Section thirteen of the grochy Marius and Sola by A. H. Beasley. This librovox recording is in the public domain. Read by Pamelinagami, chapter eleven, the First Mithridateic War. Events have been anticipated in order to relate the close of Sinna's career, But it is time now to say what Sullah had been doing and who that Mithridates was, whose name for so
long had been formidable at Rome. After the defeat of the Northern Hordes and the suppression of the second slave revolt, there was a war with the Keltiberi in Spain in ninety seven, in which Sertorius showed himself already an adroit and bold officer. He was in winter quarters at Castulo Caslona, and his men were so disorderly that the Spaniards were
emboldened to attack them in the town. Sertorius escaped, rallied those soldiers who had also was escaped, marched back, and after putting those in the town to the sword, dressed his troops in the dead men's clothes, and so obtained admission to another town which had helped the enemy. But the hero of the campaign was Titus Didius. Afterwards Caesar's lieutenant in the social war. He had some hard fighting and captured Termasus, the chief town of the Aravaki, and Colenda.
He earned his triumph by other means. Also. There was a town near Colenda, the inhabitants of which the Romans wished to destroy. Didius told them that he would give them the lands of Colinda, and they came to receive their allotments. As soon as they were within his lines,
his soldiers set on them and slew them all. In ninety six b C. Tolemaus Appian bequeathed Sireni, a narrow strip of terraced land on the north coast of Africa, situated between the Libyan deserts and the Mediterranean, to Rome. The Romans did not refuse the legacy, but they took no trouble to govern the country. The cities of Syreni were declared to be free. In other words, while nominally subject to Rome, so that she might interfere when she pleased,
they were left to govern themselves. Such government was no government, but it was in accordance with the deliberate policy of the Senatorial Party. It was in the same year ninety six b C. That Mithridatees committed the first of the series of crimes which eventually brought him into collision with Rome. His sister had married the king of Cappadocia, Mithridatees assassinated him. Nicomates, king of Bethynia, seized Cappadocia, and married the widowed sister
of Mithridates. Having slain one brother in law, Mithridatees expelled the other and set on the throne his sister's son. But when his nephew refused to welcome home Gordius, the man who had murdered his father, Mithriddes marched against and assassinated him. Then he set on the throne his own son, to whom he gave his nephew's name, and made Gordius his guardian him. The Cappadocians expelled and raised to the throne another nephew of Mithridates, but Mithridatees instantly drove him
from power. Nicomedes now appealed to the Senate and produced, as he asserted, a third nephew of Mithridatees as a claimant for the crown. To support his assertion, he sent his wife to Rome to swear she had had three sons. Mithridates, as if in burlesque of the imposture, sent Gordius to swear that the youth on the throne was son of a Cappadocian king who had died more than thirty years before. Four. The Senate decided as a lion might between two jackals
quarreling over a carcass. It took Cappadocia from Mithridates and Paphlagonia from Nicomedes and declared both countries free. But the Cappadocians clamored for a king, and so in ninety three the Senate appointed Ariobarzanus, the first. Mithridates then stirred up to Granus, king of Armenia, to expel Ariobarzanus, who fled to Rome. Sullah was sent to restore him, and did so in ninety two after defeating the Cappadocians under Gordius
and the Armenians. It was when he was on this mission that the Romans and Parthians confronted each other for the first time. The Parthians sent an embassy to ask for the alliance of Rome. Three chairs were set for Ariobarzanus, Sollah and Orobazas and Solah, who was only proprietor took the central seat. This incensed the Parthian king, and he revenged himself, not on Sullah, but on the unfortunate Orobazus,
whom he put to death. A Kaldean in the Parthian suite, after studying Sullah's face, predicted great things for him, which pleased Sullah as much as it would have done Marius, for he believed in his luck, just as his rival did in his seventh consulship. But when he came home he was impeached for taking bribes from Ariobarzanus. No doubt, he had made his trip, which was so gratifying to his pride, not less profitable also, and had had his
