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The First Mithridatic War ended and Lucius
Cornelius Sulla returned to Rome to deal with his political enemies
Mithridates retained control of his Pontic Kingdom, but was forced to give up
all of his gains. This unusually lenient agreement rendered the Republic’s
situation in Anatolia unsustainable. The treaty, as well as Mithridates’
ambition for further conquest, made the next two decades of conflict inevitable.
Welcome to our account of the second and third
Mithridatic wars.
The fragile peace achieved at Dardanos in 85 BC couldn’t last for long.
After Sulla’s withdrawal Phrygia, Galatia and Cappadocia, as well as the legions in
the are were placed under the command of his trusted general Lucius Licinius
Murena. Meanwhile, as his Black Sea holdings rebelled,
Mithridates started raising a new army and navy.
The king’s favored general Archelaus, who lost a few battles against Sulla in
the previous war, was afraid for his life and defected to Murena. He stoked the
fears of the Roman general, claiming that Mithridates is planning to break the
truce, so in in 83 BC Murena attacked Pontic
territory on the border with Cappadocia and took a few towns.
Mithridates sent envoys to invoke the former peace treaty, but this was ignored.
We have almost no details on the conflict that would be later known as
the Second Mithridatic War, but it seems that in 82 BC Murena invaded Pontic
territory once again, while Mithridates sent his general Gordius to retaliate
and plunder the province of Asia Minor.
After much maneuvering Gordius’ army encountered the legions of Murena, with
both taking up a defensive position with the Halys river between them. The two
commanders initially waited on the opposite sides of the river. But soon Mithridates
appeared and reinforced the waiting Gordius with a much larger contingent.
Despite the desperate Roman defense of the crossings, the Pontic army forced the
river with their superior numbers and crushed
Murena’s troops.
After this defeat, Murena received a message from Sulla ordering him to end
the war and make peace with Pontus. He obeyed, but the damage had already been done:
Mithridates restored his prestige
and the smaller kingdoms in the region started looking up to him again.
Pontic king used that respite to subdue the unrest in Colchis, he then returned
to his capital at Sinope and sent ambassadors to Rome, to sign the formal
peace agreements. Meanwhile the Roman appointed King of Cappadocia
Ariobarzanes complained to Sulla that Mithridates was still occupying some
Cappadocian land. Mithridates was reluctant to relinquish
the territory, but Sulla commanded him to do so and the Pontic King obeyed to avoid
a new conflict. However, in 78 BC Sulla passed away and that changed the balance
of power in the region yet again.
Mithridates once again asked his son-in-law, the Armenian king Tigranes II
to invade Cappadocia in order to avoid being seen as the aggressor.
While these events were taking place in Asia, a rebellious Roman commander in Hispania -
Sertorius, was warring against the Senate and big part of the Roman army was in
the area fighting him. Members of his faction came to Sinope and suggested to
Mithridates to becomes allies. Sertorius then sent some advisors to
assist Pontus. But the main reason for war was that the childless king of
Bithynia Nicomedes IV made Rome
the heir of his realm. Mithridates couldn’t allow Rome to gain
more power in the region, so when Nicomedes passed away in
74 BC, the war became inevitable.
Mithridates made his move in the same year and invaded Bithynia once again.
Meanwhile two consuls of the previous year
Lucius Licinius Lucullus and Marcus Aurelius Cotta were appointed the
governors of Asia Minor and Bithynia respectively. They devised a plan:
Lucullus was to attack via land from Asia Minor into Pontus, while Cotta would
lead the fleet along the coast. Waiting for Lucullus, Cotta started gathering
his fleet in Chalcedon, but was too slow. Pontic fleet blockaded Roman
vessels in the harbor and then proceeded to destroy or capture most of them.
This left Mithridates almost unopposed in Anatolia. He left a small portion of his
army and a fleet near Tenedos to block any Roman reinforcements and set out to
siege the coastal city of Cyzicus.
In 73 BC Lucullus entered the region. He now had 3 legions under his command
and a number of allied troops for a total strength of 30,000 infantry and
2,000 cavalry. Lucullus quickly defeated the forces
left at Tenedos and marched towards Cyzicus to confront the Pontic forces.
However, there was only one narrow pass leading from the west and Mithridates had
a strong guard here. But, as Sertorius was assassinated in Hispania, advisors
he sent to Pontus were eager to restore their position in Rome and have begun
a secret, subversive communications with Lucullus. They convinced Mithridates to
allow the Romans through the pass, claiming that two of his legions were
ready to desert. This was a lie. The Pontic guard left the pass and
the legions then fortified a hill near the Pontic camp so that Mithridates could
not be supplied by land. Nevertheless, as he had more than 50 thousand troops under his
command, he continued the siege.
The king initially sent 3,000 Cyzican prisoners on the ships so that the citizens
would let him in, but that failed. Then a massive tower erected on two ships was
pushed towards the walls from which a bridge was projected, allowing the Pontic
soldiers to enter the city. The defenders were surprised by the device,
so this succeeded at first, but eventually the Pontic troops were pushed
out and had to retreat. Meanwhile, land forces attacking with siege towers and
rams were repelled three times in a single day.
