NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1. “Fairy tale” aspects: McGing 1986, 44–46; Holland 2003, 43; Goodkin 1986, 205; cf Champlin 2003, 92–96, 237, for folkloristic features of Nero’s story. Were some European folk motifs inspired by Mithradates’ story? For example, M’s love affair with his female page disguised as a male may be the origin of that stock figure in medieval tales and Shakespearean drama. M’s imprisonment of his sisters in towers so they could never marry is another fairy tale-motif. M in Norse mythology: Younger Edda 1879 and Ch 15.

2. Both spellings found on ancient coins, inscriptions, and historical manuscripts: Welles 1974, 296 n2; Ward 1749–50, 490–92; Reinach 1890, 49 n2. Justin 37.1 says M fought Rome for 46 years; Appian Mithradatic Wars 118 and Syrian Wars 48 say the wars lasted 42 years; Florus 1.40 and Eutropius 6.12 say 40; Pliny 7.26.98 says 30. It depends on when the conflict is said to have begun. M’s active resistance to Roman rule began in about 103 BC; war with Rome broke out in 88 BC.

3. See Baley 1585 for typical medieval view, praising M’s nobility and “gifts to the whole world,” far surpassing Rome’s “victory and profit” in the Mithradatic Wars. Machiavelli Art of War (1519), 2.84–99. Summerer 2009: M was the subject of scientific works and a source of inspiration in popular literature and opera over centuries; facts were used, distorted, overlooked to construct positive and negative images. In the 1500s to 1700s, M was a tragic figure, a victim of betrayal and defeat by conspiracy.

4. Corner 1915, 222.

5. Rostovtzeff 1921, 220 (R left Russia for the United States in 1918). Reinach 1890, xiv. Gozalishvili 1965. Russian novels: Polupudnev 1993 and Samulev 2004. Recent Russian scholarship, eg Saprykin 2004, Kesmedzhi 2008, Tsetskhladze 2001, Zin’ko 2004, and see Højte 2009a, Bowersock 2008. Suspected political poisonings of Russia’s opponents reported in the media include a Bulgarian defector’s murder by ricin-tipped umbrella in 1978 and former Russian spy A. Litvinenko’s death in 2006 by radioactive polonium-210 in his sushi; in 2003 and 2004 two journalists critical of Vladimir Putin died mysteriously; and in 2004 Ukrainian presidential candidate V. Yushchenko was deliberately poisoned by Soviet-made “Yellow Rain” dioxin, which hideously disfigured his face (Ch 14, similar malady suffered by M before his death). Gutterman 2004. Newman 2005.

6. Thanks to discussions with Gevork Nazaryan, www.ArmenianHighland .com; Vahe Gurzadyan; and Rubik Kocharian; also see Kurkjian 1958, ch 13. Armenians revere Tigran Mets (Tigranes the Great) and M, “the glorious King of Pontus,” Tigranes’ “true ally.” They “struggled together . . . against Roman dominance,” writes Yuri Babayan in 2002, www.armenianhistory.info, fulfilling the ancient Zoroastrian-influenced Armenian folk belief that a “great hero would wield a magic sword of lightning at the most critical time—when the world was in the grip of evil tyrants and people were yearning for liberation” (Nazaryan 2005). Mirdad/Mrhtat is a popular first name in Armenia. For an Iranian point of view, see Badi’ 1991, ch 5, “Mithridate Eupator ou la révolt de l’Asie.” Kurdish historian Mehrdad Izady considers M of Kurdish ancestry, and Pontus, Cappadocia, and Commagene as ancient Kurdish states: Izady 1992, 36–38, 86.

7. Thanks to Deniz Erciyas and Mehmet Tezcan for insights about the long-standing neglect of M in Turkey. A popular book of 1973 by Mahmut Gologlu portrayed Mithradates as a local hero and his Pontic Kingdom as “Turkey’s First National State.” Thanks to Murat Arslan for summarizing his book and the introduction by Dr. Sencer Sahin. Comparison of M’s and Alexander’s protection of Asia, Arslan 2007, 529. Turkey’s silence on M may be associated with accusations of Turkish genocide against Greeks living in Pontus and Armenians after World War 1.

8. Reinach 1890, 418–7; McGing 1986, 176–79. Erciyas 2006, 4–8, for sources and evidence for M’s reign. Mastrocinque 1999, 59–75, 119–22, ancient sources and inscriptions. Højte 2009a.

9. Diodorus’s hostility to Rome, Sacks 1990, 134–37. Cicero: Balsdon 1979, 170–76; Sanford 1937. Lands outside Rome’s sphere, see Sitwell 1986.

10. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “Hound of the Baskervilles.”

11. “Broken shards,” Holland 2003, xx. Cf Lee 2007, 280. Goodkin 1986, 204, 216 n3. M unique: McGing 2009; Erciyas 2006, 121.

12. Euripides’ Helen (412 BC) was based on a version of an alternative legend about Helen recounted in Herodotus 2.113–20. Livy 9.17–19.

13. Gaddis 2002, 100–109, principles and rules for counterfactual reasoning.

14. Ferguson 2000, introduction. Notable examples of narrative ancient histories: Holland 2003, Reinach 1890, Champlin 2003, Strauss 2004 and 2009, Lee 2007.

15. Summerer 2009. Bengston 1975, Matyszak 2008, vi, 152.

16. Alcock 2007. Tezcan 2003 and 2007, 91–102. Black Sea Trade Project, www.museum.upenn.edu/Sinop. Centre for Black Sea Studies, Aarhus, Denmark: www.pontos. dk. Højte 2009a. Chinese Eurasian studies: www.eurasianhistory.com/english.htm.

17. Mayor 2009; Maskiell and Mayor 2001; Mayor, “Dirty Tricks in Ancient Warfare,” MHQ: Quarterly Journal of Military History 2 (Autumn 1997): 32–37; Mayor, “Amazons,” Reader’s Companion to Military History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996).

18. Summerer 2009. Kopff 2007, director, conservative Center for Western Civilization, Univ. Colorado, Boulder, was arguing in favor of defending the American “empire” against terrorists.

19. Merry 2005, 217–21, ch 12, “Ghosts of Mithridates.”

20. In November 2006, for example, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, leader of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, vowed that the Islamic jihad would destroy “Rumieh” (Arabic for the Roman Byzantine Empire). K. Gajendra Singh, ambassador to Jordan during 1990–91 Gulf War; to Turkey and Azerbaijan 1992–96. Singh’s editorials against the Iraq War appear in Islamic news service Al-Jazeerah and in Asia Times. Singh 2003 and 2006, per cor Dec 2006.

21. Kay 2008, notes that Cicero’s Pro lege Manilia is “remarkable in its contemporary tone. If we substitute ‘US sub-prime loans’ for ‘Asian monies’ and the UK banking system for ‘the system of monies which operates in the Roman Forum,’ Cicero’s speech could have been written about the current credit crisis.” Piracy: Harris 2006.

22. Champlin 2003, 34–35, 236–37, esp 46–47 on handling legendary and contradictory ancient biographical reports.

23. Balsdon 1979, 60–64.Challenges to the Eurocentric historical view of the divides East/West, Greece and Rome/Persia, barbarian/civilized, evil/good are gaining momentum. See Summerer 2009 and Alain Gresh, Jan 7, 2009, http://mondediplo. com/2009/01/07west, citing Touraj Daryaee, “Go Tell the Spartans,” March 14, 2007, Iranian.com and Tzvetlan Todorov’s La peur des barbares (Paris: Laffont, 2008).

• 1 •
KILL THEM ALL, AND LET THE GODS SORT THEM OUT

1. Unless otherwise noted, all references to Appian are from Mithradatic Wars. Massacre: Appian 22–23, 54, and 61–63. Appian’s sources, Mastrocinque 1999, ch 4; McGing 1986, 176–79; massacre, 106, 111, 113–18. Intelligence mystery: Sheldon 2003, 85, and 2005, 74–77. The chapter title comes from a Latin phrase first used during the Inquisition, ca 1210: Neca eos omnes. Deos suos agnoset.

2. Valerius Maximus 9.2 and Memnon 22.9 reported 80,000 dead; Plutarch Sulla 24 puts the death toll at 150,000. Others, Appian 61–63; Cicero Pro Flacco 25 and Pro lege Manilia 5.11; and Velleius 2.18, say that “all Italians” in Anatolia were wiped out. Sarikakis 1976, 255. Some, eg Brunt 1971, 38, and McGing 1986, 111–18, who are skeptical about the high death toll assumed a lower Italian population overall. Ñaco del Hoyo et al. 2009, 6–8. The lower estimate of 80,000 is now generally accepted as at least plausible. As Badian pointed out (1981, 66 and n22), “The extent of the massacre is, in general terms, not in doubt.” Population is very difficult to assess for this period. Rome’s census of 114 BC recorded 394,000 Roman citizens (men only? or including women?) in Italy and elsewhere. In 70 BC, Romans in Italy and the empire were said to number about 910,000. The figure of about 4 million was recorded for 28 BC: that census probably included men, women, and children over age 1. It has been estimated that the total population of the Roman Empire in AD 14 was about 54 million people. See Matthew White’s useful “Body Count of the Roman Empire” (2002). Thanks to Walter Schiedel and Bruce Hitchner for discussions of the death toll and population figures. Roman settlers “swarmed” to Asia Minor: Warmington 1969, 77. Magie 1950, 2:1103 n37, the higher number may have been inflated by Sulla in battlefield speeches to motivate Roman troops. Reinach gave the massacre the name “Ephesian Vespers” (after the Sicilian Vespers of 1282, when native Sicilians killed French colonists); it is also known as Asian or Roman Vespers. Reinach 1890, 129–32; Duggan 1959, 61–62. Ballesteros Pastor 1996, chs 8 and 10.

3. Pergamon, first capital of Roman Asia: Rigsby 1988, 137–41; mixed demographics of Hellenistic cities in Asia, 130–37. Greek cities under Roman rule, Gleason 2006.

4. Adramyttion: McGing 1986, 117. Ephesus: Rigsby 1996, 385–90. Pliny 36.21; Paul, Acts 19.27; cf Pausanias 4.31.8. “Barbarians” was used by the Greeks to denote non-Greeks; the Romans used the term for non-Greeks and non-Italians, even for very civilized cultures.

5. Rigsby 1996, 1–31, 110, 173, 177, 184, 362, 366, 385–90, 400–420, 427, 582–83. Cos spared Romans who fled to Temple of Asclepius: Tacitus Annals 4.14.3. Extending asylum at Ephesus: Strabo 14.1.23. Alexander abided by asylia for runaway slaves in Babylonia: Plutarch Alexander 42.1–2.

6. Caunus, Tralles: Bean 1989, 139–51, 177–79. Smith 1890. Cassius Dio fragment 101.1; McGing 1986, 116.

7. Rigsby 1996, 402–3.

8. Appian 23. Augustine City of God 3.22, written in AD 413; other pre-Christian disasters for Rome, see 2.24, 3.7, and 3.23.

9. Sarikakis 1976, 262–64, compared the killing to nineteenth-century massacres of Armenians and Greeks by Turks in Anatolia, and suggested the killing of Romans was carried out by urban mobs of debtors and slaves, rather than by Asian Greeks. Amiotti 1980 claims the killing was done by Greek lower classes and merchants, rather by than indigenous Anatolians. McGing 1986, 113–17, 122, discusses M’s initial appeal to both upper and lower classes in Asia and rebels in Italy, noting, “It has usually been assumed that the massacre was carried out by the ‘rabble’ and it has been argued that [M] represented the ‘lower’ classes in a great war against their Roman and ‘upper’ class repressors” (113). Jewish communities were well integrated, generally wealthy citizens of the Anatolian cities of Ephesus, Pergamon, Adramyttion, Aphrodisias, Apamea, Laodicea, Sardis: Mitchell 1995, 2:32–37. Cassius Dio, fragment 109, declares the later massacres of Greeks by Sulla far exceeded the terror of 88 BC. Roman historian Tacitus was also very critical of Roman brutality. Greco-Western Asian hatred of Roman avarice, and Roman self-criticism, Sanford 1937 and 1950; Buitenwerf 2003, 222–23. Arslan 2007, 159–74, sees the killings in 88 BC as a “common, voluntary revolt” by all ethnic groups against harsh Roman administration. Cicero: Balsdon 1979, 168 and n42.

10. Alcock 20047. Roman differences stood out in Anatolia, Balsdon 1979, 220. Mastrocinque 1999, 54–59. Mitchell 1995, 1:30.

11. “Enlightened” kingship traditions of ancient Persia, Widengren 1959, 244. Slaves, Strabo 14.5.2. Thanks to Walter Scheidel for demographic information about slaves; see Scheidel 2005. Galen of Pergamon (b. AD 130) on Roman slaves in Anatolia, De Propr. Anim. 9. Brunt 1971, 40.

12. Classic study of Roman slavery: Hopkins 1978. See also Balsdon 1979, 77–81. Tattoos: Mayor 1999; punitive tattooing of slaves and criminals, Jones 1987. The Monumentum Ephesinum, legal inscription at Ephesus, dates to 1st century BC. This long Roman customs law decrees that slaves imported to and from Asia must be tattooed “tax paid” by the tax-farming company; see Epigraphica Anatolia 14 (1989), sec 51, p 151 (thanks to Christopher Jones).

13. Ephesians descended from slaves, Athenaeus 6.267. Runaway slave at Ephesus: Rigsby 1988, 138. Cures at Temple of Asclepius, Pergamon: Bean 1979, 60–61. Slaves and Mithradates: McGing 1986, 114–16, 128–29. Duggan 1959, 62: number of freed slaves, 6,000, lends support to the death toll of 80,000.

14. “Credible commitments” and “precommitments”: economic game theory applied to conflicts among nation-states by 2005 Nobel Prize winner Thomas C. Schelling. Credit collapse, described by Cicero: Kay 2008.Trumpet: Plutarch Sulla 7; Diodorus of Sicily (hereafter Diodorus) frag 38–39.5. Halley’s Comet appears about every 76 years; it was visible summer 87 BC. Gurzadyan and Vardanyan 2004. Comets sinister omens for Rome, see Ch 2.

15. For some, M’s coordinated strike against noncombatant citizens of an enemy empire in 88 BC, intended to drive Rome out of the Near East, evokes resemblances to modern terror attacks on Western targets, especially Islamic jihadist Osama bin Laden’s synchronized attack on three US targets, September 11, 2001 (four commercial airplanes hijacked in different cities deliberately crashed into the World Trade Center, New York City, and the Pentagon in Washington, DC). Merry 2005; Kopff 2007. Osama bin Laden’s intended victims were noncombatants; the motive was to force the United States to alter its foreign policy. Unlike M’s plan, bin Laden’s reportedly entailed selecting targets for symbolic value, and the death toll was higher than he expected.

16. Boudicca’s insurgency: Tacitus Annals 14.29–39 says 70,000 perished; Cassius Dio 62.1–12 says 80,000 and gives ghastly details. Warmington 1969, 77. King Herod’s order to kill all Jewish male infants in Bethlehem (Matthew 2.16–18) could be classified as genocidal, since it was intended to stifle reproduction.

