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

by Adrienne Mayor

1. Justin 37. Reinach 1890, 53–54.

  2. Mithradates I, founder of Pontus, went into exile to escape danger and build power, Bosworth and Wheatley 1998, 161–64. Xenophon Cyrus 1.4.13–15 and On Hunting. Plutarch Alexander 8–14, 23, 40–41. McGing 1986, 45–47, rejected the story of M’s voluntary exile as an example of propaganda deriving from Iranian legend and the desire to emulate Alexander.

  3. Justin 37.2.

  4. Statues and inscriptions of M on Delos, dating to 116 or 115 BC: Erciyas 2006, 122–23; McGing 1986, 88. Justin 37 relates two episodes in which M disappeared for several years, once as a youth and a second time as the true king of Pontus, traveling incognito with friends in the lands he planned to conquer. Ballesteros Pastor 1996, ch 2, suggests that M’s second expedition was a safety precaution, undertaken to enable him to escape intrigues in the court, paralleling the voluntary exile of Mithradates I.

  5. From a folklorist’s perspective, M’s two absences from Sinope fulfill two events of the mythic hero pattern: 7, abandoned or exiled, separated from home, escapes premature death; and 8, grows up in a faraway country (see appendix 1). It is not surprising to find doublets of events with a folkloric aura in later retellings (heroic episodes are doubled for Cyrus and Alexander too). Peck 1898: “whatever truth there is” in Justin’s accounts, “it is certain that when [M] attained manhood . . . he was not only endowed with consummate skill in all martial exercises, and possessed of a bodily frame inured to all hardships, as well as a spirit to brave every danger, but his naturally vigorous intellect had been improved by careful culture.”

  6. Justin 37.2.7. Xenophon Cyrus 6.2.25–32, Cyrus’s detailed list of provisions for an expedition.

  7. Representations of geography had been developed by Persians and Romans by this time, so we can guess M had access to a map or diagram of the road system, towns, and rivers of Pontus; Harley and Woodward 1987. Forts: McNicoll and Milner 1997.

  8. Landscape and roads of Pontus, Strabo 12.3; Munro 1901; Stoneman 1987, 207–20. Erciyas 2006, 37–52. Zeus as Ahuramazda, McGing 1986, 10. Sacrifices to Zeus Stratios, Appian 66, 70; M’s sacrifice on the summit of Buyuk Evliya Dag, Mitchell 1995, 2:22; Erciyas 2006, 41–43.

  9. Amasia castle on the summit of Harsena Dag, Fleischer 2009.

  10. Strabo 12.3.38–42. Topography, history, and archaeology of Pontus, Erciyas 2006, 37–120; Amasia fortress ruins, 41.

  11. Strabo 12.3.38. Munro 1901, 60–61. Geography, forts, tribes of Pontus: Strabo 12. Reinach 1890, 54 and n4, 55. Cohen 2007, 386–87.

  12. Duggan 1959, 29.

  13. Justin 38.5.3. According to Arslan 2007, 72–113, M’s distrust of Rome began in 116 BC, when Rome took back Phrygia.

  14. Archaeology of the tombs, Fleischer 2009. Kings Mithradates I, II, and III, Ariobarzanes, and Pharnaces I were buried here; probably Mithradates IV and Euergetes too. The tomb chambers contained more than one body, Høtje 2009b. Xvarnah, Persian burials, Widengren 1959, 254.

  15. Strabo 11.8.5, 12. 3.37; Erciyas 2006, Zela, 51; coin hoards, 162–73. Munro 1901, 58–59 for Talaura.

  16. Kabeira, geography, roads, archaeology: Erciyas 2006, 43–45; Men, 131–32.

  17. “Poisons and witchcraft,” Hind 1994, 129.

  18. People and geography of the eastern Black Sea, Strabo 12.3; Soanes, 11.2.19; Turret-Folk or Mosynoeci, also called Heptacometae or Byzeres: Xenophon March 5.4.

  19. Foraging, Aelian Historical Miscellany 13.24. The mysterious cherry tree (ponticon) and fermented drink (aschy) first described by Herodotus 4.21–25. Cherries, Athenaeus 2.50–51. Idyllic scene of boys fishing in antiquity, Church 1885, 10–13.

  20. Boar hunting as male rite of passage in Greek myth and history: Homer Odyssey 19.430–58; Xenophon Cyrus and On Hunting 10. Anderson 1985.