appetite wedded for a second taste of Eastern treasures. Mithridates, meanwhile, was brooding over his humiliation and meditating revenge. He went on a journey incognito through the Roman province of Asia and Bithynia, intending to attack both if he found himself strong enough. When he came back, he found that his wife, who was also his sister, had been unfaithful to him, and he put her to death. He had now murdered
a wife, a sister, a brother, and a nephew. He had also imprisoned his mother, and was equally merciless to his sons, his daughters, and his concubines. At his death, it is said a paper was found in which he had foredoomed his most trusted servants, and he slew all the inmates of his harem in order to hinder them from falling into his enemy's hands. His whole history is in fact one long record of sensuality, treachery, and murder. From his earliest years, he had breathed, as it were,
an atmosphere of assassination. His father had been assassinated when he was eleven years old. His guardians and even his own mother had then plotted to assassinate him. They placed him on a wire horse and made him perform exercises
with the javelin on it. When his precocious vigor defeated their hopes, they tried to poison him, but by studying antidotes, he made his body poison proof, or at least was reputed to have done so, and, flying from his enemies, lived for seven years through all the hardships of a wild and wandering life in which he never slept under a roof and hunted and fought with wild beasts to
emerge in manhood. A very tiger himself for strength and beauty of body and ferocity of disposition, a tyrant who spared neither man in his ambition nor woman in his lust. His stature was gigantic. His strength and activities such as took captive the imagination of the East. He could, it was believed, outrun the deer, out eat and out drink anyone at the banquet, strike down flying game, unorringly, tame the wildest steed, and ride one hundred and twenty miles
in a day. Twenty two nations obeyed him, and he could speak the dialect of each of An ear of Greek refinement was spread thinly over the savage animalism of the man. He was a virtuoso and had a wonderful collection of rings. He maintained Greek poets and historians, and offered prizes for singing. He had shrewdness enough to employ Greek generals, but not enough to keep him from being
grossly superstitious. For twenty years, from one ten to ninety b c. He had been with never resting activity, extending his empire before the Romans assailed him. He had inherited from his ancestors the kingdom of Pontus or Cappadocia on the Pontus, which had been one of the two satropies into which Cappadocia was divided at the time of the Macedonian conquest. Mithridates the fourth had married a princess of the Greek race, the sister of Seleucus, king of Syria.
His grandfather had conquered Sinope and Paphlagonia as far as the Bithynian frontier. His father had helped the Romans in the Third Punic War, had been styled the Friend of Rome, and had been rewarded with the province of Phrygia nominally for his services against Aristonicus the Pretender to the Kingdom of Adilas, but had been deprived of it afterwards when it was found out that really it had been put up for auction by Manius Aquilius, who was completing the
subjugation of the adherents of the Pretender. The boundaries of Pontus at his accession cannot be strictly defined. On the east, it stretched towards the Caucasus and the sources of the Euphrates lesser Armenia being dependent on it. On the south
and southwest, its frontiers were Cappadocia and Galicia. On the west, nominally passed Phlagonia was the frontier for the grandfather of Mithridatees had been induced by the Romans to promise to evacuate his conquests, but Snobi was then and continued to be the capital of the Pontic Kingdom, and both Paphlagonia and Galicia were virtually independent. This was the territory to which Mithridates was heir, and which, true to the policy of his father and grandfather, he constantly strove, by force
or fraud, to extend. To the east of the Black Sea. He conquered Colchis on the Faces and converted it into
a satrope. To the north. He was hailed as the deliverer of the Greek towns on that coast, and in the region now known as the Crimea, which from the constant exaction of tribute by barbarous tribes, were in the absence of any protectorate like that of Athens, falling into decay by sea, and perhaps across the Caucasus by land, Mithridates sent his troops under the Greek generals Neoptolemus and Diophantis.