17. Definition of genocide: the attempt to annihilate an ethnic, religious, national, or political group. In a comparative study of genocide in history, Jonassohn and Bjornson 1998, 190–91, include the massacre of 88 BC as a case study of historical examples of genocide. Holt 2006 and Eliot 1972 discuss the difficulties of quantifying man-made death tolls with precision and moral response to the vast “nation of the dead,” countless victims of mass violence in human history. Genocide as an “exercise in community-building”: Alcock 2007.

18. US Federal Bureau of Investigation defines terrorism as the “unlawful use of force against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in the furtherance of political or social objectives.” Bolich 2006.

19. Terrorists or freedom fighters: “Consensus on Terror” 2005. In 2005, the UN General Assembly attempted to formulate a political definition of terrorism for a comprehensive international treaty against terrorism, genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

20. I am grateful for conversations with R. Bruce Hitchner on inhumanity in the Roman world. I have also benefited from discussions with international relations scholar Robert Keohane, Princeton, who sees the massacre of 88 BC as a clear case of ancient terrorism and genocide. Roman terrorism: Bolich 2006, Ñaco del Hoyo et al. 2009.

21. Alcock 2007, “archaeology of memory.” Many Greek and Latin authors also avoided detailed discussions of the massacre, according to Sarikakis 1976, 256. Appian quotes three speeches by Sulla harping on the bloody details of the slaughter, 54, 58, and 62. For another example of very high death tolls exacted by a single leader, Pliny 7.25.92 stated that Julius Caesar killed more than one million people in his conquests, a “prodigious even if unavoidable wrong inflicted on the human race.” See also Plutarch Caesar, one million Gauls killed, one million captured. Turkish scholar Murat Arslan (2007) surmises that the total killings by M were equal in scale to the total number of people killed by the Romans in Asia. For estimates, see White 2002.

22. Erciyas 2006, 23–24. From Erciyas’s “scientific point of view,” M was “brave” yet “overzealous” in his struggle against Rome. Erciyas per cor Sept 3, 2008.

23. Figures for armies and battlefield casualties in the Mithradatic Wars given by the ancient writers generally agree; they had access to official records and eyewitness memoirs, now lost. Most modern historians consider many of the numbers to be exaggerated. I state the figures given by the ancient sources and cite recent scholarly opinions in notes; Callataÿ 2000 and Pillonel 2005. It is worth keeping in mind that this period was marked by the largest armies and biggest battles in Western history, until the early modern period in Europe. Even if the figures are halved, historians agree that the magnitude of armies and of casualties was staggering in the Mithradatic Wars.

24. Cicero Pro Flacco 25; Academica Priora 2.1. Velleius 2.18. Roman attitudes toward Greeks and vice versa, Gleason 2006, 228–29, 240–42; antipathy between Romans and “barbarians,” Balsdon 1979, 66–67, 161–92; “great rift between East and West,” 60. Mommsen was responsible for establishing the East-West divide in the 1850s, casting M as an “oriental sultan” acting out of blind cruelty. Summerer 2009.

• 2 •
A SAVIOR IS BORN IN A CASTLE BY THE SEA

1. Justin 37.2. Justin’s summary of Pompeius Trogus is unique for descriptions of events and perspectives outside and even hostile to the Roman Empire; Justin may have lived in the 2nd century AD. Writing in the late 1st century BC, Trogus drew on sources including lost biographies of Hellenistic kings and firsthand accounts of his relatives. Comet of 135 BC, Seneca Natural Questions 7.15: “There appeared a comet which was small at first [then] spread . . . its vast extent equaled the size of the Milky Way.” As noted earlier, in this period, “Asia” referred to lands from the eastern Mediterranean to India. The Near and Middle East, including the lands around the Black Sea, Anatolia (called Asia Minor by the Romans), Armenia, Syria, Persia, Babylonia, Parthia, and Scythia, constitute Eurasia or Western Asia. Sanford 1937, 453. Ramsey 1999, 230. Athenaeus 5.213.

2. “Luster”: Ramsey 1999, 198–99. Fotheringham 1919, 166: European astronomers as early as 1783 had assigned M’s comets to 135 and 119 BC. Two authoritative classical encyclopedias, Pauly-Wissowa RE 1932, and the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed, 1996, ignore the comets, as does Højte 2009a. Reinach 1890, 51 n2, offered a symbolic interpretation of the comet “fable”; 52, he dated M’s birth to 132 BC. Various dates and lifespans of M given by ancient sources, see McGing 1986, 43 and n1, who accepts the year 133 for M’s birth and 120 for accession at age 13; 45–46, story of the comets is “Iranian legend.” The comets were “myths”: Ballesteros Pastor 1996, ch 2. Comets in M’s coins and propaganda, Arslan 2007, 73–76.

3. Fotheringham 1919. Han Dynasty (206 BC to AD 220) comet records and drawings: Loewe 1980, 12–14; diagram of “war banner” comet, no 639, pl 4, p 32. The comet of 135 is mentioned by Justin, Pliny 2.24.95, and Seneca; for these and other Greco-Roman and Chinese records of comets 500 BC to AD 400, see Ramsey 2007, esp years 135, 134, 119, 88, and 87 BC.

4. Ramsey 1999, esp 200 and n9, 206 and n30. Eutropius 6.12 and Orosius 6.5 (probably following Livy) give M’s birthdate as 135 BC. Appian 112, M lived to be 68–69 and ruled 57 years. Strabo 10.4.10 and Memnon 22.2

5. Greco-Roman dread of comets, eg Seneca Natural Questions, “On Comets”; Pliny, Natural History 2.23. Ramsey 1999, 201 and n11; on 228–30, Ramsey speculates that M’s followers reinterpreted the comets in a favorable light by referring to ancient Iranian prophecies; comet coins, minted 110–80 BC, found around the Black Sea, 216 and n71; photos of comet coins, see 245–46, figs 1–2. The crescent moon and eight-rayed star (sun) symbolized the Anatolian god Men and the Persian god Ahuramazda/Mithra, respectively, according to Rostovtzeff 1919, 91–93; Erciyas 2006, 131–32.

6. Gurzadyan and Vardanyan 2004. Halley’s Comet reappeared in 87 and 12 BC and AD 66. Tigranes’ comet coins, probably issued before 69 BC, show a younger man than his other coins. Some associate Halley’s appearance in 12 BC with the birth of Jesus. Augustus issued a coin with a comet in 17 BC, but by that time Romans had begun to accept Persian-influenced interpretations of comets as marking the birth or death of great leaders. Ramsey 2007, “Caesar’s Comet” of 44 BC, 180, 183 (ancient sources), 196, nn21 and 23.

7. Thanks to John Ramsey for insightful discussions on comets in this era. Ramsey points out that the tiny coins issued by young M were anonymous, while Tigranes placed the comet on his tiara with his name on larger coins, perhaps signaling more confidence about the comet symbolism. Tigranes may have intended to appropriate the comets to his own reign. Ramsey 2007 notes that Tigranes’ comet tail resembles the comets of 135 and 119, which had long curved dust trails; Halley’s gaseous tail is never curved.

8. The comet’s position in the constellation Pegasus was first proposed by Ramsey 1999, 218–28. Horse omen: Widengren 1959, 244. Pegasus coins: McGing 1986, 85, 94–95.

9. Comets shaped like swords, Pliny 2.22.89; Josephus Jewish War 6.5.3; 1 Chronicles 21.16; Revelation 1.16. The harpe was also the signature weapon of Perseus, Iranian-influenced Greek hero who beheaded the Gorgon, releasing Pegasus. XenophonCyrus1.2.9. Perseus with harpe is featured on Pontic coins, Højte 2009c; McGing 1986, 35, 94.

10. Prophecies about Rome, Sanford 1937, 437–39, on messianic hopes in provinces of Rome, 446; Holland 2003, 31–58; Buitenwerf 2003. See Gruen 1984.

11. Strabo 6.4.2, Roman expansion. Brutal Roman warfare: Polybius 10.15; Livy 31.34.4; Walbank 1984, 2:215–16; Holland 2003, 3–6, 10–11; Ñaco del Hoyo et al. 2009, 12. Hatred of Rome, Appian 23; self-criticism by Romans: Cicero Pro lege Manilia65,Pro Flacco 8.19; Tacitas Agricola for barbarians’ grievances against Romans. Sanford 1937 and 1950; Balsdon 1979, 161–92.

12. Persian and Egyptian oracles: Widengren 1959, 248–49; Zoroastrian Bahman Yasht 3.13–15. Rome later banned the Oracle of Hystapses under penalty of death. Sanford 1937 and 1950, 35. Star and comet omens, Lewis 1976, 68, 144–47. Oracles about Rome, Balsdon 1979, 188–89. The name Anatolia comes from Anatolo, ancient Greek for “rising sun or heavenly body,” see Lewis 2001, preface. Lewis discusses the history of the problematic nomenclature for Asia Minor, Anatolia, the Orient, and the Near and Middle East. Prophetic texts expressing anti-Roman sentiments, Lewis and Reinhold 1990, 1:403–9. Balsdon 1979, 188–92.

13. Here I have condensed Publius’s long, rambling prophecy into a single sentence in italics: full utterance in Phlegon of Tralles’ Book of Marvels, in Hansen 1996, 32–37, 101–12. Sanford 1950, 29–30 on the story and its source; cf McGing 1986, 102–4.

14. The original Sibylline Books are probably lost; surviving versions may date from the 2nd century BC. Parke 1988; Sanford 1937, 438, 448–49. Third Book of the Sibylline Oracles and pro-Mithradates Jews in Asia, Buitenwerf 2003, 220–35, 302–10. See also Holland 2003, 31–35.

15. Athenaeus 5.211–15. McGing 1986, 84, 102, 118–21, 123. M hailed as a god: Widengren 1959, 245, 248–49, in Iranian royal traditions, M would be seen as a divine savior, proven by his birth legends, similar to those of Cyrus, Mithra, and Zarathustra.

16. McGing 1986, 170 and 107 (quotes), 102–8, 122, 149–50.

17. Dionysus associated with rebellion against Rome, Strauss 2009, 33–35. Neverov 1973. One of M’s maternal ancestors was called Dionysus, Appian 10. Dionysus in inscriptions and coinage of 105–80 BC, Erciyas 2006, 117, 119, 133, 135, 165.

18. M’s lightning story, reported by Plutarch Moralia 624 B and Quaestiones Convivales 1.6.2, is unsensational and naturalistic: “While Mithradates was an infant, lightning burnt his cradle but did not harm him, only leaving a little mark on his brow, which was covered by his hair when he grew up.” Plutarch remarked that the nickname “Dionysus” was deemed fitting because of M’s capacity for wine. Lightning and Alexander, Plutarch Alexander 2.1–5, 6.3. Lightning plus horse omen designated Darius king of Persia: Herodotus 3.86–93. Savior-king identified by special marks, Widengren 1959, 249, 256. Sibylline Books allude to lightning marking great rulers, Buitenwerf 2003, 228, and see eg Artemidorus, Interpretation of Dreams in Lewis 1976, 68–69. Lightning predicted birth of Emperor Augustus, Suetonius Augustus 94. See Ramsey 1999, 199 and nn4 and 118; and Widengren 1959, 248–49.

19. According to Appian 112, 115–16, M was sixteenth in descent from Darius I and inherited his treasures. Pontic rulers, Eder and Renger 2007, 110–12. See also Polybius 5.43.2; Sallust Histories 2.73–85; Justin 38.7.1; Tacitus Annals 12.18. Since Reinach 1890, 3–5, M’s Persian and Macedonian ancestry was dismissed as pretentious propaganda. The “ancestry [was] fictitious,” “all propaganda invented . . . in the time of Mithradates Eupator, to give added respectability and nobility,” according to McGing 1986, 13, 14–15, 35–38, 95. “Later propaganda”: B. McGing, “Mithradates” in Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd rev. ed, 1996. But M’s claims are supported by ancient sources: see the painstaking study of evidence by Bosworth and Wheatley 1998, now accepted by McGing 2009, 2–3, and 2003, 84. M’s descent from Cyrus, Darius, Seleucus Nikator, and perhaps Alexander, accepted by Arslan 2007 and Saprykin and Maslennikov 1995, among others. On M’s Macedonian bloodline, see Ballesteros Pastor 1996, ch 1. Macedonian-Persian relationships: Plutarch Alexander 70–71. Barsiné and son murdered by Cassander, Pausanias 9.6.1.

20. After the massacre of 88, Cos welcomed M, turning over Cleopatra III’s young grandson and treasure; M raised the boy in royal style. Appian 23 and 117. M associated with Alexander, Glew 1977, 254–55; McGing 1986, 44–46, 99, 101–2, 107, 141–42. Ptolemy hijacks Alexander’s body, Aelian Historical Miscellany 12.64.

21. Maskiell and Mayor 2001, 24–26, symbolic and literal meanings of donning another’s robe or royal khilat in Greece, Persia, India, and Old Testament. In Plutarch Alexander 18.6–8, Darius dreams that Alexander wears his royal robe. In Xenophon,Cyrus1.4.26, future king of Persia presents his magnificent robe to most beloved friend. Persian king’s gift of a robe, dorophorike: Aelian Historical Miscellany 1.22, also 1.32. In the Sibylline Books, a purple cloak confers high status: Buitenwerf 2003, 228. Jerome, Life of Paul, Bishop St. Athanasius’s robe, and Paul’s tunic inherited by St. Anthony. According to John 19.23, a Roman soldier obtained the mantle worn by Jesus after the Crucifixion. Today that relic is claimed by two cities: “Holy Coat,” Catholic Encyclopedia. Elvis Presley’s comet-design cape sold for $24,000 at Dick Clark’s Rock and Roll Memorabilia auction, Dec 1, 2006. Hassan Nasrallah’s robe displayed to Hezbollah followers across Lebanon, Time magazine, Dec 11, 2006.

22. Comparisons of M and Alexander, Arslan 2007 nn114, 122–23, 137, 140–41, 150.

23. Reinach 1890, 49–56, devoted a chapter to imagining M’s “joyful” youth. Modern historians, including McGing 1986 and Ballesteros Pastor 1996, decline to speculate on M’s youth, commenting on the legendary quality of the ancient reports. Holland 2003, 43, dismisses M’s early biography as “florid propaganda, read[ing] like a fairytale.” Memnon 22.2 says only that M was a “serial poisoner in childhood.” Appian (112) says only that M was an “orphan” when crowned king. Strabo 10.4.10 mentions M’s birth in Sinope. Duggan, the popular historical novelist who wrote M’s biography in 1958, spent only a few pages on M’s youth. Novelist Michael Curtis Ford 2004, 23–30, imagines a few scenes from M’s boyhood memories.

24. Rank, Raglan, and Dundes 1990 reprints Rank and Raglan’s original works. See appendix 1 for the heroic traits and scoring. Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) focused on the milestones of the hero’s quest or journey, see Rank, Raglan, and Dundes 1990, introduction. Scores for ancient and modern heroes, from diverse cultures such as Java, Ireland, Egypt, and the United States, are widely available. Thanks to Dr. Thomas J. Sienkewicz and students, Monmouth College, for several scores cited here; to Sage Adrienne Smith for Harry Potter’s score; and to Barry Strauss for Spartacus’s score. For a satire of Raglan’s mythic hero system, see Utley 1965 (thanks to Ted Champlin). Matyszak 2008, vi, rejects “hero” status for M.