  21. Xenophon March 4.8.

  22. M “yielded only to the pleasures of women,” with no interest in male sex partners, Appian 112.

  23. Quotations in italics here and below integrate several passages on love and sex from Lucretius 4.1018–1140.

  24. Herodotus 1.199; Strabo 4, 11.14.16, 12.2.3 (Comana Cappadocia); Diodorus 4.83.6; Justin 18.5.4. Archaeological remains at Comana Pontica: Erciyas 2006, 48–50.

  25. Mayor 2009, 221, 237. Cilliers and Retief 2000, 94.

  26. Vinegar, alum: Appian 74; Mayor 2009, 220–22. Vellum, Duggan 1959, 13.

  27. Alexander’s Iliad: Strabo 13.1.27; Plutarch Alexander 8 and 26.

  28. Alexander at Troy: Plutarch Alexander 15. Priam’s tower, Herodotus 7.43. Homer Iliad 2.800–865.

  29. Cyrus and warrior-queen, Herodotus 1.205; Justin 1.8, 2.4, 12.3.5–7, 42.3.7. Strabo 11.5.4, 11.11.8; Herodotus 4.105–20.

  30. Herodotus 7.60–99.

  • 5 •

  RETURN OF THE KING

  1. Classicist-novelist Church 1885, 286, 294, imagined M’s complexion deathly pale from arsenic. Novelist Anderson 1960, 202, gave M blue fingernails.

  2. Justin 37.3. Sallust Histories 2.87–88. Memnon 22.2. “Impossibly compressed,” McGing 1986, 74, 67–108. M’s early reign, Scullard 1970, 74–79, Reinach 1890, 55–56: “At age 20, when he reclaimed his crown, Mithridates radiated vigor and beauty.” His mother Laodice deserved death “a thousand times over,” but M showed clemency in putting her in prison, where she later died. Duggan 1959, 31–32, imagines that M first claimed Sinope, then marched on Laodicea with his “mob.” In Duggan’s scenario, Laodice surrendered, and the merciful M put her in prison, where she died of natural causes, while Mithradates the Good was tried for treason and executed. Duggan claimed that no one ever accused M of matricide, but Memnon 22 said M murdered his mother and brother, and Appian 112 stated, “He was bloodthirsty and cruel . . . the slayer of his mother, his brother, three sons, and three daughters.”

  3. Examples of incest in tangled family relations of Syria and Egypt during M’s time, Justin 39. Herodotus 3.31, hvaetvodatha, cited by Reinach 1890, 295 n4. Duggan 1959, 33–34; McGing 1986, 35. Statues identified as M and Laodice, his sister/wife, in Delos, Erciyas 2006, 155. Hero script, Ch 2 and appendix 1. M’s sisters: Plutarch Lucullus 18.

  4. Krateuas’s books influenced the famous physician Dioscorides. Copies of Krateuas’s drawings survive in medieval manuscripts. Pliny 25.26–28.

  5. For recent scientific literature on snake venom’s medicinal uses, see www .medicalnewstoday.com, Hopkins 1995, and Ch 11. Agari: Appian 88; Strabo 11.2.11. Agaric mushrooms (Armenian T’nipi and K’ujulay/K’tuch’ula) were sacred to Mithra, and common in Pontus and Armenia: Bedrosian, “Soma among the Armenians, Ethnobotany,” www.rbedrosian.com. See also Cilliers and Retief 2000, 93.

  6. Stuart 2004, 114. Pliny 25.1.1–3.

  7. Dikairon poison: Mayor 2009, 73–74, 86–88, with notes; Aelian On Animals 4.36, 4.41.

  8. Mayor 2009, 91–92, 148–51 and nn.

  9. Louvre Museum Collections text for fig 5.1 by Charlotte Lepetoukha. Balsdon 1979, 215–16, 214–59 on differences of appearance and customs among Romans and other peoples. Coin portraits: McGing, 1986, 97–100; Erciyas 2006; and Højte 2009c.

  10. Persian dagger: Xenophon Cyrus 1.2.9; Josephus Jewish Antiquities 20.186, describes the weapons of sicarii, “a type of bandit whose numbers were rising in this era, and who used small swords, which were like the Persian acinaces in size and curved like the sica, which gave these bandits their name.” Plutarch Alexander. Appian 111, M’s poison was kept in the scabbard.

