsam.

  A host of 324 captives marched in the parade, among them Mithradates’ grandson Tigranes, the son of Tigranes the Great, with his wife and daughters; and Zosimé, Tigranes’ courtesan. Poor Nyssa, Mithradates’ sister, was trotted out again to walk in shame beside five of Mithradates’ sons, Artaphernes, Cyrus, Oxathres, Darius, Xerxes, and Princesses Eupatra and Orsabaris. There were various kings and royal families of Mithradates’ allies, followed by Aristobulus, king of the Jews. A troop of Amazons captured by Pompey in the Caucasus was led past the crowd. Only Aristobulus and Tigranes the Younger were strangled after the parade.

  As in Lucullus’s Triumph, King Mithradates himself was conspicuously absent. In his place, his throne and scepter were carried aloft, followed by litters of antique Persian divans and old silver and gold chariots, treasures passed down to Mithradates from Darius I. Next came a large silver statue of Mithradates’ grandfather, Pharnaces I, and the marble statue of Hercules holding his little son Telephus, modeled on Mithradates (fig. 3.7). Surpassing Lucullus’s life-sized golden statue of Mithradates, a colossal ten-foot-tall solid gold statue of the king was displayed by Pompey.

  Pompey also commissioned large painted portraits of Mithradates and his family. Another series of giant paintings illustrated key scen
es from the Mithradatic Wars. For a spectator, this narrative sequence of images would have produced the effect of the frames of a stop-motion animation film or the panels of a graphic novel (for a medieval version of a similar narrative effect, see plate 3). Here were Mithradates and his barbarian multitudes attacking; here was Mithradates losing ground, and Mithradates besieged. There were Tigranes and Mithradates leading their magnificent hordes, followed by images of these great armies in defeat, and finally Mithradates’ “secret flight by night.” Next came a series of emotionally gripping paintings showing how Mithradates had died in his tower, drinking poison with “the daughters who chose to perish with him.” These, of course, were scenes that no Roman had witnessed. They were based on artistic license and second- and thirdhand reports.

  Taking credit for Pharnaces’ revolt, Pompey boasted that he had accomplished what Sulla and Lucullus had failed to do, bring about the death of “the untamed king” of Pontus. The inscription on his dedication of war spoils announced, “Pompey the Great [had] completed a thirty years’ war [and] routed, scattered, slew, or received the surrender of 12,183,000 people; sank or captured 846 ships [and] subdued the lands from the Sea of Azov to the Red Sea” to the Atlantic Ocean. Pompey “restored to the Roman People the command of the seas [and] triumphed over Asia, Pontus, Armenia, Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Syria, the Scythians, Jews, Albanoi, Iberi, Arabs, Cretans, Bastarnae, and, in addition to these, over Kings Mithradates and Tigranes.”15

  For Rome, commented Plutarch, the death of Mithradates was like the destruction of ten thousand enemies in one fell swoop. Emphasizing the greatness of Mithradates and his ultimate defeat served to aggrandize Pompey’s own accomplishments. And after four decades of conflict, a certain admiration and awe surrounded this king who eclipsed all other kings, a noble ruler who had reigned fifty-seven years, who had subdued the barbarians, who took over Asia and Greece, and who resisted Rome’s greatest commanders and shrugged off what should have been crushing defeats; a warrior who never gave up but renewed his struggle again and again, and then—against all odds—had died an old man by his own choice, in the kingdom of his fathers.

  Mithradates’ life had been a roller-coaster of sublime victories and harrowing losses, loyalties corrupted into betrayals, moments of divine happiness and terrible revenge, as players both East and West jockeyed to choose the winning side, to make the best investment in a volatile market of alliances. The risks Mithradates took were never for mere riches or fame—though those stakes could be high—but for the very survival of his Greco-Persian-Anatolian ideals and for freedom from Roman domination. Indomitable even in defeat, marveled Appian, Mithradates “left no avenue of attack untried.” Pliny praised him as “The greatest king of his era.” Velleius eulogized Mithradates as “ever eager for war,” a man of “exceptional courage, always great in spirit . . . in strategy a general, in bodily prowess a soldier, in hatred to the Romans a Hannibal.” He was the greatest king since Alexander, declared Cicero—a compliment that would have thrilled Mithradates.16

  Pompey identified with Alexander too. Now he assumed Alexander’s mantle, in a symbolic and literal sense. Pompey the Great was borne along the triumphal route in a golden chariot studded with glittering gems of every hue. Across his shoulders lay the fragile, faded purple cloak of Alexander the Great, once the cherished possession of Mithradates the Great, the “Hellenized Iranian Alexander.” Appian was dubious about that cloak, but belief had imbued the ancient garment with reverence whatever its true provenance. As Pompey lovingly arranged the fabled robe for maximum visibility, the slave standing behind him began to murmur the traditional caution in the victor’s ear: “Remember you are mortal.”17

  Did this memento mori send a ripple through Pompey’s mood? Did it revive a lingering doubt, suppressed ever since he had declined to examine that ravaged body in the magnificent armor? It had been two years since the corpse had been laid in the tomb of the Pontic kings. Yet Mithradates had made fools of both Sulla and Lucullus by popping back after everyone assumed he was demolished. One can imagine Pompey’s fleeting thought, Yes, I am surely mortal. . . . but is Mithradates?

