Gourt Home::Gourt :: First Mithridatic War
The First Mithridatic War was the first of three Mithridatic Wars fought between Mithridates VI of Pontus and the Roman Republic.
Conflict between Mithridates and Nicomedes
The origin of the war was a dispute between Mithridates and Nicomedes IV, the king of Bithynia, over control of Cappadocia, a province of ancient Asia, modern Turkey.
In 90 BC, Mithridates took control of both Bithynia and Cappadocia, with the help of the Kingdom of Armenia. When Manius Aquilius, the Roman commander for Anatolia (former Greek territory, now western Turkey) arrived, however, Mithridates complied to Aquilius' request that he withdraw. The further demand, made in 89 BC, that Mithridates should hand over troops, he refused; and Aquilius put Nicomedes up to attacking Pontus.
In 88 BC, Mithridates met Nicomedes' Bithynian attack with a vigorous counter-attack. His commander, Archelaus, defeated the Bithynian army at the Battle of the River Amnias, and the Roman force, under Aquilius, at the Battle of Mount Scorobas. The Roman Black Sea fleet simply surrendered. Cappadocia, Bithynia, and the Roman province of Asia were overun, and many of the former Greek cities, such as Pergamum, Ephesus, and Miletus, welcomed Archelaus as a liberator from Roman control.
Conflict between Mithridates and Rome
At this point, Mithridates ordered a massacre of all Romans in Asia. According to the sources, as many as 80,000 were murdered. This had the effect of tying the Greek cities irrevocably to Mithridates' cause, for they would now have cause to fear Roman vengeance.
Archelaus was sent to Greece, where he established Aristion as a tyrant in Athens.
In 87 BC, Consul Lucius Cornelius Sulla, landed in Epirus (western Greece), and marched on Athens. The following year, he captured Athens, but Archelaus evacuated Piraeus, and landed in Boeotia, where Sulla defeated him at the Battle of Chaeronea.
Meanwhile, Sulla's legate, Licinius Lucullus, defeated a Mithridatic fleet off the island of Tenedos. The next year, in 85 BC, Archelaus had received sufficient reinforcements to again offer battle to Sulla, but was again defeated at Orchomenus.
By now, Rome had also sent a force under Valerius Flaccus, which landed in Asia, where many of the Greek cities were in rebellion against Mithridates, who had shown himself in his true colors. Flaccus was killed in a mutinty led by Flavius Fimbria. Fimbria was able to defeat Mithridates' army on the river Rhyndacus. Mithridates, seing how it was going against him, met Sulla at Dardanus in 85 BC, and got terms, which left him his kingdom.
Realizing that he could not face Sulla, Fimbria fell on his sword, which left Sulla to settle Asia, which he did, by imposing a huge indemnity, along with five years of back taxes, which left Asian cities heavily in debt for a long time to come.
See also
References
- Beesley, A.H., The Gracchi Marius and Sulla, 1921.
"First Mithridatic War"