25. Snowball Effect: Barber and Barber 2004, 146, “possibility may be restructured as probability and then as fact, which may entrain yet other probabilities which come in turn to be told as fact.” Propaganda is a modern concept; perhaps it is anachronistic to apply this concept to antiquity.

26. Cyrus’s life story, Herodotus 1.108–30. Cf Champlin forthcoming for evidence that Roman Emperor Tiberius consciously “channeled” the life of Homer’s Odysseus. See Champlin’s 2006 working paper:www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/champlin/090602.pdf. Cyrus the Great was the original example of mythic hero model: Rank, Raglan, and Dundes 1990, 22–31. See Arslan 2007 on M’s conscious emulation of Alexander as a “savior” who liberated Anatolia from Persian tyranny.

27. “Ostension” coined by semiotician Umberto Eco to describe actions that substitute for words; the concept is applied by folklorists to actions in real life guided by legends and myths. Definitions, examples, and publications, see John Lundberg,www.ostension.org; and see Kvideland 2006.

28. Herodotus 1.136–39. Eunuchs: Xenophon, Cyrus 7.5.58–69; Strauss 2004, 53–54, 58–59. Balsdon 1979, 227–29; Guyot 1980; Reinach 1890, 405; McGing 2009.

• 3 •
EDUCATION OF A YOUNG HERO

1. I elaborate on Justin 37.2. Ghosts of charioteers panic racehorses, Pausanias 6.20.15–19. Alexander’s horsemanship, Plutarch Alexander 6. McGing 1986, 44, suggests that Justin misunderstood royal Persian education, and that the horse story was invented by M’s supporters to foster comparisons with Alexander. Xenophon Cyrus 1.4.5–9 described young Cyrus’s risk taking and skills in riding and hunting.

2. M’s personality, Bekker-Neilsen 2004, Olbrycht 2009, McGing 2009.

3. Poisoning in antiquity, Cilliers and Retief 2000.

4. Strabo 10.4.10, 12.3.11. Plutarch Pompey 42, M also considered Gaius son of Hermaeus a “foster brother.”

5. Strabo 10.4.10, 11.2.18. See H. L. Jones, introduction, Loeb ed of Strabo’s Geography, 1:xiii–xvii. Strabo’s life and Theophilus: Richards 1941, 81. Strabo also wrote a history, now lost. See Bowersock 2008 on Strabo and M.

6. Rostovtzeff 1921, 223. Iranian culture in Pontus, McGing 1998; Mitchell 1995, 2:14–30. Greek cities under Roman rule, Gleason 2006.

7. Anatolian history after Alexander, see Mitchell 1995, 1:29–31, 81–85. History of Pontus through reign of Euergetes, Hind 1994, 130–37; Højte 2009a. Bosworth and Wheatley 1998; Reinach 1890, 1–47; McGing 1986, 1–42, 93 and n27. Black Sea: West 2003. Strabo 10.4.10; 11.2.18; 12.2.13; 12.3.15, 33, 39; 14.1.48; Justin 37–38; Valerius Maximus 1.8; Plutarch Lucullus 18.

8. Religion in Pontus, Saprykin 2009. Persian religion and customs, Herodotus 1.130–42, see 1.138, Persian hatred of lying and debt; also Xenophon Cyrus. Strabo 15.3.13–14, Persians worship “the Sun whom they call Mithra.” Magi and Zoroastrianism, Ammianus Marcellinus 23.6.32–8. Fire, Widengren 1959, 251; Champlin 2003, 227–29. Royal name Mithradates indicates that authority to rule was “given by Mithra,” endowing kings with divine light, Wynne-Tyson 1972, 21–26. Greek, indigenous, Persian, Jewish religions in Anatolia, Mitchell 1995, 1:11–35; exploitation by taxation, 1:30; ancient Iranian influences in Anatolia, 2:29–30. Roman tribute, taxation, extortion, moneylending: Balsdon 1979, 167–70.

9. Reinach 1890, 52–53. Gleason 2006, 243–47. Herodotus 1.136–39.

10. Pliny 25.14.33 (pharnaceon); for other medicinal plants discovered by another king of Pontus (Polemon) and M, see 25.7.22–25.20.46; many antidotes and poisons known to the Magi are discussed in Pliny bk 25. Paradox of poisons, Newman 2005, 7–9. Scientific survey of poisons known in antiquity, Cilliers and Retief 2000, 91–95; antidotes 96.

11. Memnon 22.2 (Jacoby fragment, FGrH 434).

12. Xenophon March 5; see Lee 2007, 36–37, 169–71.

13. Xenophon Cyrus 1.1.3–5 (secrets of power); 8.1.1, 8.2.9, 8.8.2 (good father).

14. Xenophon Cyrus 6.1.27–30, 50–53; 6.2.7–8; 7.1.31 and 47; 8.3.33; Xenophon Hellenica 4.1.17–19.

15. Equestrian victory inscriptions, McGing 1986, 92. M drove sixteen horses abreast: Appian 112. Suetonius Nero 24; Champlin 2003, 59.

16. Xenophon Cyrus 1.2.8–13; Strabo 15.3.17–19.

17. A bronze statuette in the British Museum has been identified as M dressed as a wrestler or a charioteer, barefoot, wearing wide belt, short tunic, and lionskin cap like Hercules, holding a wreath: Oikonomides 1962; McGing 1986, 100; Erciyas 2006, 156–58; but Jakob Munk Højte is dubious, per cor Feb 4, 2009.

18. History of Mithradatid dynasty and lands, Bosworth and Wheatley 1998. Scythians and other nomads, West 2003, 154, 156–57; Batty 2007; Sitwell 1986.

19. Appian 10. Rome’s client-kings, Eich and Eich 2005.

20. Strabo 11.2.12 describes pirates’ ships and methods. Appian 92–96. See Charachidzé 1998 for design of Black Sea pirate ships for carrying slaves and booty from antiquity on. Extraordinary wealth of Pontus in grave goods: Erciyas 2006, esp ch 3.

21. Road system of Pontus: Munro 1901. Pliny 8.47.109. Black Sea fishery, King 2004, 32–33. Castoreum was also used in perfumes.

22. Crimea, Taman, northern Black Sea during M’s reign, Saprykin and Maslennikov 1995. Erciyas 2006, 76, 163–66. Black Sea history and geography, Ascherson 1995; King 2004.

23. Fossils of Taman, Mayor 2000, Phlegon of Tralles in Hansen 1996, 45. Strabo 11.2.10. Logan 1994.

24. Persian-style luxuries: Plutarch Alexander 36–37, 40; Justin 38; Athenaeus 5 and 12; Valerius Maximus 9.

25. Plutarch Lucullus 31. For detailed digital topographical maps of entire Black Sea region, based on American National Geospatial Intelligence Agency data, see Centre for Black Sea Studies http://www.pontos.dk/e-resources/terrain-models. For chronological royal records of Pontus and its neighbors, Eder and Renger 2007.

26. Oxford Clasical Dictionary sv “Hannibal.” Hannibal’s influence on M: Sonnabend 1998. Hannibal’s ruses, Mayor 2009, 154–55, 188–89.

27. Justin 36.4; Plutarch Demetrius 20.2; Diodorus 34–35.3; Rigsby 1988, 123–27. On Galen Antidotes 1.1 and Attalus, see Scarborough 2007, proposing that Nicander of Colophon, a contemporary compiler of antidotes, worked with Attalus III. Attalus: Totelin 2004, 3 n10. Portrait of Attalus, Holland 2003, fig 4. M world’s first “experimental toxicologist”: Griffin 1995.

28. Lewis and Reinhold 1990, 1:344–45. Attalus’s will, Mitchell 1995, 1:29–30, 62. Aristonicus and M claimed the will a forgery, McGing 1986, 157–58; see Ussher 2007, 486, 133 BC, for ancient sources on Attalus’s will. Delphic Oracle predicting Aristonicus’s rebellion, Diodorus 34–35.13. Leucae, Tralles, and Phocaea: Bean 1979, 97–98, and Bean 1989, 177–78. Blossius: Scullard 1970, 25, 31, 40. Deep causes of Mithradatic Wars and M’s early expansions, Mastrocinque 1999, 18–28. Romans underestimated local loyalty to Aristonicus, Sanford 1950, 31–32.

29. Desperation: Oxford Classical Dictionary sv “Aristonicus.” Strabo 13.4.2–3; 14.1.38–39 (resourceless people).

30. Details of Aristonicus’s revolt: Eutropius 4.20 (Crassus); Orosius 5. Appian 2 and 9; Florus 1.35, 2.7.7–8; Justin 36.4, 37; Livy 59.14; Valerius Maximus 3. Sallust Catiline War 55. Children of the Sun, Arewordik’ or Arevordik, Robert Bedrosian, “Soma among the Armenians, Ethnobotany . . .” www.rbedrosian.com; Gevork Nazaryan, www.Armenianhighland.com, 2006; and Raffi 1959. Apollo wept, Obsequens in Lewis 1976, 120.

31. Statue of Aristonicus, Alexander’s friend, in Delos, Plutarch Fortune of Alexander 334. Hellebore in sieges: Mayor 2009, 100–103, Aristonicus, 109–10.

32. West 2003, 158–61.

33. Strabo 12.3.11. Ancient knowledge of petroleum incendiaries: Mayor 2009, 207–8, 228–31. This image of Medea is from Apollonius of Rhodes Voyage of the Argo 3.844–62; Euripides Medea (the plant is unknown). Argonauts: King 2004, 40–42.

34. Baby’s resemblance to adult M: Andreae 1994–95 and 1977; Højte 2009c. After defeat of M in 63 BC, Pompey installed this Hercules statue in his Theater on the Field of Mars, Rome; the statue was discovered in 1507 in Campo dei Fiori, near ruins of Pompey’s Theater, and now in Museo Chiaramonti, Vatican. Prometheus group, McGing 1986, 100.

35. See McGing 2009 for insights on M’s relationship with Alexander.

36. Plutarch Fortune of Alexander 335, Alexander 4; Pliny 35.10.92. For M portraits with left-inclined head, Høtje 2009c. M’s imitation of Alexander, McGing 1986, 101–2.

37. Xenophon Cyrus 1.3. Fox 2004. Plutarch Alexander 32 and 45, and Fortunes of Alexander 330. Strabo 11.13.9–10.

38. Persian birthday banquets, Herotodus 1.130–35.

39. I’ve imagined M’s father’s death scene, based on reports that he was poisoned at a banquet. Various historians give M’s age at his coronation as 11–13; the evidence of the comets, supported by Chinese sources, suggests he was about 14 in 120 BC (see Ch 2). McGing 1986, 41–43 and Ramsey 1999. Strabo 10.4.10; Justin 37; Appian 112. See Peck 1898, sv “Mithradates” for disputed dates; eg according to Memnon, Mithradates was 13 when his father died, while Appian says he reigned 57 years and died at age 68–69, and Cassius Dio gives his age at death in 63 BC as 75. See Ussher 2007, 495, 124 BC, for ancient sources on date of Euergetes’ death.

40. Justin 9.6–7; Plutarch Alexander 2.1–5, 77.5, Pausanias 8.7.5.

41. Reinach 1890, 50–51, 53. The motives for murdering Euergetes are unknown.

42. We know that M kept his weapons close at all times; I suggest that he emulated Alexander’s habit. Plutarch Alexander 19.

43. The Styx waterfall near Nonacris in Arcadia is the highest in Greece. Plutarch Alexander 77.1–5, Pausanias 8.17.6. Herodotus 6.74.Today locals avoid drinking from Mavro Nero (Black Water) River and say no vessel can hold it. I thank Antoinette Hayes, exploratory toxicologist at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, for suggesting the extremely toxic bacteria calicheamicin (discovered by scientists in caliche clay in the 1980s and now used as an anticancer drug) as a possible basis of this myth, per cor March 9, 2007.

44. Justin 37.2.4–6. Plutarch Alexander 8, 19.4–10, and 41.5–10. Harmatelia snake antidote, Mayor 2009, 89–90 and references.

45. Mayor 2009, 145–48. Xenophon March 4.8; Lee 2007, 29–30, 229–30. Ducks, quail, and goats thrive on toxic hellebore, Lucretius 4. Venomous fish, Aelian On Animals 17.31.

46. Strabo 12.3.40–41; see also 11.14.9, arsenic mines in Armenia.

47. Toxic minerals: Pliny 33.31.98, 33.32.99–100, 33.36–41, 35.13–15, 34.55–56.178. Theophrastus On Stones 8.48–60, toxic minerals and mining. Healy 1999, 215–19, 235–36, 258–62. Mitchell 1995, 1:82 n23. Smith 1890, sv “Arsenikon,” “Sandaracha.” Aggrawal 1997. Poisonous minerals, Cilliers and Retief 2000, 95.

48. Juvenal Satire 6.630–34.

• 4 •
THE LOST BOYS

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, travelingincognito 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. Eleven 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 namestrongly 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, imagined 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.

28. Appian 12–14. Rutilius Rufus, Livy 70; Valerius Maximus 6.4; Cassius Dio 28; see Ussher 2007 for other ancient references. Appian’s sources, Ballesteros Pastor 2009. Mastrocinque 1999, 59–76; Rutilius Rufus, 54–58, 62–63; Sisenna as source for speech and dialogue, 69–79.

29. Although Appian’s account of the run-up to the war is “doubtless a literary expansion . . . it contains no basic improbabilities,” McGing 1986, 80, n53, citing Sherwin-White. Mastrocinque 1999, 59–72, suggests Appian’s main sources, Sisenna and Sulla, recorded the speeches. See Olbrycht 2009.

30. On M’s options before the first Mithradatic War, see Arslan 2007, 72–126, and Matyszak 2008, 29–33.

31. The foregoing: Appian 15–16; Memnon 22; Reinach 1890, 116–19. “Rickety throne,” Duggan 1959, 45. Aquillius as first example of developing Roman policy in the last years of the Republic, and the Senate’s waning power, McGing 1986, 81. Mastrocinque 1999, ch 2 and 3, portrays Aquillius in a positive light and believes the Senate was responsible for the ultimatum that caused the war; see ch 4 for these events.

32. Appian 17; Memnon 22.6.

• 7 •
VICTORY

1. Appian 17–18 had access to official archives, memoirs, and other documents. Memnon 22.6. The figures seem high to some scholars, but the relative strength is accepted. McGing 1986, 85 n72. Duggan 1959, 48, Appian gave “ration-strengths,” including porters, muleteers, grooms, servants, and so on. Ballesteros Pastor 1996, the figures reflect M’s extensive networks of alliances. According to the statistical-historical analysis by Swiss historian Pillonel (2005), Appian’s troop proportions were probably accurate, but the totals were exaggerated. Pillonel’s calculation suggests that, realistically, M commanded between 90,000 and 112,500 soldiers, against 36,000 to 45,000 Roman allied forces, with 16,800 to 21,000 recruits from Bithynia. Matyszak 2008, 34, points out that Romans often magnified enemy numbers; battle and maps, 35–38.