  11. Aelian On Animals 7.46.

  12. Plutarch Quaestiones Conviviales 6.

  13. Inopus statue, Delos, Erciyas 2006, 122–25, 134–43, 155; Højte 2009c. Charbonneaux 1951 identified the statue as M, noting similarity to Venus de Milo of the same era. Louvre Collection description by Lepetoukha; McGing 1986, 100 and n70.

  14. McGing 1986, 89–93 and nn. Kreuz 2009. The unidentified portraits may have been the Greek philosopher Athenion, Dionysus son of Boethius, or Metrodorus of Scepsis, listed elsewhere as special Friends of the King. Grypos, Justin 39.2.

  15. El
even other similar headless legionnaire statues in Rhodes, Pergamon, and other sites, Erciyas 2006, 158; Højte 2009c.

  16. Roman history up to and during the Mithradatic Wars: Strabo 6.4.2; Eutropius 6.12.3; Florus 1.40.2; Appian 62, 112, 118–19. Festus Brevarium 11.3, Augustine City of God 5.22, Orosius 6.1.30. Sallust Jugurthine War; Plutarch Sulla, Marius. Crook, Lintot, and Rawson. 1994; Sherwin-White 1994, 229–55; Mitchell 1995, 1:29–31; Brunt 1971; Scullard 1970, 13–40 for wealth, slavery, rebellions, and reforms. Slave uprisings, rebellions, and civil conflicts in Italy, and M’s envoys, at this time: Diodorus 36–37 fragments. M’s “formidable” intelligence methods, Sheldon 2005, 74–77.

  17. Balsdon 1979, 161, 180, and 182–92 on Rome’s “bad press” and oracles of doom for Rome. Scullard 1970, 67 (coin), 66–70. Sending wolves to guard flocks is an ancient proverbial folk motif (Motif Index K206.1), see Cassius Dio 56.16.3. On the wars between Rome and the Italians (Social Wars), see Brunt 1971 and Scullard 1970. Coins, Erciyas 2006, 133.

  18. Strabo 6.4.2, 13.1.55. Strabo often cites Metrodorus, but his writings are lost. Plutarch Lucullus 22. Roman conquest of Italy, Eich and Eich 2005, 4–20.

  19. Balsdon 1979, ch 14, “A Generally Good Press for Rome.”

  20. Rome as wolf, Eich and Eich 2005. Rome’s “predatory interest” in Anatolia, Hind 1994, 142.

  21. Corinth, Florus 2.16.

  22. Eich and Eich 2005 analyze the links between expanding hegemony and profits from taxes, tributes, and plunder, 26–29.

  23. Psylli and others’ immunity and antidotes to venom: Pliny 7.2.13–15.

  24. Sallust Jugurthine War. Scullard 1970, 48–53.

  25. Plutarch Sulla 3, and Marius.

  26. Roman armies, Goldsworthy 2003. M’s army, Matyszak 2008, 9–12.

  27. Honeymoon custom, Strabo 15.3.17. McGing 2009 includes Laodice’s bastard Ariathes as M’s son. Duggan 1959, 42, 8 (Duggan names only 13 children of M). The name Orsabaris appears on a contemporary coin issued in Bithynia; some suggest she married Socrates the pretender, supported by M against Nicomedes IV (Ch 6). Orsabaris comes from the same Persian root, berez, as Barsiné, Alexander’s Persian concubine. Reinach 1890, 297–98, names 20 children of M. Mithradates of Pergamon’s name strongly suggests that he was Adobogiona’s son by M; she had been married to Menodotus of Pergamon (Ch 10): Strabo 13.4.3. Adobogiona’s tangled family tree, see Mitchell 1995, 1:28–29, and 35 n102; Reinach 1890, 297 and n5. Phoenix “member of the royal family,” see Appian 79; the name is Phoenician, Duggan 1959, 123. M killed Exipodras in 65 BC in Pantikapaion, Orosius 6.5. Orsabaris: Appian 117; for Pharnaces’ birthdate, 17. M’s son with Adobogiona was well educated by his father; by 64 BC he was in charge of Pergamon; he served under Julius Caesar, who gave him the Bosporan Kingdom: Peck 1898. Archelaus’s son claimed to be the son of M: Strabo 12.3.34, 17.1.11. Drypetina, see Valerius Maximus 1.8.13. Drypetina’s baby teeth may have been retained or wisdom teeth erupted alongside molars, doubling some teeth (thanks to Dr. Robert Hickman, DDS).