Finally, a section of the weakened wall gave way in the evening, but the
defenders built improvised fortifications behind it. The assault had
had failed. Soon after all the siege engines of Mithridates were destroyed after this the King’s engines were all destroyed by a large
storm. At this point Mithridates decided that his
cavalry was not useful in a siege and sent it away in order to save supplies.
However, the Romans, who had been waiting on the hill, charged down as the cavalry
was crossing a river, capturing thousands and killing many more. Supplies could not
reach the Pontic army when winter came, and many of the men died of starvation
and plague.
Seeing this, the defenders began to sally out frequently, and this convinced
Mithridates to lift the siege. In early 72 BC the king evacuated with his
fleet while his army withdrew over land. More Pontic troops died crossing
a swollen river. Lucullus also attacked them here and
caused more casualties. Back in Cyzicus, games were instituted in honor of
Lucullus which were celebrated for centuries after, called the Lucullean
games.
Lucullus continued to advance against Mithridates, with both sides winning and
Mithridates had to escape to Armenia
in the east with only 2,000 cavalry, whilst the Romans captured key cities
within the Pontic heartland, finally capturing Sinope a few weeks later.
By 71 BC most of Anatolia was under the Roman control.
In the same year, Lucullus sent friendly envoys to the son of Mithridates,
king of Bosphorus Machares, who betrayed his father and agreed to become
the client of Rome. He also demanded
Tigranes to surrender his father-in-law, but the latter refused
The Armenian king controlled Eastern Anatolia, Cilicia, parts of Syria, Iran and
the Caucasus, and was confident. Roman general spent 70 BC building up the
Roman military and administrative presence in Anatolia. In 69 BC he finally
moved against Tigranes with an army consisting of 35 thousand infantry and 10 thousand
cavalry. Meanwhile, Tigranes was supported by the kings of Iberia and
Albania, and had more than 80 thousand under his command. He was eager to engage
Lucullus and ignored Mithridates’ advice to avoid the open battle. While
Tigranes was still recruiting troops, Lucullus marched straight at Tigranocerta
and besieged it.
Soon after, Armenian army approached, and the Romans fell back behind the river.
Tigranes started forming up in front of
a hill with a small group of phalangites in the center surrounded by the melee
infantry and missile troops in front. His heavy cavalry – cataphracts were
placed on the right flank, while a bigger group of horse archers manned the left.
Lucullus knew that he is outnumbered, so he formed most of his army in a single
line to avoid being outflanked. He had legionaries in the center with an
equal number of cavalry on the either flank. A force of light Bithynian skirmishers was
screening his infantry. Initially, Lucullus intended to make a running
charge into the Armenians with his infantry, so that their missile units
would not have as much time to grind the Romans down, but at the last moment he
pulled his men back to try something else.
Lucullus knew that the cataphracts were the greatest danger to his infantry,
so the Roman and allied cavalry was sent against the Armenians, but retreated
slowly without committing to the battle. This feigned retreat distracted the
forces of Tigranes and allowed Lucullus to personally lead two maniples
of his infantry on a wide flanking maneuver across the river and around
the enemy’s right side, in order to occupy the hill behind the Armenian army.
Coming to the top of the hill, the Roman commander saw that the relatively
undisciplined enemy forces had broken their formation in pursue of the Roman cavalry.
He decided this was the moment and charged down the hill into the rear
of the Armenian cataphracts. Armenian cavalrymen were surprised and attempted
to escape but crashed into their own infantry
causing a massive panic in the center, which began to break rank en masse.
Tigranes escaped with his baggage train. Casualties for this battle are disputed,
but the Romans probably only suffered moderately, whereas the Armenian army was
almost entirely broken and their capital surrendered.
Lucullus continued his campaign and pushed Tigranes to the East. A year
year later, in 68 BC the Romans won another battle at Artaxata.
Unfortunately for Lucullus, Mithridates left Tigranes and returned to his
kingdom in 67 BC. The Romans had less than 10 thousand troops defending the area
and Mithridates utterly defeated them at Zela. Lucullus was forced to
retreat from Armenia to avoid encirclement. His army mutinied and in 66 BC
he was replaced by Gnaeus Pompey. At that point, the Romans were outnumbering
Mithridates and his pleas for peace were ignored.
Pompey defeated the king at the battle of Lyceus. At the same time the Romans
entered in alliance with the Parthians, and when the latter attacked
Armenia, Tigranes was forced to become the Roman client. Mithridates was forced to
withdrew north into Colchis in 65 BC. Pompey was pursuing close behind.
The Romans defeated the Iberians and Albanians along the way. That gave Mithridates
time to murder his traitorous son Machares. He was aiming to attack Rome
again, but the populace was war weary and backed his younger son Pharnaces in
rebellion in 63 BC. This betrayal was the last straw, and Mithridates tried
to commit a suicide by poison. The poison would not work, and his bodyguard killed him.
The third Mithridatic War was concluded. Pompey continued his campaigns in the
East and the wars with the Pontic kingdom were far from over, but that is a tale
for another documentary.
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