2. Duggan 1959, 48–56, for details of troops, weapons, and formations in this battle; and McGing 1986, 108–10. Fancy armaments, Plutarch Lucullus 7; cf Thucydides’ description (6.30–31) of the magnificent Athenian navy’s psychological impact in 415 BC. Later M stripped down to plain weaponry and warships, McGing 1986, 140; First Mithradatic War, 108–31.

3. Diodorus 16.86. Memnon 22.6–7 and see Munro 1901, 56.

4. Scythed chariots and ancient sources, Smith 1890, sv “falx,” 429. Antiochus the Great of Syria had some scythed chariots, but they were useless at his defeat at Magnesia in 189 BC because archers quickly took out the drivers.

5. The passage that follows integrates Lucretius’s descriptions in 3.656–700 and 5.1321.

6. The foregoing battle: Appian 17–18; Memnon 22. Leonardo da Vinci was fascinated by scythed chariots; drawings in Codex Arundel, folio 1030, 1487, British Museum, London.

7. Appian 18: M “treated the prisoners kindly and sent them to their homes with supplies for the journey, thus gaining a reputation for clemency.” I have guessed what M said to the prisoners, based on Appian 18–19 and M’s other speeches. Cf Diodorus 37.26. Plutarch Alexander 21, 30.6, Alexander’s humane treatment of prisoners of war. Glew 1977, 254–55. Cyrus the Great also released captives: Xenophon Cyrus 4.4.

8. “God and savior”: Diodorus 37.26; divine titles: Athenaeus 5; Cicero Pro Flacco 25 says M was addressed as Lord, Good Father, Savior of Asia, and Liberator. Anatolian gods “made manifest”: Mitchell 1995, 2:11 and ch 16. McGing 1986, 109, see 108–25 for beginning of Mithradatic Wars. Glew 1977 discusses the propaganda benefits of M’s reputation for “liberality” toward the enemy and imitation of Alexander, including mercy to enemies, and appeal of canceling debts.

9. These events, Appian 19. First Mithradatic War, Hind 1994, 144–49.

10. Cassius’s letter to Nysa, McGing 1986, 109 and n100; Welles 1974, 297–98. Mithradatic inscriptions at Nysa, Rigsby 1988, 149–52, and 1996, 400–403.

11. Apamea and Nysa: Strabo 12.8.18, 13.4.14. Mitchell 1995, 2:33.

12. Strabo 13.4.14. Bean 1989, 177–87, 203–4.

13. Welles 1974, 294–99. Mithradatic inscriptions in Nysa: Rigsby 1988, 149–53. M’s spies, Sheldon 2005, 74–77.

14. Welles 1974, 298.

15. McGing 1986, 110 and nn102 and 103.

16. Justin 38.3.7–9. Appian 20. Glew 1977, 254, M’s tent-site intended to win over Macedonians in Anatolia, and recalled Aristonicus.

17. Appian 20. Erciyas 2006, 23.

18. Bean 1989, 189.

19. McGing 1986, M’s allied cities, 94, 109–12. M’s coins circulated widely in Mediterranean and East: hoards discovered in Piraeus, Athens, Italy, Anatolian coast, Delos, Macedonia, mouth of Danube, Armenia, Ukraine, Taman Peninsula, Crimea, Albania, and Caucasia (Georgia and Azerbaijan). Hoards of M’s coins were buried around the Black Sea in about 85 BC, 75 BC, and 65 BC, dates reflecting crises of the three Mithradatic Wars. Erciyas 2006, 162–73; Saprykin 2004; Saprykin and Maslennikov 1995, 267, 271, 279; Callataÿ 2000; Levy 1994.

20. Italian appeal to M and his response: Diodorus 37.2.8–11. Erciyas 2006, 132–33.

21. Ballesteros Pastor 1996; McGing 1986, 114–18, 128–29, 131.

22. McGing 1986, 89, sees M using philhellenism as a “weapon to help him expand his kingdom” and a source of support for opposition to Rome; see also 107–8.

23. M’s huge armor at Nemea and Delphi, Appian 112. Quintilian 8.3.82, quoting fragment of Sallust Histories 2.77: M “being of huge stature, carried weapons of a proportionate size.” Cf Florus 1.7.4. Plutarch Alexander 62. La Penna 2003.

24. Justin 38.3–7 says Trogus preserved M’s speech as “indirect discourse,” because he believed this was more honest and objective than Sallust and Livy, who inserted what they labeled “direct quotations” in their histories but which were really reworded in their own writing styles. See McGing 1986, 106–8.

25. “Only by having agents in Rome or in the provinces, can we explain how [M] was always so well-informed about the political situation” in Rome: Sheldon 2005, 74, and see 75 for an example of his intelligence methods.

26. Cos treasures, Appian 23 and Civil Wars 1.11; Josephus Jewish Antiquities 14.111–13.

27. Monime, Plutarch Lucullus 18; Appian 21 and 48. Reinach 1890, 128, 147, 296.

28. Appian 22. Kallet-Marx 1995, chs 9–11, argues that Rome’s expansionist policies in the East were in reaction to M’s challenges.

29. Appian 21. Diodorus 37.27. Display on a donkey was a traditional ancient ritual of public humiliation.

30. On taxes, Brunt 1971, 39–40. The Greco-Latin word for treasure, gaza, comes from Old Persian, Balsdon 1979, 61. Appian 21.

• 8 •
TERROR

1. Pergamon’s theater seated 10,000, a logical setting for Aquillius’s public execution. See Chaniotis 1997 on M’s theatricality; cf Nero, who often devised punishments and enacted scenes from tragedy, Champlin 2003, 236–37. This execution scene is based on details in Appian 21; Pliny 33.14.48–49; Athenaeus 5.50, Diodorus 37.26–27 confused Aquillius with another Roman who committed suicide, cf Velleius 2.18, Aquillius “should have committed suicide.” Cicero Pro lege Manilia 11 and Tuscan Disputations5.5, Aquillius beaten. Ballesteros Pastor 2009, 11, punishment by gold a traditional “Persian ordeal.”

2. Roman avarice, death of Aquillius, and Orodes II’s execution of Crassus in Parthia: Sanford 1950, esp 32–34; Cassius Dio 40.27; cf Plutarch Crassus. Death by molten gold byword for cruelty, eg Cicero Tuscan Disputations 5.14. In 1500s, Europeans claimed that the Aztec king avenged Spanish conquistadors’ lust for gold by M’s means: Theodor De Bry’s painting Great Voyages, 1594, graphically illustrates “death by gold.”

3. Mastrocinque 1999, ch 3, citing Plutarch Pompey 37. Balsdon 1979, 51, 220 and n42; Holland 2003, 42–43.

4. Rigsby 1988, 149–52; Rigsby 1996, 173, 177. Cities allied with M: Reinach 1890, 130; McGing 1986, 109–20.

5. Participation of governing classes and lower classes in massacre, McGing 1986, 116; Arslan 2007, 159–74. See also Introduction. Balsdon 1979, 66–71, 78–79, 170–81, 194–200, with ancient sources including Fronto. Views of Romans, Sanford 1937. Diodorus 37.3. “Mutual suspicion”: Gleason 2006, 241.

6. Balsdon 1979, 73–74, for other massacres of Romans, traders, colonists, and noncombatants in Jugurtha’s Numidia. Sallust Jugurthine War 66–68. Financial crisis in Rome, Kay 2008.

7. Champlin 2003, 236, assumes the sanity of Nero, often portrayed as mad. BekkerNeilsen 2004 citing Gordon Banks, 1990, www.gordonbanks.com/gordon/pubs/kubricks.html.

8. Memnon 22.9; Memnon places massacre after battle for Rhodes. Sheldon 2005, 75–76 and nn. M’s motives, McGing 1986, 115–16; Scullard 1970, 76–77. Mommsen declared that the massacre was a “meaningless act of brutally blind revenge.” Summerer 2009.

9. Ñaco del Hoyo et al. 209, 6–8. Solidarity with Italians, Erciyas 2006, 23. See Arslan 2007 for another Turkish perspective. Kay 2008: massacre and M’s invasion of Anatolia caused massive credit collapse in Rome, described by Cicero in Pro lege Manilia. Chios: Appian 47.

10. Jewish populations in Anatolia: Mitchell 1995, 2:32–37. Ballesteros Pastor 1996, ch 3: Roman soldiers remaining in Anatolia would be an obstacle.

11. McGing 1986, 113. Leo the Emperor, Polyaenus Stratagems 1, in Krentz and Wheeler 1994, 2:1011–15. Sheldon 2003, 85, 60, 63; Sheldon 2005, 74–77. Frontinus Stratagems 13.

12. Athenaeus 5.211–15, based on lost work by Posidonius. Other sources for Athenion and Aristion in Athens: Appian 28, 38. Posidonius FGrH 87 F 36. Strabo 9.1.20. Plutarch Sulla 12–13; Pausanias 1.20. See also Ballesteros Pastor 1996, ch 3; Glew 1977, 255; McGing 1986, 118–21; Mastrocinque 1999, ch 5.

13. Archons inscription, McGing 1986, 119–20. Strabo 9.1.20. Mastrocinque 1999, ch 5, proposes that a Roman soldier with Sulla was the source for Athenion and his successor, Aristion, in 88/87 BC (conflated by later historians).

14. Athenaeus 5.213–15. Ballesteros Pastor 1996, ch 3, fleeing Romans were pro-Sulla partisans.

15. Strabo 13.1.66. Scullard 1970, 77.

16. Appian 24.

17. Demetrius vs Rhodes, Mayor 2009, 212.

18. Following description of battle for Rhodes is based on Appian 24–27; Diodorus 37.28; Memnon 22.8. Hind 1994, 149–50. Sambuca: Polybius 8.4. Reinach 1890, 144–47. See Strauss 2005 for details of naval battles in trireme’s heyday.

19. History, descriptions, and illustrations of siege equipment, Campbell 2006, esp 134–43. Crows, meteor, and Isis hurling fire recorded by Obsequens, Book of Prodigies for the year 88 BC, see Lewis 1976. Notably, Rhodes never removed M’s statue or buildings, Cicero Verr. 2.2.159.

20. Appian 27. Rigsby 1996, 339. Patara, “city in the sand,” is excavated by Akdeniz University, Antalya.

21. Obsequens 56, see Lewis 1976, 126. Aeschylus Agamemnon; Sophocles Iphigenia (fragments); Euripides Iphigenia (two plays). Magi: Herodotus 1.140, 7.114; Pliny 30.3.12. Diodorus 13.102.2, on vows to Furies. Nero, who murdered his mother, was haunted by the Furies; he requested Persian Magi to placate her ghost, Champlin 2003, 91, 98. Human sacrifice in Roman period, see Balsdon 1979, 246–48; Scullard 1970, 48. Surprisingly, there is little discussion of this interrupted sacrifice by modern historians of the Mithradatic Wars. Reinach 1890, 148, puts it in a footnote about “superstition” without commentary; see McGing 1986, 149–50, on the propaganda value of omens.

22. Appian 21, 27. Racy love letters, Plutarch Pompey 37.

23. Strabo 13.4.9.

• 9 •
BATTLE FOR GREECE

1. Events in Rome and Sulla: Keaveney 2005 and Santangelo 2007. Halley’s Comet of 87 BC: Ramsey 2007, 179. Rome’s Eastern foreign policy: Gruen 2004.

2. McGing 1986, 123, points out that the invasion of Greece “was an excellent move”; even if M lost Greece, he had a strong bargaining position.

3. Appian 28. Appian 110; Memnon 22.7; and Pausanias 3.23.2–6 refer to Metrophanes as “Menophanes.” Campaign for Delos and Greece, Hind 1994, 150–59.

4. Greek campaign, Plutarch Sulla; Appian 28–45; Velleius 2.18; Machiavelli Art of War 4.50–52, 4.68. Duggan 1959, 67–82, quote 64. Thebes, Pausanias 1.7. Reinach 1890, ch 3; McGing 1986, 121–27. Matyszak 2008, 59–72.

5. Memnon 22.10–13. First Mithradatic War and Sulla’s troops, Scullard 1970, 76–79.

6. These events: Appian 29; Plutarch Sulla; Duggan 1959, 68.

7. Plutarch Lucullus 37; Justin 38.7; Erciyas 2006, 146–62. Gold, Strabo 15.3.18.

8. This scene was described in Plutarch Sulla 11; Duggan 1959, 69. M’s theatrical gestures, Chaniotis 1997.

9. Preceding events: Valerius Maximus 6.9.6, Plutarch Sulla 1.2–7 and Fortunes of the Romans 318. Appian 28–37. Keaveney 2005. Scullard 1970, 63–87; Balsdon 1979, 168–69.

10. Greek battles remarkably detailed in ancient sources, unlike battles of later Mithradatic Wars. Piraeus: Appian 30–37, 40; Plutarch Sulla. Lightning, Obsequens in Lewis 1976, 127.

11. Alum, Aulus Gellius 15.1. Pliny 35.52.

12. Photos of catapult victim, 2nd century BC, Macedonia: Antikas et al. 2004.

13. Appian 37.

14. Inscribed silver bracelet published by J.-Y. Empereur in Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique 105 (1981): 566–68, no 7 and fig 48. For photograph and discussion, see Habicht 1998, 15–16, fig 1. Thanks to John Ma for bringing this artifact to my attention.

15. Delphi: Herodotus 1.51. Pausanias 9.7. Diodorus frag 39–39.7. These actions are from Plutarch Sulla 12, 19, and 29 (amulet); Frontinus Stratagems 1.11; Valerius Maximus 1.2.3.

16. Appian 30; Strabo 13.1.54. Lenaeus, captured as a boy in Athens, was later freed by Pompey and accompanied him on campaigns; after 63 BC Lenaeus translated M’s antidote notes (Ch 14). Suetonius Grammarians 15.

17. These events and quotes, Appian 30, 38. Ashes, Pausanias 9.6.2.

18. Plutarch Sulla and Appian 38–39. Pausanias 1.20.

19. Pausanias 1.20.4 and 9.40.4. Habicht 1998, 121–22.

20. Appian 39–40. Sulla forced Aristion to drink poison (probably hemlock). Plutarch Sulla 23. Aristion killed inside the sacred Parthenon, Athena’s temple, Pausanias 1.20.

21. For realistic estimates of the troop numbers at Chaeronea, see Pillonel 2005, who concludes that the number of men mobilized by M in Greece was extremely impressive. According to ancient sources, Sulla received 6,000 reinforcements; Appian 41 says M had 120,000 troops; Memnon 22.13 estimates 60,000. Plutarch Sulla 16.1 says the Romans numbered only 15,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalry, but his source was Sulla himself, who had an interest in claiming that he won with a small army. Sulla came with 30,000 and received another 6,000. See also McGing 1986, 126 n173.

22. Tattoos, Mayor 1999. Camels, Plutarch Lucullus 11.4. Pillonel 2005.

23. Leo the Emperor, Polyaenus Stratagems 1, in Krentz and Wheeler 1994, 2:1011. Sheldon 2005 on sending clandestine messages in the Roman era. A popular pro-M uprising in Chaeronea: Ñaco del Hoyo et al. 2009, 5.