  28. Appian 107. Strabo 12.3.28, names several of these strongholds, Sinora, Hydara, Basgoidariza. Names and locations of M’s castles, Mitchell 1995, 1:84–85.

  29. Kurgans, Ascherson 1996, 126–27. Kurgan looting in antiquity, Logan 1994.

  30. Duggan 1959, 37. Silk Route north from Iran to Colchis and Pontus by land and over the Caspian Sea, Tezcan 2003. Silk and spice routes, Sitwell 1986.

  31. Cicero Pro lege Manilia 31ff; Omerod in Piracy in the Ancient World (1924), cited by McGing 1986, 139, describes close relationship between M and pirates. Holland 2003, 164–71; Arslan 2007.

  32. Memnon 22.3–4, M ruled Colchis and “regions beyond the Caucasus” and allied with the Parthians, Medes, Armenia, Phrygia, and Iberia (in Caucasia).

  33. Scythian bow image: West 2003, 156; Ammianus Marcellinus 22.8.9–13 and 37. Black Sea Empire: Strabo 12.3.2; McGing 1986, 47–64, 169. King 2004, 47, 49. Højte 2009a.

  34. On the peoples of Eurasia, Sitwell 1986, ch 3 and maps.

  35. Chronology of M’s conquest of Scythia and the Bosporus unknown. Reinach 1890, 57–80; Rostovtzeff 1921, 220; Erciyas 2006, 124; McGing 1986, 50–65; inscriptions, 50–52.

  36. Rostovtzeff 1919, 95–96.

  37. Appian 112, Justin 2.3, 37.3, and 12. 2.16. Memnon 22.4. Diophantus’s brilliant campaign in Scythia, McGing 1986, 47–65, 50–51 (inscriptions thanking M in the northern Black Sea region), and 122. Pliny 16.59.137–38. On numismatic evidence for M’s Black Sea Empire, Saprykin 2004.

  38. McGing 1986, 57, 61, on cities at mouth of Danube. Bastarnae bravest of M’s allies (Appian 69); specific Sarmatian tribes, McGing 1986, 61–63. Nomadic tribes around the north and west Black Sea region and relations with Rome and M, Batty 2007.

  39. Benefits, tributes, and “enormous power” from M’s Black Sea Empire, McGing 1986, 59–65; it was M “who developed the full potential of the Black Sea,” 169. Hind 1994, 137–43. Saprykin 2004.

  40. Justin 37.

  41. Justin 37.3. McGing 1986, 66, dates this journey to 109/108.

  42. Justin 37.3. Reinach 1890, 81.

  43. Aelian Historical Miscellany 10.2. Appian 112.

  44. Strabo 12.3.41, 12.5.2; Appian 9–10.

  45. Herodotus 7.31; Aelian Historical Miscellany 2.13; Plutarch Alexander 9.2–3.

  46. Blue Guide to Greece 1995, 616–17, McGing 1986, 90–92. Kreuz 2009.

  47. Justin 37.3.6–7.

  • 6 •

  STORM CLOUDS

  1. Justin 37.3.6–8.

  2. M cultivated the Danube Gauls, and a Gaul chieftain from the Danube region, Bituitus (Bisthocus, Bituikos, Bistokos, an Allobrogesean or Arveri name), was M’s bodyguard. Valerius Maximus 9.6; Florus 3.2; Galen de Theriaca, ad Pisonem, see Reinach 1890, 410 n2.

  3. We do not know the boy’s name. Reinach 1890, 86 n1, 208, supposed that Artaphernes was Laodice’s bastard son. McGing 1986, 75, n37.

  4. Justin 37.4. Chios inscription, published in 1932; similar inscription in Rhodes, McGing 1986, 92. See Oikonomides 1962 for a bronze statuette of M wearing Hercules’ lionskin, dressed as a wrestler or charioteer, holding a victory wreath.

  5. “Inconveniences of greatness” comes from the French philosopher Montaigne. Sosipater: Athenaeus 6.252. Plutarch Moralia, “How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend” 14. Greek meaning of sycophant is “false accuser.”

  6. M’s gargantuan appetite, Aelian Historical Miscellany 2.41, 12.25, and 1.27, “They say the following were gluttons”; of the 11 men named, 6 were from Anatolia. Athenaeus 10.9.