Neoptolemus won a victory over the Tawera Scythians at Panticapium Kirch, and the kingdom of Bosphorus, and the Crimea was ceded to his master by its grateful king. Diophants marched westwards as far as the Tyras Neister, and in a great battle almost annihilated an army of the Roxalani, a nomadic people who roamed between the Boristhenes, the Neper and the
Tenaius don. By these conquests, Mithridates acquired a tribute of two hundred talents forty eight thousand pounds and two hundred and seventy thousand bushels of grain, and the rich recruiting ground for his armies. On the east, he annexed Lesser Armenia and entered into the closest alliance with Tigranus, king of Greater Armenia, which had lately become a powerful kingdom,
given him his daughter Cleopatra in marriage. If the allies had any defined scheme of conquest, it was that Mithridates should occupy Asia Minor and the coast of the Black Sea, and to Granus the interior and Syria. How the king intrigued and meddled in Cappadocia and Bithynia had been previously related. And when he had marched into Cappadocia, it was at the head of eighty thousand foot, ten thousand horse and
six hundred scythed chariots. Such was the history, the power, and the character of the great Potentate, who had yielded to the demands of Sullah the Proprietor, but who now awaited the attack of Sullah the Proconsul with proud disdain. Much, indeed, had happened since the year ninety two to justify such feelings. Hardly had Celery and stated Ariobarzanus, when Tigranus drove him
out again and restored the son of Mithridates. While in Bithynia, the younger son of Nicomedes, Socrates appeared in arms against his elder brother, Nicomedes the Second, who on his father's death had been acknowledged as king by Rome. Socrates had soldiers from Pontus with him, but Mithridates, though his hand was plain in these disturbances outwardly stood aloof and the Senate, sending Manius Aquilius to restore the two kings, ordered Mithridates
to aid him with troops if they were wanted. The king submitted, as before, not indeed sending troops, but without resisting, and as a proof of his complacency, put Socrates to death. This happened in the year ninety when Rome was pressed hardest by the Italians, and at first sight it seems astonishing that he should not have seized on so favorable
a moment. But in those days news would travel from the west of Italy to Sinopia, but slowly and uncertainly, and Mithridates would have the fate of Antiochus in mind to warn him how the foes of the Great Republic fared, and the history of Pergamus to testify to the prosperity
of those who remained its friends. Sullah's proud tone in ninety two would not have lessened this impression, and before he appealed to force, the crafty king hoped to make his position securer by fraud, partly therefore from real awe, partly because he was not yet ready. He obeyed Aquilius
as he had obeyed Sullah. But Aquilius, who had once put up for Jia to auction, knew what pickings there were for a senator when war was afoot in Asia, and perhaps may have had the honester notion that as Mithridatees were sure to go to war soon, it was for the public as well as for his private interest, to act boldly and strike the first blow. So he forced the reluctant Bethynia king to declare war and to ravage with an army the country round a Mastris, while
his fleet shut up the Bosphorus. Still, Mithridates did not stir. All that he did was to lodge a complaint with the Romans and solicit their mediation or their permission to defend himself. Acuilius replied that he was in no case to make war on Nicomades. It is easy to conceive how such an answer affected a man of the king's temper. He instantly sent his son with an army into Cappadocia.
But once more he tried diplomacy. Pelopotus, his envoy, came to Acuilius and said that his master was willing to aid the Romans against the Italians if the Romans would forbid Nicomedes to attack him their ally. If not, he wished the alliance to be formally dissolved, or there was yet another alternative, let the commissioners and himself appeal to the Senate to decide between them. The commissioners treated the message as an insult Mithridatees, they said, must not attack Nicomedes,
and they intended to restore Ario Barzanis. Possibly the conduct of Aquilius was due to his having been heavily bribed by Nicomedes, who must have felt that when the Romans were gone, he would be like a mouse awaiting the cat's spring. For it is difficult to imagine the foolhardiness which, without some such tangible stimulus, would at that moment have plunged him into war. But when once the die was cast, Mithridanes threw himself into the war with the energy of
long suppressed rage. He sent to court the Alliance of Egypt and the Cretan League, to whom he represented himself as the champion of Greece against her tyrant. He tried to stir up revolts in Thrace and Macedonia. He arranged with Tagranus that an Armenian army should co operate with him, leaving him the land it occupied, but carrying off the plunder. He gave the word, and a swarm of pirate ships
swept the Mediterranean. Under his colors. He summoned an army of two hundred and fifty thousand foot, forty thousand horse and one hundred and thirty scythed chariots, a fleet of three hundred decked vessels, and one hundred other ships called die Crota, with a double bank of oars. He formed an armed in Roman fashion, a foreign contingent in which many Romans and Italians enlisted, and he placed able Greek
generals Archelaus and Neoptolemus over his troops. To meet this formidable array, the Romans had a fleet off Byzantium, the Army of Nicomedes, which was still between Sinopian a Mastris, and three corps, each of forty thousand men, but composed for the most part of hastily organized Asiatics, one under Cassius between Bithynia and Galatian, another under Aquilius between Bithynia and Pontus, and a third under Appius in Cappadocia. The
war was decided almost in a single battle. Neoptolemus and Archelaus routed the Bithynian army on the River Omnius and captured the camp and military chest. It was a fierce and for some time a doubtful fight, and seems to have been decided by the scythed chariots, which spread terror in the Bithynian ranks. Nicomedes fled to Aquilius, who was defeated by Archelaus near Mount Scorobas, and fled with the king across the Sangarius to Pergamus, whence he attempted to
reach Rhodes. Cassius retreated to Phrygia and tried to discipline his raw levies, but finding this impossible, he broke up the army and led the Roman troops with him to Apamea. The fleet in the Black Sea was surrendered by its commander.