24. Plutarch Sulla; Appian 41–45. Pausanias 9.7. Duggan 1959, 77–78.

25. Camp et al. 1992.

26. Appian 45.

27. Orchomenus: Appian 46, 49–53. Matyszak 2008, 78–81. For estimates of troop numbers at Orchomenus, see Pillonel 2005. M had promised no taxes for five years in 88 BC.

28. Plutarch Sulla. The battle relics are in the National Museum: thanks to John Ma for this information. Memnon 22.10–13. Camp et al. 1992, 449–50.

29. Gatopoulos 2004; “Stopping Mithridates” 2005. Thanks to Ron Stroud, UC Berkeley.

30. Appian 50. Plutarch Sulla 22. Dorylaus also survived, but his movements were not recorded.

• 10 •
KILLERS’ KISS

1. “Honeymoon,” Reinach 1890, 148. Dorylaus suggested treachery was involved in Archelaus’s devastating losses in Greece, Plutarch Sulla 20. M’s propaganda and strategy in this period, McGing 1986, 121–36. Events in 85–81 BC, Duggan 1959, 82–96.

2. Appian 46. Galatia crucial ally of Rome, Mitchell 1995, 1:31. Galatian rulers, Eder and Renger 2007, 102–5.

3. Plutarch Bravery of Women 23. M consciously replayed scenes from Greek tragedy, Chaniotis 1997. Plutarch Alexander 41, compassion toward lovers. Adobogiona, Strabo 13.4.3; Mitchell 1995, 2:35. Reinach 1890, 297.

4. Athenaeus 6.266, gods were angry with Chios for inventing slavery “while most other nations provided for themselves by their own industry.”

5. Events in Chios and aftermath of Greek defeat, Appian 46–47; Hind 1994, 159–64. Duggan 1959, 79. According to Memnon 23, Dorylaus attacked Chios. Memnon’s native city, Heraclea, allied with Rome, attacked M’s ships and rescued the Chians.

6. M’s theatricality and orchestration of dramatic events, Chaniotis 1997. Whittier, “Mithridates at Chios.” Quotes from Whittier’s note, in War Time, 1864.

7. Plutarch Lucullus 28. Deluxe transport for harems, Casson 1974, 54.

8. A Roman inscription of 86/85 BC found in Ephesus accuses M of “breaking the treaty and gathering his forces [and] attempting to snatch territory he had no claim over.” Mastrocinque 1999, ch 3. Alcaeus of Sardis, Plutarch Pompey 37.

9. On these repressive acts, Appian 48. Duggan 1959, 80–81. McGing 1986, 128–31.

10. Peace at Dardanus, Reinach 1890, ch 4, esp 204. On the preceding events, Ballesteros Pastor 1996, ch 4; Duggan 1959, 80–81; McGing 1986, 130–32.

11. Dialogue in quotation marks in the pages that follow represents a condensation of quotations in Plutarch Sulla 22, based on Sulla’s own account, and on Appian 54–55. Memnon 25. Duggan 1959, 83. Situation in Italy: Diodorus 37.

12. Plutarch Sulla 22. Appian 54. Theme of Roman greed, Sanford 1950, 32.

13. Plutarch Sulla 22–24; Appian 52–53. “Hurricane,” Diodorus frag 38–39.8. Cassius Dio frag 30–35.104.7. Lewis 1976, 127. Strabo 13.1.27. See Ballesteros Pastor 2009.

14. Fimbria’s trap, Frontinus Stratagems 3.17.5. Plutarch Lucullus 3.4–7. Matyszak 2008, 86, suggests M made a deal with Lucullus.

15. Treaty negotiations and Fimbria’s actions: Appian 54–58, Memnon 25, and Plutarch Sulla 22–24. See Reinach 1890, 200–209. McGing 1986, 131–38. Erciyas 2006, 25–26, 124. Roman treaties traditionally sealed with osculum pacis, kiss of peace, an embrace and ritual kiss on cheek. Ancient Persians kissed equals on lips, superiors on cheek, Herodotus 1.35; Strabo 15.3.20.

16. Sulla’s motives, Mastrocinque 1999, ch 4; McGing 1986, 130–31.

17. Sulla’s haste and soldiers’ disgust, Holland 2003, 151–52; Plutarch Sulla 24.4; Diodorus 38–39.8.

18. Contrary to his promise not to punish M’s supporters, Memnon 25 says Sulla “forced many cities into slavery.” Many cities ruined and impoverished, Reinach 1890, 209–11; Buitenwerf 2003, 308–9. Pausanias, Greek native of Anatolia, 2nd century AD, emphasized the brutality of Sulla and other Romans—he did not regard them as “liberators” of Greece or Anatolia, see Habicht 1998, 120–22. Sulla’s punishment of Ephesus, Lewis and Reinhold 1990, 1:200–211. Appian 63. Duggan 1959, 85–86. Iasus, Bean 1989, 53.

19. Sulla’s exorbitant taxations, penalties, and plunder help explain his success in the Civil War, Mastrocinque 1999, 91–93. Sulla’s plunder: Pausanias 9.7; Habicht 1998, 121–22; Mastrocinque 2009.

20. Strauss 2009, 18, 21.

21. “The deed of Mithridates, deemed so terrible, in slaughtering all the Romans in Asia in one day, was regarded as of slight importance in comparison with the numbers now massacred and their manner of death” at the hands of Sulla. Cassius Dio frag 30–35, quote 109.8. Plutarch Sulla 27–34. Augustine City of God 3.28. Triumph, Pliny 33.5.16. Beard 2007.

22. See McGing 2009, reassessing M’s pride in Persian heritage, long-term goals, and policy of “steady escalation” and “raising the stakes,” instead of compliance with Rome.

23. Duggan 1959, 87–89, 94. Bosporan Kingdom, Logan 1994; Saprykin and Maslennikov 1995.

24. The preceding events involving Mithradates the Younger and Archelaus are from Appian 64. Effects of hemlock and opium, Stuart 2004, 111–12.

25. Iphigenia used her sword to sacrifice animals to Athena: Cassius Dio 36.11.

26. “That jackal” Murena, Ford 2004, 178; Murena’s war, see 161–86. “Pathless route,” Appian 64–65. Memnon 26 says M’s envoys to Murena were traitors, McGing 1986, 133–35.

27. Suetonius Julius Caesar 4; Plutarch Caesar 2.6–7. Caesar’s clever escape, 80–75 BC, Mayor 2009, 162 and nn.

28. Murena’s war, see McGing 1986, 133–36; Mastrocinque 1999, 94–98; Appian’s reliance on Strabo, 103–8. Appian 66. Athenais’s mother unknown: Sullivan 1980, 1137, 1139. Reinach 1890, 298, Athenais’s mother was Monime, and she was betrothed to Ariobarzanes’ son.

29. Appian 66 and Strabo 14–15 provide details; also see Ammianus Marcellinus 23.6.32–37; Xenophon Cyrus 8.5.25–26 and (prayer) 8.7.3; Mitchell 1995, 2:22; Widengren 1959, 250–51; Champlin 2003, 225–29.

• 11 •
LIVING LIKE A KING

1. Plutarch Sertorius 23; Appian 67. North Vietnam’s massive Tet Offensive of 1968 elicited a groundswell of international support, turned the US public against the war, and led the United States to withdraw from Vietnam. In 2004, during the US Iraq War, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld expected Islamic insurgents to deliberately copy the Tet Offensive to win “psychological victory.” Oberdorfer 2004. In an AP news story (2007) the US commander in Iraq predicted a sensational “mini-Tet” offensive by “Islamic extremists” to destroy US support. Justin 37.1.6–9; Cicero Pro lege Manilia. Goodkin 1986, 207, “Losing the battle [was] another source of glory” for M.

2. Plain equipment, Plutarch Lucullus 6. M’s restraint, Duggan 1959, 96–100. Achaeans: Appian 67, 69; Reinach 1890, 76–77, 305, 396. Achaea is modern Abkhazia.

3. Aulus Gellius 16: M publicly ingested poisons “to show his immunity.” M tested drugs on himself, on friends, and on criminals, Scarborough 2007. Galen De compositione medicamentorum per genera 13.416 K; De antidotis 14.150 K. Zopyrus: Totelin 2004, 5.

4. Illusions of immunity, magic, and sleight of hand with poisons, Corner 1915, 225–26; Magi and magic, Widengren 1959, 252. Bierman 1994, 8, snakebite trickery.

5. Housman, “Terence, this is stupid stuff,” in A Shropshire Lad. Tolerance of local venoms, Aelian On Animals 9.29. Mayor 2009, 92–96 and 272 nn23–24; Majno 1991, 381; Cilliers and Retief 2000.

6. Juvenal Satire 6.659–61, written ca AD 80. Emerson, “Mithridates.”

7. Bioactives in Mithridatium, Norton 2006; ingredients, Totelin 2004. Plants counteract venom, Raloff 2005; Alam and Gomes 2003. See Pliny’s bks 24–26 for plant pharmaka and antidotes, theriacs, and Mithridatium; see 25.3.5–7 for M’s toxicology; 25.32.69 for centaury plant, discovered by Pharnaces I of Pontus; betony seeds; aristolochia to reverse effects of poisons. Smith 1890, sv “Theriac.” Watson 1966. Illustrations of medicinal and lethal plants, Stuart 2004, 74–75, 109–31. Lemnian earth: Hall and Photos-Jones 2008.

8. Pliny 25.6, 25.26, 25.29. Corner 1915, 223. History of Mithridatium and details of compounding, Bierman 1994, Griffin 1995, Baley 1585.

9. Pliny 25.3.5–8; and see bk 25 on antidote plants. Cilliers and Retief 2000, 88–89; 91–95 (known poisons in antiquity). Hindu and Chinese versions, Majno 1991, 415–17. Islamic, Hindu, Chinese theriacs, Mithridatium, and longevity elixirs, Nappi 2009.

10. Cilliers and Retief 2000, 89. Zopyrus, Norton 2006, 2. Oscan, McGing 1986, 85 and n70. Pliny 25.2.5–6; Galen De antidotis 14.2 K: 14.150K. Asclepiades was extremely long-lived, Pliny 7.37.124. Ophiogenes and Marsi: Pliny 7.2.13–15. Caucasian vipers: Hopkins 1995.

11. Poison plants, Pliny bk 25; see 29.8.24–26: some individual Mithridatium ingredients weighed “one-sixtieth of one denarius,” and “cinnabar, red lead,” used in many theriacs, is “poisonous.”

12. Arsenic, Newman 2005, 8–9; ducks and rats, Stuart 2004, 113–14. Aulus Gellius 16: M mixed duck blood with “drugs that expel poisons” to create “the most celebrated antidote, the Mithridatios.”

13. Pontic honey both toxic and healthful, Aelian On Animals 5.4. See Totelin 2004 for full discussion of Pliny on Mithridatium. Skinks and salamanders exude toxins, included in M’s recipe, Bierman 1994, 5–6. Venoms, Metz et al. 2006. Hormesis, thanks to Dr. Stephen Galli, Pathology Department, Stanford, per cor March 5, 2008. Raloff 2005 and 2007, 40.

14. Vogel 2001; Moore et al. 2000. It is still unknown exactly how the process wards off so many toxins.

15. Juvenal 14.251–55. Sulla and Juvenal, Cilliers and Retief 2000, 89–90. Poisoning in Rome, Stuart 2004, 113–15.

16. Asclepiades, Totelin 2004, 3–4. Caesar’s doctor Aelius: Norton 2006, citing Galen Opera Omnia vol 14, De Antidotus, bk 2; Scarborough 2008.

17. Impossible to recover original Mithridatium, Totelin 2004, 13 and nn for Paccius inscription. Baley 1585 chastises the ancient “historyographers” for neglecting to preserve M’s recipe. Ancient Chinese apothecaries sold incense, medicines, and antidotes, Nappi 2009. Reinach 1890, 293. Celsius, Galen, Paul of Aegina, and Scribonius Largus cited Paccius, who left his formula to Tiberius.

18. Andromachus’s recipe, Griffin 1995; Bierman 1994, 5; Pain 2008; Baley 1585. Vat, Ciaraldi 2000.

19. Celsus On Medicine 5.23.3. Griffin 1995; Corner 1915; Swann 1985; Norton 2006.

20. Islamic and Arabic treatises on chemistry of plant, mineral, and animal toxins and royal obsession with poison: Stuart 2004, 116. Arab physicians Rhazes (d. AD 854) and Avicenna (d. AD 1037) praised M’s antidote: Griffin 1995; Corner 1915. Averroes: J. Ricordel, “Le traité sur la thériaque d’Ibn Rushd (Averroes),” Revue d’Histoire de la Pharmacie 48 (2000): 81–90. Mithridatium in China, Nappi 2009.

21. By the 1st century AD, production of Mithridatium had already become a “showy parade of art and science,” Pliny 29.8.24–26. M’s theriac stimulated the earliest concepts of “regulated medicine”: Griffin 1995, 3, for European royalty who tookMithridatium; Bierman 1994, 8, for Mithridatium in Rome in 1984. Baley 1585. See Duffin 2003 and Swann 1985 for longevity of M’s trademark antidote.

22. Cassius Dio 37.13, M built resistance to poison by taking “precautionary antidotes”; Appian 111, M accustomed himself to poisons by taking “Mithridatic drugs.” Celsius On Medicine 5.23.3 attributes M’s immunity to antidotes only, not poison intake. Pliny 25.3.5–7.

23. Pliny 29.8.24–26, 23.77.149, and Totelin 2004, 7 and table 1, 18–19. Critics of Mithridatium, Corner 1915, Swann 1985, Bierman 1994, Griffin 1995.

24. Pompey burned Sertorius’s papers, Plutarch Sertorius 27. Touwaide’s theory cited in Totelin 2004, 9 and nn39–40.

25. Residue of Mithridatium, Ciaraldi 2000. Touwaide (2008) analyzes residues in medicine containers from 1st century BC/AD shipwrecks and studies ancient “recycled” botanical texts retrieved from bindings of Byzantine books. Residue labeled “Mitridatio” in deluxe 1500s medicine chest from Chios: Burnett 1982, 333 no 36. Black Sea’s anaerobic deep waters result in remarkable preservation of organic material in ancient shipwrecks, King 2004, 18–19; West 2003, 166–67; Markey 2003. Thanks to Dr. Serguei Popov for discussion of current “antidote” research. Popov’s Mithradates-like work on poisons and antidotes, see “Biowarriors” Interview, Nova, PBS, www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bioterror/biow_popov.html.

26. Royal tasters, Xenophon Cyrus 1.3.9–10; Newman 2005, 31. Electrum, Pliny 33.1 and 33.23. Q. Serenus Sammonicus Liber Medicinalis 60.5. Chelation, Zammit-Maempel 1978, 218.

27. Pliny 33.5.15, 33.6.25–26, poison rings. Poison pills for friends, Plutarch Pompey 32.

28. Sources of agates included Phrygia, Crete, Lesbos, Rhodes, Egypt, Cyprus, and Persia. Zachalias (Hellenized Hebrew for Zacharias), Pliny 37.60.139–43 and 169; M’s work on amber, 37.11.39, and cf Champlin 2003, 135, Nero’s love of amber, “tears of the daughters of the Sun.” Heliotrope also called bloodstone. Healy 1999, 264–65, 269.