  7. Justin 37.4.2. Events in this chapter, see McGing 1986, 66–88; Duggan 1959, 41–47. Scullard 1970, 40–75. M’s intelligence about Roman activities, Sheldon 2005, 74–77.

  8. Justin 37.4. Sallust Jugurthine War 37. Diodorus 36.3. Scullard 1970, 48–53. McGing 1986, 37, 68–71. Mithradates I had forts in Paphlagonia. Mithradateion fort, see Mitchell 1995, 1:33 and n74.

  9. Appian 10. Justin 38.1. McGing 1986, 73–74 believes Justin’s account. Reinach 1890, 90. Ballesteros Pastor 1996, ch 2, thinks Gordius acted on his own.

  10. Justin 38.1.5–10; I have inserted the sounds and mood of the army, M’s words, and Gordius leading the young king away. For Cappadocian chronology, Eder and Renger 2007, 105–6.

  11. Justin 38.2.2. Memnon 22 gives a slightly different version. Sherwin-White 1977. McGing 1986, 72–77. It appears that M consciously copied Nicomedes’ trick of renaming his son and placing him on the Paphlagonian throne. Strabo 12.2.11. So far, the body counts suggest that M was responsible for several murders: his mother, brother, and their accomplices; his sister Laodice and her accomplices, Ariathes VI, Ariathes VII, probably Ariathes VIII and Socrates the Good (below).

  12. Diodorus 36.15.

  13. Pliny 2.58.148; Plutarch Marius 17.4. See Obsequens 43 in Lewis 1976; Valerius Maximus 1.2.3; Frontinus Stratagems 1.11. I guess Martha’s slaves were Syrians, preferred by Romans for carrying litters.

  14. McCullough 1991, 112–18, imagine
d the meeting of Marius and M in her novel; she depicted M as a childish, dangerous “barbarian.”

  15. The meeting: Plutarch Marius 31.2–3. Valerius Maximus 2.2.4. McGing 1986, 76. Scullard 1970, 58–60. Ballesteros Pastor 1996, ch 2. On political events in Rome at this time, see Ballesteros Pastor 1999, who suggests that Marius referred specifically to the Cappadocian situation.

  16. These events: Justin 38.2; Appian 9–11. McGing 1986, 83–88. According to Frontinus Stratagems 1.5.18, Sulla’s legion fought troops commanded by M’s Cappadocian general Archelaus. Events in Cappadocia, Sherwin-White 1977; Mastrocinque 1999, 29–46.

  17. Tezcan 2003.

  18. Armenia, Eder and Renger 2007, 94–98. Olbrycht 2009. Strabo 11.14–16; Justin 38.3. According to Duggan 1959, 44, Cleopatra was 13, Tigranes 40. I have added the detail of a gift of horses.

  19. “King of Kings,” Persian royal and religious title available to only one ruler at a time, Widengren 1959, 244. Tigranes’ dress (he wore his tiara “even when hunting”): Kurkjian 1958, ch 13.

  20. Justin 38.3.5. Coin minting, Erciyas 2006, 128–31; McGing 1986, 101, idealized portrait coins intended to portray M as the new Alexander who would liberate Asia.

  21. Strabo 11.14.15; Justin 38.3; Plutarch Lucullus 14, 15. McGing 1986, 77–79.

  22. Appian 57. Nothing is known of the assassin Alexander. Could he have been the Alexander who was later M’s general in the Third Mithradatic War?

  23. Alliances, Justin 38; Appian 13; Strabo 12.3.1–2. Memnon 22. Aulus Gellius 17.17 says 25 nations paid homage to M; the number was 22 according to Pliny 7.24.

  24. Choice of Aquillius a mistake, even a provocation, according to Reinach 1890, 116–17.

  25. Appian 11. Mastrocinque 1999, 47–58. Badian 1981, 56–58. Bithynia’s kings, Eder and Renger 2007, 99–100.

  26. Appian 12. Roman Senate alarmed by M’s rise, but Aquillius “seriously underestimated” his military power and influence, McGing 1986, 81–88.

  27. McGing 1986, 87–88. McGing 2009 (quote) reassesses M’s motives, arguing that he was not a compliant Hellenistic king, but his policy was cautious, “steady escalation” to achieve his great ambitions. Strabo 13.1.66.