  WHAT IF?

  Mithradates’ life story is incomplete in many crucial details, and much is suspended in the amber glow of legend, inviting the imagination to fill in what we long to know. In the introduction, I discussed how narrative history and historical reconstruction help make sense of imperfect evidence and flesh out missing details and dead ends in the sketchy ancient record, without violating known facts, probabilities, and possible outcomes. A related approach, counterfactual or “what if” scenario building, allows us to reasonably suggest what might have happened under given conditions.

  The mysterious circumstances surrounding the demise of a larger-than-life individual like Mithradates beckon historians to imagine what happened behind the scenes presented in the fragmentary sources. As we saw, the ancient historians themselves sometimes disagreed over facts and presented alternative versions of the same events, such as Mithradates’ Caucasus crossing and his last hours. From the Middle Ages on, the uncertainty in the ancient record is reflected in the numerous artistic illustrations of alternative scenarios for Mithradates’ death. Just as Hypsicratea’s disappearance encouraged medieval and modern writers to write the rest of her story, there is ample justification to try to reconstruct a plausible alternative scenario for Mithradates.18

  By all ancient accounts, Mithradates’ died in his palace in Pantikapaion in 63 BC, owing to a combination of self-administered poison and the sword of his bodyguard or the weapons of Pharnaces’ men. The body retrieved from the tower should have provided incontrovertible evidence of this event. But, in fact, the decomposed body identified as that of Mithradates—after the passage of some months and far removed from the scene of death—was unrecognizable except for a commonplace scar and the royal insignia. Everyone involved—from Mithradates’ son Pharnaces and his old friends, to Pompey and the Romans—agreed to assume that the dead man was Mithradates.

  But the extraordinary situation raises a host of questions. Was Mithradates really dead? Was this really his body? Others have posed these questions. Notably, the great French playwright Jean Racine began his famous tragedy Mithridate (1673) with Mithradates’ faked death. Mozart’s opera of 1770 also opens with Mithradates’ reappearance after rumors of his death. Historian Brian McGing suggested in 1998 that the story of Mithradates’ suicide in the tower might have been invented by Pharnaces, perhaps to divert accusations of parricide (a strong taboo among Persian-influenced cultures). But other deceptions and motivations were also possible. What if Mithradates was still alive?19

  If anyone was capable of orchestrating a ruse to deceive the Romans into believing he was dead, it was Mithradates. He once substituted his son for the real king Ariathes. A brilliant escape artist, he had frequently eluded capture by stealth and trickery, and more than once he traveled incognito among his own subjects. Mithradates had cheated death repeatedly—and on at least four occasions he had disappeared and was presumed dead.

  Moreover, Mithradates was a connoisseur of Greek myths, and theatricality and dramatic allusions were his trademarks. Ancient tragedy as well as comedy often turned on mistaken identities, distinctive scars, birthmarks, gestures, favorite possessions. Mithradates—and Pompey—knew the story of how Alexander’s corpse had been faked. Alexander’s best friend, Ptolemy, had stolen the body from Babylon and transported it in secret to Alexandria, Egypt. To throw his rivals off his track, Ptolemy had sculptors fabricate a realistic wax model of Alexander and clothed it in his royal robes. This double was placed on a sumptuous bier of silver, gold, and ivory inside one of Alexander’s own elaborate Persian carriages. Surrounded by Alexander’s royal belongings, the replica fooled the pursuers, while the real corpse was taken in a nondescript wagon by an obscure route to Egypt.20

  Pharnaces could have sent Pompey a double, a corpse of a man of Mithradates’ age and physique and displaying a ca
valryman’s scarred thigh, recent sword wounds, and a decomposed face. Such a deception would prevent the Romans from desecrating Mithradates’ true remains if he had really died in the tower (no one expected Pompey to inter his enemy’s corpse with honors in the Pontic royal tombs). According to the ancient historians, Mithradates had requested safe passage from Pantikapaion, to take refuge among his allies. A deception involving another’s corpse could have been devised to cover Mithradates’ last great escape.

  What follows is a plausible—admittedly romantic—alternative scenario, drawing on the ancient sources and curious medieval and Gothic legends, and turning on logical “decision forks,” but without venturing beyond the limits of the possible.21

  THE GREAT ESCAPE

  In his long life, “no conspiracy ever escaped Mithradates’ notice,” wrote Appian, “not even the last one,” plotted by Pharnaces, “which he voluntarily overlooked and perished in consequence of—so ungrateful is wickedness once it is pardoned.” But what if Pharnaces actually had been “grateful”? If a deception about Mithradates’ death and remains were to be perpetuated, it would have begun at this point, upon Mithradates’ discovery of Pharnaces’ conspiracy. Pharnaces knew that his betrayal warranted death—Mithradates had never spared a proven traitor’s life. He was especially harsh in punishing treachery within his family. His surprising pardon of Pharnaces was the opposite of what was expected, totally out of character for the practical, ruthless, unsentimental Mithradates.22 The pardon guaranteed that Pharnaces would be king, if not now, then soon. What was Mithradates’ true motivation?