29. Pliny 37.5–6, 33.6.22–28. Appian 115. M’s gem portraits, esp those resembling Alexander, Vollenweider 1995, no 218; and Neverov 1973; Erciyas 2006, 148–51, 160–62, figs 73, 74, and 85. Højte 2009c on M’s gem portraits. Thanks to Robert Proctor for discussions of M’s agates and their provenance.

30. Alexander used Darius III’s luxurious tent, ornaments, and furniture; wore vintage Persian finery and armor; and used frankincense, myrrh, and other exotic perfumes. Reinach 1890, 278–93, quote 285; Plutarch Alexander 32. Balsdon 1979, 144–45. Bactrian camels and trade routes, Casson 1974, 55, 123–24; Stuart 2004, 92.

31. Mithradates krater first published in 1745, for inscription, Ward 1749–50; Erciyas 2006, 125.

32. Patron of arts and sciences, Appian 112; Orosius 6.4.6. McGing 1986, 92. Reinach 1890, devoted a chapter, 276–300, to the character of M, the “Hellenistic sultan,” the “soul” of the Pontic-Bosporan Empire. Cavafy, “Darius,” 1920, “exultation” sometimes translated as “intoxication” or “exhilaration.”

33. Stratonice: Plutarch Pompey 36. Reinach 1890, 296–97.

34. Kabeira and Kainon Chorion (Caenum) near Niksar, Turkey: Strabo 12.3.30–40. Plutarch Pompey 36–37. Kainon Chorion and M’s strongholds, Munro 1901, 60–61. Talbert 2000, map 87, 2:1233, 1241. Cramer 1832.

35. Erciyas 2006, 43–46. Strabo 12.3.30–40.

36. Xenophon Cyrus 5. Plutarch Antony 27.3–4 (Cleopatra). Aulus Gellius 17.17; Pliny 7.24.88–90, 25.3.6–7; Valerius Maximus 8.7; Quintilian 11.2. Aurelius Victor (AD 360) claimed M spoke 50 tongues. See Balsdon 1979, 116–45; Gleason 2006, 229; Summerer 2009. Thanks to Josh Katz for help with M’s languages.

37. Pontic-Bosporan Empire, Reinach 1890, 213–75.

38. Plutarch Lucullus 20. McGing 1986, 141.

39. Justin 40; and see Olbrycht 2009 and Reinach 1890, 311–13, and ancient sources for Tigranes.

40. Plutarch Sulla 36–38; Strabo 10.1.9; Valerius Maximus 9.3.8; Appian Civil Wars 1.105; Keaveney 2005, 175; McGing 1986, 136; Reinach 1890, 305–6; Scullard 1970, 86. Novelist Ford 2004, 157, was Sulla’s disease caused by M’s poisons?

41. McGing 1986, 137; cf McGing 2009.

42. Justin 40.1–2; Sallust Catiline War, Book of Judith, Josephus cited in Nazaryan 2005. Plutarch Lucullus 21.3–5. Strabo 12.2.9.

43. Appian 92–93. Sertorius and M’s secret messages carried by pirates and traders, Sheldon 2005, 75, citing Cicero. Strauss 2009, 132–34.

44. Sertorius was “seized with an overwhelming desire to settle in the islands and live in peace,” but pirate friends thwarted his plan. Plutarch Sertorius 9 and 11 (fawn); Pliny 8.50.117; Frontinus Stratagems 1.11 (fawn).

45. Appian 68. Plutarch Sertorius 9 (quotes); McGing 1986, 137–39, 142.

46. Obsequens in Lewis 1976, 128. For these events, see Appian 68. Plutarch Sertorius 23–24 (calls Marcus Varius “Marius”).

47. Minting, Erciyas 2006, 130; Saprykin 2004; Levy 1994; Callataÿ 2000. Plutarch Sertorius 24. Balsdon 1979, 75, 122.

48. Eutropius 6.6. “Miserable puppet,” Duggan 1959, 99. Reinach 1890, 319–20. McGing 1986, 144. Nicomedes IV’s will: Mitchell 1995, 1:62.

49. Strabo 7.4.6; Appian 68–69.

50. Appian 69. Tribes: Ammianus Marcellinus 22.8.18–30; Ovid Pontus 4 and Trist. 2.198; Strabo 7; Livy 40.58; Amazons, Justin 2.4.

• 12 •
FALLING STAR

1. Appian 70. Sidonis Apollinaris’s poem 22, about the castle of Pontius Leontius (ca AD 460); Reinach 1890, 321 n2. This villa also had a painting of the siege of Cyzicus, below. Lee 1797.

2. The king as chief Magus carried out the horse sacrifice, Widengren 1959, 251–52, horse sacrifice in Rhodes, citing Festus 181, ed. Muller. Trojans: Homer Iliad 21.132. Herodotus 7.113 and 1.215–16, Scythians sacrificed horses to the Sun, “offering the swiftest animal to the swiftest god.” Xenophon Cyrus 8.3.24 and March 4.5; Pausanias 3.20.4; Philostratus, Apollonius of Tyana 1.31; Tacitus Annals 6.37. Strabo 11.8.5. Alexander sacrificed bulls and golden cups to Poseidon in the Indian Ocean, ArrianAnabasis6. 19.5. Helios and Poseidon worship in Anatolia, Mitchell 1995, 2:26.

3. The speech and these events: Appian 70–71. Erciyas 2006, 26–27, M’s speeches and letters in various sources display the same style and complementary content, reflecting M’s format and tone. Reinach 1890, 321; Munro 1901, 56, on M’s invasion route. Some high-ranking Romans supported M, see McGing 1986, 145.

4. Appian 70–71. Memnon 27 says M had 150,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, and 120 scythed chariots, and an equal number of workers, and that the Romans lost 8,000 at sea.

5. Battles for Chalcedon and Cyzicus described in Appian 72–78 and Plutarch Lucullus 8–12; Strabo 12.8.11; Memnon 27–29. Reinach 1890, 318–42; McGing 1986, 146–53; Holland 2003, 154–64; Duggan 1959, 100–129. Matyszak 2008, 108–13. Lucullus and Third Mithradatic War, Keaveney 1992, ch 5; complicated chronology and ancient sources, 183–205. See also Hind 1994, 129–38, and Mastrocinque 1999, 103–5. The figure 300,000 is supported by the separately reported fact that M’s grain stores would feed that many for a year, see Ch 11.

6. Plutarch Lucullus 5.5, 7 (Fimbrians). Rome feared that M intended to invade Italy by sea, Keaveney 1992, 85–86. Duggan 1959, 103. On Rome’s self-perpetuating search for profit by continuous warfare in booty-rich lands, Eich and Eich 2005, 14–15, 23–24.

7. Plutarch Lucullus 8.5–7. Ford 2004, 203–4. It is not clear from the sources whether M was actually present.

8. Stothers 2007, 87. This and other meteors in antiquity, D’Orazio 2007. Keaveney 1992, 77, “Both sides, recognizing an evil omen, withdrew.” Reinach 1890, 324. Cybele’s meteorite, Strabo 12.5.3; Mitchell 1995, 2:20. A “star” fell near M’s camp just before he withdrew from Rhodes, Ch 8. Meteorites could signal that a battle should not take place.

9. Appian 72–78. Lucullus’s ruses at Cyzicus, Frontinus Stratagems 3.13.6.

10. Plutarch Sertorius 26; Keaveney 1992, 79–80. Memnon 28.2.

11. Campbell 2006, 139–43, M’s shipborne tower illustrated on 141. See Ford 2004, 215–18, for realistic description of the sambuca.

12. This tactic described in Appian 73 and Frontinus Stratagems 4.5.22.

13. Appian 73–78. Vinegar, Ch 4; Mayor 2009, 220–22.

14. Appian 75; Plutarch Lucullus 10; Rigsby 1996, 341–42. McGing 1986, 148–50, omens and prodigies were examples of anti-M propaganda by the Romans. Notably, M’s rituals entreated male gods.

15. Plutarch Crassus 8–11; Appian Civil Wars 116–20. Strauss 2009.

16. Appian 75–76. Plague at Cyzicus, Mayor 2009, 120–22. Siege: Eutropius 6.6.

17. Plutarch Lucullus 11. Mithradates’ camels, Ammianus Marcellinus 23.6.56.

18. Strabo 12.8.11; Diodorus 37.22b; Plutarch Lucullus 11; Keaveney 1992, 83.

19. Appian 75–76; Plutarch Lucullus 12; Memnon 35–36. Mastrocinque 2009.

20. Plutarch Lucullus 12; Cicero Pro lege Manilia 1.8.

21. Appian 77–78. Triumph laws in effect since 143 BC: Valerius Maximus 2.8.1. Enemy leaders executed at Triumph, Josephus Jewish War 6.423. Smith 1890, sv “Triumph”; Champlin 2003, 210–15; Beard 2007.

22. Plutarch Lucullus 13.

23. Aftermath of ancient sea battles, Strauss 2005. In this scene, I follow McGing 1986, 139, who suggests that M’s pirate rescuer was his good friend Seleucus. Black Sea notoriously dangerous in winter, West 2003, 166. Sailing speeds, Lee 2007, 169–70. Casson 1974, 149–62.

24. Memnon 29.3–4. A plague struck Heraclea later, Konnakorix made a deal with the Romans, and the citizens were slaughtered, Memnon 35.

25. Valerius Maximus 1.8.13; Ammianus Marcellinus 16.7.9.

26. Memnon 29.6, 37.5. Was Metrodorus M’s messenger to Tigranes? see Ch 13.

27. Plutarch Lucullus 14; Memnon 30. Strauss 2009, 181–94.

28. Appian 78–79, 115. Detailed information on roads, terrain, and Pontic campaign, Munro 1901, esp 56–59. Themiscryans prepared zoological attacks in advance; I list wild beasts of the region. Insects and animals in ancient warfare, Mayor 2009, ch 6.

29. Plutarch Lucullus 14; 15–20, on invasion of Pontus; see also Appian 78–83 and Keaveney 1992. Cherries, Pliny 15.30; Athenaeus 2.35. Lucullus’s army, Holland 2003, 160–61.

30. Plutarch Lucullus 15. Scythian chiefs of these nomads: Frontinus Stratagems 2.5.30; Appian 79.

31. Duggan 1959, 125, suggests the “hunters” were bandits on the run from M. Lucullus’s route to the stronghold and battles for Kabeira, Munro 1901, 57–58.

32. M master of intelligence, often using advance scouts and fire signals, Sheldon 2005, 75.

33. Appian 79–82; Plutarch Lucullus 15–17.

34. King Parisades of the Bosporus (Ch 5) died in a Scythian-led uprising in 110 BC. Polyaenus Stratagems 7.37, Krentz and Wheeler 1994, 2:693.

35. Route of M’s flight, Munro 1901, 52, 58; Talbert 2000, map 87, 2:1226–42. Plutarch Lucullus 17. Strabo 12.3.33 suggests that his distant relative Dorylaus was later suspected of treachery against M, but Plutarch’s account of Dorylaus’s end seems credible. Romans bribed a cousin of Dorylaus, Lagetus, to lead a revolt. M seized Lagetus’s property but did not kill him, and the family fell into poverty.

36. Plutarch compiled his detailed account from descriptions of defectors and captives who ended up in Lucullus’s hands. Of course, some accounts may have been elaborated over time. Plutarch Lucullus 18. Appian 82. Memnon 30.1. Strabo 12.3.11. Appendix 2 for these tragic deaths in art, music, and literature. See Summerer 2009, fig 6, death of Monime (1816).

37. Suicide to preserve freedom, liberty, independence versus survival under tyranny, Balsdon 1979, 162–67. Suicide or killing of one’s family practiced in many ancient and modern cultures, to prevent falling into enemy hands. One of many examples is Hannibal’s sister Sophonisba, who drank poison to escape capture by Romans in 203 BC.

• 13 •
RENEGADE KINGS

1. Plutarch Lucullus 17.4–7; Appian 81–82; Orosius 6.4. Cf Memnon 30.1. Polyaenus Stratagems 7.29.2 described a similar ruse by M in Paphlagonia, distracting pursuers by setting his fine furniture and golden dishes on the road. Final phase of Lucullus’s campaign against M and Tigranes, 70–66 BC: Appian 82–90; Plutarch Lucullus 19–37; Memnon 30–39; Cassius Dio 36; Keaveney 1992, 91–128; Duggan 1959, 133–67, 343–76; Sherwin-White 1994, 229–47; McGing 1986, 152–63. Cicero, Pro lege Manilia127.

2. I base this list of companions on Plutarch’s and Appian’s reports of who was with M later in Armenia and Pontus. Location of Talaura, route into Armenia, Munro 1901, 58–59; Appian 82, 115; Plutarch Lucullus 19; Cassius Dio 36.14–16.

3. Strabo 12.3.33. Tyrannio the Grammarian, a member of M’s circle, was captured in Amisus and taken to Rome, where he worked on books of Aristotle and Theophrastus plundered by Sulla from Athens. He later taught Strabo (12.3.16, 13.1.54). PlutarchLucullus 19. Memnon 30 says that “many citizens of Amisus were slaughtered immediately” although Lucullus tried to stop the killing, and “Eupatoria was immediately destroyed.” Keaveney 1992, 93. Heraclea was destroyed after it was betrayed by M’s Galatian general Konnakorax, Memnon 34–36.

4. Ancient sources are contradictory about what actually happened in Sinope. Memnon 37; Strabo 12.3.11; Appian 83; Plutarch Lucullus 23.

5. Globe of Billarus, Strabo 12.3.11. Mastrocinque 2009. The statues and Antikythera device are in the Archaeological Museum of Athens. Recent scientific studies of gears, purpose, dating and inscriptions: Marchant 2008; Freeth et al. 2008.

6. Plutarch Lucullus 24; Memnon 37.

7. Plutarch Lucullus 20 (quote). Appian 83; Keaveney 1992, 95–98.

8. The dialogue of Appius and Tigranes is based on Plutarch Lucullus 19 and 21; Memnon 31. Reinach 1890, 351; Keaveney 1992, 99–104; McGing 1986, 152–53, Ballesteros Pastor 1996, ch 7. Armenia and Tigranes: Reinach 1890, 453–55; Ussher 2007, 4041, 4085–86, 4199, 4217, 4228–29, 4264, 4282–83, 4308. Armenian view: Kurkjian 1958, ch 13. Turkish view: Tezcan 2007, 100–101.

9. Memnon 31, Tigranes gave M “bodyguards and all other marks of hospitality”; 38, M stayed at the lodge for a year and eight months. Tigranes as philhellene, Kurkjian 1958. See also Raffi 1959.

10. Strabo 11.14.8–9 and 16, 11.13.7. Flora and terrain of Armenia described by early travelers, Stoneman 1987, 186–207; Ravanea coccinea (wormwood parasite), Morena orientalis (flower of the sun); sacred to Zorastrians, www.rbedrosian.com/soma.htm.

11. Plutarch Lucullus 22; Appian 82; Memnon 38. Keaveney 1992, 99–104. Kurkjian 1958 and other Armenian historians deny that Tigranes was “cold and unconcerned” about M.