Thus tried triumphant by sea and land. Mithridatees, after settling Bithynia, marched through Phrygia and Mesia into the Roman province of Asia, and was hailed everywhere as a deliverer, for after his victories he had sent home all his Asiatic prisoners with presents. Then he sent messengers into Litia and Pamphylia to seek the alliance of those countries. Opphius was in Laodicea on the Lychas the king offered the townsmen immunity if they surrendered him, and when they did so, carried him about
as a show. Aquilius was also given up by the middle Inanians and made to ride in chains on an ass calling out who he was wherever he went. At Pergamus, Mithriddes slew him by pouring molten gold down his throat, a savage punishment which perhaps confirms the impression that it was Roman avarice which forced the war. Magnesia on the Maander, Ephesus and Midelini welcomed the king joyfully, and Stra Tanisea
in Carea was captured. He then attacked Magnesia near Mount Sephalus, prepared to invade Rhodes, and issued a hideous order for the exterminating massacre of every Roman and Italian in Asia on an appointed day. Punishments were proclaimed for anyone who should hide one of the proscribed or bury his body. Rewards were promised for all who killed or denounced them slaves who slew their masters were to be freed. The murder of a creditor was to be taken as payment
by a debtor of half his debt. There were dreadful scenes on the fatal day, the thirtieth after the order was issued in the Asiatic cities. In Pergamus, the victims fled to the temple of Iceculapius and were shot down as they clung to the statue. At Ephesus, they were dragged out from the temple of Artemis and slain At Adramitium, they swam out to sea, but were brought back and killed, and their children were drowned at costs. Alone was any mercy shown there. Those who had taken refuge in the
temple of Iceculapius were spared. The number of the slain was said to be eighty thousand, or even one hundred and twenty thousand, which must have been, however, an incredible exaggeration. By this fiendish crime, Mithridates must, though he was mistaken, have felt that he had cut himself off forever from any reconciliation with Rome. But no doubt he acted on calculation, for not only did he get rid of men who
might have recruited the Roman armies. Not only did he gratify the long hoarded hatred of the farmers and peasants of whom Roman publocani and Roman slave masters had so long made a prey. Not only did he obligin the debtors by wiping out their debts and even the very memory of them and their creditor's blood, but he might well count on putting his accomplices also beyond the pale
of Roman mercy, and so linking them to his own fortunes. Moreover, vengeance seemed remote, for Sullah had just marched on Rome instead of to the east, and the civil war in Italy might make Mithridates permanently supreme in Asia. So he made Pergamus his capital, leaving Sinopi to his son as vice regent. While Cappadocia, Phrygia, and Bithynia were turned into satrpies.
All arrears of taxes were remitted, and so wealthy had his spoils made him that exemption for five years to come was promised to the towns that had obeyed his orders. But the tide was already on the turn. In Paphlagonia, there was still resistance, Archelaus was repulsed and wounded at Magnesia. CI Deities in person was forced to abandon the siege
of Rhodes. His revenge was stated he was tired of the hardships of a war which he meant his generals to conduct in future, and with a new wife, he went back to Pergamus, to his rings in his music and debaucheries, at the very time that a shudder had gone through Italy at the tidings of the massacre, and when Sullah was on his way to avenge it. End of Section thirteen.