12. Plutarch Lucullus 22; Strabo 13.1.55; Memnon 38. Scullard 1970, 102–5.

13. Memon 38. Appian 82–84. Justin 40.2. Plutarch Lucullus 22–24. McGing 1986, 153 n67. Kurkjian 1958.

14. Plutarch Lucullus 26 and Appian 85 say Tigranes had 250,000–300,000; cf 150,000 in Plutarch, Sayings of Romans 203. Eutropius 6.9: Tigranes 600,000 and Lucullus 18,000. Phlegon of Tralles frag 12, in Hansen 1996, 62, gives Tigranes 40,000 infantry and 30,000 cavalry. Certainly Tigranes’ army was vast and probably more than twice the size of Lucullus’s 30,000 (and the Roman strength of 15,000–20,000 was probably minimized by Roman writers). See Matyszak 2008, 128–29; maps, 132–35. In 1916, an Ottoman army of 60,000 retraced Tigranes’ route over the Taurus range and lost 30,000 men to cold and starvation. Kurkjian 1958, ch 13, estimates Tigranes’ army at 70,000–100,000.

15. Battle for Tigranocerta described by Plutarch Lucullus 25–29; Appian 84–86; Memnon 38. Cassius Dio 36.1–3. Machiavelli Art of War 2.76. In fiction: Church 1885, 233–79; Ford 2004, 259–74. Plutarch Sayings of Romans 203.1–2. Keaveney 1992, 106–11; Sherwin-White 1994, 239–47. Tribes and Tigranocerta, Strabo 11.14.14–15.

16. Plutarch Lucullus 28; Appian 85. Duggan 1959, 147. Tigranes’ women were transported to Artaxata, but some were captured later by Lucullus and others by Pompey—that would explain how we know of the earlier rescue.

17. This scene is detailed in Plutarch Lucullus 29; Memnon 38. Appian 87. Cassius Dio 36.1–2. Kurkjian 1958, ch 13, gives the modern Armenian view of the disaster dealt by Lucullus.

18. Cassius Dio 36.1–2.

19. Keaveney 1992, 111. Kurkjian 1958, ch 13 n2, placed Tigranocerta northwest of Nisibis below a spur of the Taurus chain, among other suggested sites. Based on ancient roads, in 1997 T. A. Sinclair suggested Tigranocerta lay near Arzan, Turkey, cited in Talbert 2000, map 89, and 1280, 1290. In 2006, the Armenian Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences and Yerevan State University, led by Dr. Hamlet Petrosyan, announced the excavation of Tigranocerta, near modern Martakert (Miyafarkin, Martyropolis, modern Silvan), constructed with advanced Hellenistic techniques and an estimated population of about 50,000; see www.armeniadiaspora.net/ADC/news.asp?id=1341.

20. Maltha and poison arrows: Mayor 2009, 234, 245–47; Cassius Dio 36.5–8; Pliny 2.108–9; Healy 1999, 255. Samosata, Munro 1901, 62. Ammianus Marcellinus 23.4.15, 23.6.16, and 37. Naphtha wells near a fortress in this region, Stoneman 1987, 205.

21. Plutarch Lucullus 30–31. Keaveney 1992, 112–17. Badian 1981. Duggan 1959, 153–55.

22. Appian 87. Plutarch Pompey 32.8. Eutropius 6.12. Xenophon’s Greeks were accompanied by fighting women, Lee 2007, 272–73. Alexander and Amazon, Lane Fox 2004, 276, 432 and 531. Reinach 1890, 297, 387, Hypsicratea, “intrepide amazone.” Autonomous barbarian women and equal status with men in this period, see Konstan 2002. See Izady 1992, 194, on ancient and modern women warriors of Kurdistan. Women in M’s army, Cassius Dio 36.49.3.

23. Letter to Arsaces, Sallust Histories 4.69 Maurenbrecher, abridged, see Lewis and Reinhold 1990, 235–36. Cassius Dio 36.1–3 and Plutarch Lucullus 30.1–2. Ahlheid 1988 gives a detailed analysis of the rhetorical strategies in M’s letter. Many modern historians have wrangled over whether Sallust’s letter is genuine or composed to represent what M communicated, see eg Erciyas 2006, 27–28; Sanford 1937, 439–40. An entire PhD dissertation is devoted to the letter, L. Raditsa, Columbia University, 1969, cited in McGing’s extensive discussion, 1986, 84, 105, 154–62. There is no doubt that M communicated with Parthia; Parthian royalty was represented in the early monument on Delos. The message is plausible, the language in M’s style; the letter appears to be either genuine or based on M’s other authentic letters and speeches. McGing 1986, 155–62. Olbrycht 2009: “The letter reflects a genuine document found by the Romans” in M’s personal archives.

24. Plutarch Lucullus 31.

25. Ammianus Marcellinus 31.2.8: nomad warriors, lightly armed and swift, “purposely divide suddenly into scattered bands and attack, riding about in disorder here and there, dealing terrific slaughter.” Cf Justin 41, “alternate charge and retreat” of nomads, they “quit in the very heat of the fight,” then surge back “just when one thinks he has won!” The Macedonian cavalry’s desertion was foiled, Frontinus Stratagems 1.7.8.

26. Plutarch Lucullus 31.5–8. Appian 88: Lucullus could not draw M into a fight. According to Keaveney 1992, 118–20, 123, M was brave vs “lesser men” but “would not face his superior” enemy, Lucullus.

27. Scordisci: Frontinus Stratagems 3.7. Xenophon March 3.4; Lee 2007. Herodotus 4.46–48, 4.120–40.

28. Strabo 11.13–14. Early travelers’ descriptions of Armenian winter, Stoneman 1987, 197. Cf Lee 2007, 202, 228, for Xenophon’s travails in Armenia’s rough terrain and snow.

29. Plutarch Lucullus 32.3–5; Cassius Dio 36.6–8.

30. M’s route from Armenia to Pontus, Munro 1901, 58.

31. Campaign to recover Pontus: Cassius Dio 36.9–17; Plutarch Lucullus 35; Appian 88–90; Eutropius 6.9.

32. Use of snake venom to stop hemorrhage, Hopkins 1995. Appian 88–89; Cassius Dio 36.9. Alexander suffered a gash on the thigh fighting Darius at Issus. The incident of showing Alexander to his troops took place in India. Plutarch Fortune of Alexander341.

33. M’s trophy at Zela, Cassius Dio 42.48. Plutarch Pompey 39; Lucullus 33–35. Keaveney 1992, 124–26; Holland 2003, 172–73.

34. Plutarch Lucullus 35–36 and Pompey 31; Strabo 12.5.2. Keaveney 1992, 125–28. Cicero Pro lege Manilia, in favor of giving Pompey the authority in 66 BC, to destroy the menace of M who had escaped punishment for 22 years after the atrocities of 88 BC. As long as M lives, said Cicero, Rome’s economic and political status was in peril.

35. Plutarch Lucullus 37; Keaveney 1992, 135.

36. Plutarch Lucullus 39–43; Athenaeus 2.50–51, 5.274, and 12; Appian 90–91. Love potion, Pliny 25.7.25. Keaveney 1992, 164–65. Poison love potions, Cilliers and Retief 2000, 89.

37. Piracy crisis, Plutarch Pompey 24–25; Appian 91–97; Cicero Pro lege Manilia; Holland 2003, 164–65.

• 14 •
END GAME

1. Strabo 12.3.18; Diodorus 14.30. Lee 2007, 229. Toxic honey as weapon, Mayor 2009, 146–48, 153–54. Root-Bernstein 1991, 44–45 suggested Krateuas devised the plan, based on Xenophon’s experience.

2. Pirates, Appian 91–96. “Odious,” Plutarch Pompey 24–30. Pompey’s war on M, Appian 97–117; Plutarch Pompey 30–45; Scullard 1970, 88–108. Cilician pirates worshipped Mithra; pirates and veterans helped spread militaristic Zoroastrian-influenced cults of Mithra/Mithras in the Roman world after Mithradatic Wars. Champlin 2003, 227–29 and n30; Wynne-Tyson 1972, 46–47; Plutarch Pompey 24.5; Balsdon 1979, 238; Holland 2003, 167–68; Tezcan 2003.

3. Cicero, Pro lege Manilia 121.

4. Exchange reported by Appian 97–98, based on accounts of veterans and Romans later captured by Pompey. Cassius Dio 36.45.3–4.

5. Preceding events described by Plutarch Pompey 32; Cassius Dio 36.47–50 (deserters); Frontinus Stratagems 1.1.7; Eutropius 6.12–14; Appian 97–101. Strabo 12.3.28–41.

6. Plutarch Pompey 32. I added Hypsicratea to M’s dream; she was with M at this time.

7. Appian 100–101. Plutarch Alexander 31. M’s night attack on Rhodes failed, Ch 8.

8. Moonlight Battle detailed in Plutarch Pompey 32; Appian 99–100; Livy Epit. 101, and see Florus 3.5.22–24, 1.40.23; Orosius 6.4.4–5. Cassius Dio 36.48–49, both men and women were in M’s forces. According to Frontinus Stratagems 2.1.12, Pompey attacked that night to force M to come out and fight. Turkish view of Pompey’s campaign in Pontus and Colchis, Tezcan 2007, 101–4.

9. Orders to stab horses, Frontinus Stratagems 2.33.

10. Plutarch Pompey, 32.8; Eutropius 6.12; Orosius 5.3–5, 6.4.6; Reinach 1890, 387. Duggan 1959, like Christine de Pizan, below, assumed Hypsicratea was a courtesan forced to throw on Persian men’s clothing for the first time during Pompey’s attack.

11. Valerius Maximus 4.6.2, 6.6. Orosius 6.5.3–5.

12. Boccaccio, Famous Women 6.323–27, inspired by V. Maximus. Cf Petrarch Triumphus cupidinis 3.28.30. Hypsicratea in 17^th- and 18^th-century French dramas, such as Behourt’s Hypsicratée, 1604, see Snaith 2007, 16–17.

13. Typical criticism of Roman avarice in this 12th^-century poem: “the treacherous Roman people . . . worshipped silver and went mad in pursuit of gain. . . . they worship the gold of Arabia, the brocaded robes of Greece, the ivory and gems of India, . . . silver and gold of England.” Sanford 1950, 36. Machiavelli Art of War 2.84–99, calls M a “valiant” hero. See Baley 1585, for blistering attack on Rome and praise of M’s gifts to the world. Christine de Pizan 1999, 110–12.

14. Bituitus fought at M’s side in battle, traveled with M to Bosporan Kingdom, was present at M’s death in 63 BC. Walked horses, Orosius 6.4. Sagona and Sagona 2005, 67, for location and archaeological discoveries at Sinora. Talbert 2000, map 87, “Sinoria” 1256, 1241. Drypetina: Ammianus Marcellinus 16.7.9; Christine de Pizan 1999, 103–4.

15. Appian 100–101 makes it clear that this small army fled with M to Colchis. Plutarch Pompey 32; Plutarch Fortune of Alexander 41–42 and Alexander 15 for sharing wealth. A soldier’s pay was about 1 drachma/day; 6,000 talents was about 36 million drachmas. Reinach 1890, 387–89. Mutual trust, Duggan 1959, 175. Cf Romans’ reliance on loot for pay, Ñaco del Hoyo et al. 2009, 3.

16. Tigranes’ reward, Plutarch Pompey 32.9; Cassius Dio 36.50. Arslan 2007, 392–405, 463–70.

17. Appian 101. Euphrates snakes, Aelian On Animals 9.29; probably Levantine vipers. Strabo 11.2.13–19, describes M’s journey of 4,000 stades (about 500 miles) from Pontus to Colchis. Ancient Colchis, Braund 1994.

18. M and Hercules, Erciyas 2006, 148–53. Dioscurias: Appian 67 and 101–2; Strabo 11.2.19; Pliny 6.5. King 2004, 32; Ascherson 1995, 244–56.

19. Appian 101–2; Plutarch Pompey 35.

20. Pompey’s movements 66/65 BC: Appian 103–5; Plutarch Pompey 33–38; Cassius Dio 36–37. Strabo 11.1.6, Pompey crisscrossed the region between the Caspian and Black seas. Sherwin-White 1994.

21. Appian 103. Strabo 11.4–8 says 22,000 cavalry; Plutarch Pompey 35 says 12,000 cavalry. Cassius Dio 37.

22. Appian 103. Strabo 11.3.3, 11.5.1–4. Ammianus Marcellinus 22.8.26, writing in AD 350, claimed Amazons still lived between the Don and the Caspian Sea. Aelian Historical Miscellany 12.38. Plutarch Alexander 46.1–2; Curtius 6.5.24–25 and 29; Lane Fox 2004, 276. “Amazon” tombs, Ascherson 1995, 111–24. M’s allies around the Phasis, Caucasus, and beyond: Memnon 22.3–4.

23. Cassius Dio 37.1–7. Armazi is Armozicon (Harmozica) in Strabo 11.3.5. Archaeological excavation at Armazi began 1890, ended 1940s, resumed 1985. Daryal Pass and Armazi Citadel (Armaziskhevi), Talbert 2000, map 88 and 2:1255–67; Braund 1994. Snakes, Plutarch Pompey 36; scorpions and spiders, Strabo 11.4.6.

24. Plutarch Pompey 35. Cassius Dio 37.3.

25. Cassius Dio 37.3.

26. Appian 104–5; Cassius Dio 37.51–53; Plutarch Pompey 33 and Fortune of Alexander 336.3; Holland 2003, 173–74. A. E. Houseman’s poem, see Ch 11. Tigranes’ surrender, Kurkjian 1958, who laments Tigranes’ empire doomed to be “a mere flash of lightning in history because of Roman ruthlessness and the mad audacity” of M.

27. Appian 115.

28. Drypetina’s fate, Valerius Maximus 18.13; Ammianus Marcellinus 16.7.9; Appian 107; Pompey 36. Cassius Dio 37.7, gives a different version: Stratonice, angry at being left behind, surrendered the fort to Pompey.

29. Aulus Gellius 17.16, cited by Totelin 2004, 5. Suetonius Grammarians 15; Balsdon 1979, 56. Baley 1585.

30. Appian 104–6; Plutarch Pompey 33, 36–41. Cilicia and Taurus Mountains, Mitchell 1995, 1:70–79.

31. Cassius Dio 36.50. Plutarch Pompey 35.1. Strabo 11.2.13. Appian 101–3. Livy Epit. 101. Klukhor Pass, Talbert 2000, map 87. Strabo’s embainon can mean “to set off, march out, or embark.” Jones, Loeb, 1928, translates: “only with difficulty could he go along the coast, most of the way marching on the edge of the sea.” Cf translation by Hamilton/Falconer, 1856: “embarking in vessels.” For help with translations, thanks to Henryk Jaronowski, John Ma, and Josh Ober.

32. Reinach 1890, 396–97 and map. Covered boats, camarae, Charachidzé 1998 and Strabo 11.2.5; 11.2.11–13, on Achaea’s harborless shore with sheer cliffs. Strabo says that after M “despaired of going through the land of the Zygi, because of the rugged terrain and the ferocity of the people,” he changed his mind and “completed his journey from the Phasis, traveling about 4,000 stades” (500 miles). Appian 67, 69: M fought Achaeans in 84 BC; they sent warriors in 74 BC, but could not be relied on as allies. M never subdued the Zygi; they “were the serious obstacle to his march,” McGing 1986, 58, 164, on the “remarkable journey.” Unpredictable Achaeans: Saprykin and Maslennikov 1995, 276; map 262–63 for impassable coast and rugged western route. Reinach’s route accepted by McGing 1986, 164; 179; Gozalishvili 1965; Matyzsak 2008, 154 (quoting the 1856 translation, n31 above). Ford’s novel (2004, 324–28) describes an attempt at a coastal route, abandoned for the Klukhor route. King 2004, 49, M avoided the coast “because it was patrolled by Roman ships.” Duggan 1959, 179, follows Appian 102.

33. Encyclopedia Britannica 11th ed. Forts, Strabo 11.3.5. Maps of the passes: Talbert 2000, maps 87–88. Daryal Pass was sometimes called Caspian Gates and confused with two other fortified passes by same name, one between eastern spur of the Caucasus and the Caspian (Diodorus 2.2.3) and the other on Silk Route south of the Caspian. Scythian Keyhole or Gates, Daryal, Dariel, Darial, Darioly, Caucasiae Pylae, Sarmatian Gates. Tacitus Annals 6.33.3: Iberi controlled strongholds and passes over the mid-Caucasus, and the Caspian Gates pass on the Caspian Sea was sometimes closed due to gale-driven floods. Pliny 5.27, “unbroken continuity” of the Caucasus, except for the “Armenian and Caspian Gates.”

34. Routes and passes: Strabo 11.3.4–5. Bryce 1878, 43–48, 69–87. Roki Pass now a tunnel on the Transcaucasian Highway (1971–81). War broke out in August 2008 among Russia, Georgia, North and South Ossetia, and Abkhazia (ancient Achaea and Zygi); Russian tanks invaded Georgia by way of Roki Pass. Thanks to Hans Heiner Buhr, adventurer and mountain guide in Tbilisi, Georgia, who often traverses these passes. His knowledge of the history and terrain of this region was immensely helpful in enabling me to reconstruct M’s route.

35. Tezcan 2003. Strabo 11.2.15–16.

36. Xenophon March 4.5; Lee 2007, 165–67. M’s general Neoptolemus fought Scythians on frozen Bosporus Strait, Strabo 2.1.16, 7.3.18.

37. Strabo 11.2.16–19, 11.5.6, 11.14.4.

38. Cf Xenophon March 4.5.19–21; Lee 2007, 166.

39. Descriptions draw on memoirs of early European travelers who retraced M’s route in 1837 and 1876: Wilbraham 1839, 140–42; Bryce 1878, 42–87; descriptions of Caucasus, 88–156. Complex logistics of large army traveling single file over constricted, snowbound mountain passes, progressing in peristaltic movements, cf Xenophon’s winter crossing of Armenian passes in Lee 2007, 163–67.

40. Appian 102. Kurgans, Ascherson 1995, 126–35.

41. M’s trip around Sea of Azov and arrival in Crimea; Machares and Xiphares: Appian 102 and 107. Cassius Dio 37.12, M killed some remaining sons who incurred his suspicion. Exipodras: Orosius 6.5. The eunuch Gauros: Reinach 1890, 405; Valerius Maximus 9.2.3. On Pantikapaion, Crimea, and “Little Scythia,” Strabo 7.4 and 11.2; Ascherson 1995, 220–26.

42. Plutarch Alexander 49, Appian 107–8. The facial ulcers that caused M to withdraw bear similarity to the disfigured popular Ukrainian leader Viktor Yushchenko, poisoned by political enemies in 2004. Like M, Yushchenko’s charisma relied on face-to-face contact. This and other poisonings in the region, Gutterman 2004. Duggan 1959, 181. In his novel, Ford 2004, 337, attributed the facial ulcers to stress and delayed effects of a cheek wound four years earlier.

43. Hair samples of King George III (1760–1820), who suffered mental derangement, showed a high arsenic concentration of 17 ppm, from a lifetime of prescribed arsenic. Cox et al. 2005. Rue and Saint-John’s-wort (Hypericum), included inMithridatiumrecipes, have toxic photosensitive compounds that can cause severe blistering. Vogel 2001. Arsenic poisoning, www.toxipedia.org.

44. Plutarch Pompey 41; Josephus Jewish War 1.122–55.

45. Justin 37.1.7. Darius: Herodotus 3.136. Plutarch Fortune of Alexander 340–42.

46. Debate about Alexander, Livy 9.17–19; Sacks 1990, 135 and n75. McGing 1986, 122–23; see 165 and n95, “wildly unrealistic” plan anti-Mithradatic propaganda. Sherwin-White 1994 also dismisses the plan as rumor. Cf Ballesteros Pastor 1996, ch 13. Cicero’s speech, 63 BC, De lege agraria contra Rullum 437.

47. Duggan 1959, 186–87. Ford 2004, 344–46. Maps of overland route to Alps, Talbert 2000, maps 11–12, 19–23. Reinach 1890, 403–4. M’s invasion plan figures in Norse oral traditions written down ca AD 1250: Younger Edda 1879, 229–30. See Mallet and Scott 1847, 51: in Scythia, M “sought refuge, and a new means of vengeance. He hoped to arm against the ambition of Rome, all the barbarous nations, his neighbors, whose liberty [Rome] threatened. He succeeded in this at first, but all those peoples, ill-united as allies, ill-armed as soldiers, and still worse disciplined, were forced to yield to . . . Pompey.” But one tribe, led by a chief named Odin, migrated to northern Europe and kept Mithradates’ dream alive. This legend is featured in Anderson 1960.

48. Cassius Dio 37.11 marveled that M’s mind, at age 71, grew more steadfast even as his body was weakened by age, war wounds, and the mountain crossing. Appian 102, 107–8; Plutarch Pompey 41; Florus 1.40.15. On the economics, war preparations, and archaeology of Bosporan Kingdom, Saprykin and Maslennikov 1995; Logan 1994.

49. The region sustained nomadic attacks and Diophantus’s conquests, Ch 5, but was not involved in the Mithradatic Wars except to supply tributes of grain and recruits; Saprykin and Maslennikov 1995. Cassius Dio 37.11 synchronizes this earthquake with the capture of M’s children at Phanagoria. Orosius 6.5.1, during grain harvest (or spring?) festival of the Greek mother goddess Demeter (the only recorded ritual by Mithradates directed to a goddess). Archaeological evidence of the quake of 63 BC, Blavatskij 1977; Logan 1994, 72; Saprykin and Maslennikov 1995, 267, 269, 273; but cf Traina 1995. This was not the same quake reported by Justin 40.2.1 in Syria, predicting Lucullus’s defeat of Tigranes, Ch 13. Cassius Dio 37.25, a “mighty” earthquake occurred in Rome in 63 BC, with lightning in a clear sky, flashes of fire, and apparitions; cf Obsequens in Lewis 1976, 128.

50. Rostovtzeff 1921, 221, on Iranian, Jewish, Greek, and indigenous populations of Bosporan Kingdom; he suggests that the large Jewish presence was directly related to their support of M vs Rome. Artaphernes, age 40, apparently never a viable heir.

51. M’s military men hated M’s “all powerful” eunuchs. This and other events of the revolt, Appian 108–14, Castor of Phanagoria was later designated Friend of Rome by Pompey. Sherwin-White 1994. The final fates of Cleopatra the Younger and Stratonice are unknown.

52. Appian 109. Some of Appian’s speculation may be his own interpretation, but he also had access to memoirs of Romans and others with M. Grievances in Bosporan Kingdom, Saprykin and Maslennikov 1995, esp 281. Rostovtzeff 1921, 220, on the threat these northern tribes organized by M posed to Rome.

53. Appian 109. “Last autonomous monarch,” Velleius 2.40.1; McGing 1986, 171.

54. Appian 110 calls Metrophanes “Menophanes”; cf Appian 28 and Pausanias 3.23.2–5. Pharnaces’ children, M’s grandchildren: Dynamis later became queen of Bosporan Kingdom; Darius, Pharnaces’ son, grandson of Mithradates, was appointed king of Pontus by Mark Anthony in 39 BC. Eder and Renger 2007, 112–13. Mitchell 1995, 1:38–39; Rostovtzeff 1919.

55. Appian 110–11.

• 15 •
IN THE TOWER

1. The details that follow are from M’s death scenes reported by Livy Periochae 102; Appian 110–12; Plutarch Pompey 41; Cassius Dio 37.12–14; Valerius Maximus 9.2.3; Justin 37.1–2, 6; Aulus Gellius 17.16; Aurelius Victor 1.76; Orosius 6.5; Florus 1.40; and Galen De theriaca, ad Pisonem 14.283–84, cited in Totelin 2004, 5–6 and n22. Medieval version, Baley 1585. Ramsey 1999, 203 n16: M was thought to be alive in January 63 BC, but by November word of his death reached Rome. Reinach 1890, 406–13. His suicide appears to have been late spring or early summer of 63.

2. I added the detail of a golden vial, based on Herodotus’s description of the small golden vials of poison that Scythian archers attached to their belts, Mayor 2009, 78–79. I also assume M comforted his daughters as they died. According to late Roman tradition, Orosius 6.5, M uttered a bitter curse, wishing the same ill treatment on Pharnaces by his own children. Did M pray? If so, it may have been similar to Cyrus the Great’s last prayer, Xenophon Cyrus 8.7.3.

3. Appian 111–12. How old was M in 63 BC? About 71, based on birth date of 134 BC (Ch 2). Appian 116 calculated his age as 68 or 69; Eutropius 6 and Orosius 6.5 (following Livy) say he was 72, giving birth date of 135 BC. Average life expectancy for a man in the 1st century BC was about 50.

4. What was the suicide poison? A tiny amount of aconite (monkshood, a neurotoxin) is deadly and painless, with numbness and full consciousness until respiration ceases; aconite was used in antiquity by old people in Chios to commit suicide. Henbane’s toxic ingredient is hyoscyamine, bringing hallucinations, euphoria, restlessless, dizziness, tachycardia, fever, coma, and death. Hemlock, used in ancient Greece and Rome for criminal executions and suicide, causes gradual paralysis and death by asphyxiation, like aconite. Hemlock could be combined with opium for a calm, dignified, painless death, like that of Socrates. Stuart 2004, 73–78 and 110–12; Cilliers and Retief 2000.

5. Cassius Dio 37.13; Reinach 1890, 410. Entreaty to Bituitus, Appian 111.

6. Appian 113 says the triremes went to Sinope; Plutarch Pompey 42 says Amisus. Cassius Dio 37.14. Was Metrophanes one of the men responsible for Aquillius’s capture?

7. Plutarch Pompey 41; Josephus Jewish War 1.1.139. Høtje 2009b sums up the irritation and awkwardness in the situation. Thanksgiving to mark M’s death: Cicero Prov. cons. 27. Pompey’s campaigns in the Near East, Sherwin-White 1994.

8. Egyptian embalmers removed the brain in sophisticated mummification techniques; Persians traditionally covered royal corpse with wax and placed in rock-cut tombs; Scythians also had embalming procedures. Herodotus 1.137–41, and 4.84–86, on length of voyage across Black Sea.

9. Corpse delivered to Pompey: Cassius Dio 37.14; Appian 113. Quotes, Plutarch Pompey 42. Xvarnah, Widengren 1959, 246 and 251, 254. Reinach 1890, 412, suggested Gaius, an old schoolmate, identified the scars. Hyacinth plume, Xenophon Cyrus 6.4.2. Gaius gave the crown to Sulla’s son; the scabbard was stolen by Publius and sold to grandson of Ariobarzanes I of Cappadocia. Reinach 1890, 412 n3 and 298.

10. Plutarch Pompey 42. Pausanias 3.23.3–5, Apollo caused M to kill himself as punishment for sacking Delos. Ancient attitudes toward suicide, see Seneca Ep. Morales 70. Balsdon 1979, 249–52: a calm, premeditated, dignified suicide, by poison or weapon, was approved to provide escape from incurable illness, disgrace, subjugation, or tyranny, oppressive political conditions that destroyed dignity and liberty. Suicide “an escape route from slavery,” a way to achieve freedom, eleutheria, 250. Symbolism of suicide by poison as “deliverance,” Goodkin 1986, 212. Many modern war criminals have used suicide to cheat justice, eg Adolf Hitler and his officers in 1945 and Serb leader Slobodan Milošević in 2006. Notably, in the wars against Middle Eastern enemies in the early 21st century, the US military considered suicides of prisoners of war a hostile act of “asymmetrical warfare.” Selsky and Loven 2006.

11. Cassius Dio 37.13. Alexander showed great chivalry toward Darius, laying out the body in state, paying for funeral at Persepolis and burial in royal Persian sepulcher: Arrian Anabasis 3.22.1; Plutarch Fortune of Alexander. Høtje 2009b.

12. Appian 113; Cassius Dio 37.14; Plutarch Pompey 42.2–3. Sinope became the new royal residence under Pharnaces I, but the tombs at Amasia were still used, according to Strabo 12.3.29 (a native of Amasia). Archaeological surveys at Sinope: Fleischer 2009. Arslan 2007 assumes Pompey oversaw burial at Sinope. Høtje 2009b reasonably concludes that Appian and Plutarch were wrong about Sinope, since the royal tombs of the Pontic kings were in Amasia, and Pompey and people of Pontus knew M’s ancestors were in Amasia’s rock-cut tombs.

13. Valerius Maximus 4.6.2 (source Cornelius Nepos?). Eutropius 6.12. Reinach 1890, 297, 387. On unique relationship of M and Hypsicratea, see Konstan 2002, 16–17.

14. Ford 2004, 332. Boccaccio, Des cleres et nobles femmes, ca 1450, f. 47v; and Jean Boccace, “Hipsicratee royne de ponce” illustration in Hypsikrateia et Mithridate le grand. Cavalli’s Pompeo Magno, 1666. French views of M, Flinois 1983; Snaith 2007. Inscription at Phanagoria: Bowersock 2008, 600–601, citing Plutarch Pompey 32; Valerius Maximus called her “queen.”

15. Preceding events from Appian 116–17; Josephus Jewish War 1.6.6 and Jewish Antiquities 14.3; Lucan 2; Plutarch Pompey 44–45; Pliny 7.26. Beard 2007.

16. Plutarch Pompey 42. Justin 37.1.6–9. Appian 112. Pliny 25.3.5. Velleius 2.18; Cicero Academica Priora 2.1. After the Mithradatic and Civil Wars, Rome’s taxation policies were more enlightened, and Rome “grew more receptive to eastern ideas,” Sacks 1990, 184.

17. Appian 117. Hellenized “Iranian Alexander,” Rostovtzeff 1919, 95. Pompey was assassinated in Egypt by supporters of his enemy Julius Caesar, in 48 BC.

18. Gaddis 2002; Ferguson 2000. For artistic alternative histories, se Summerer 2009. I thank Michelle Maskiell for suggesting an alternative historical narrative in which M survives; and Deborah Gordon, Ian Morris, and Josh Ober for valuable conversations about the following scenario.

19. Racine 1965; see Goodkin 1986, 204–7; citing remarks of Roland Barthes, Sur Racine (1963) on M’s “elusive” and “double death,” the faked and the real. Mozart’s Mitridate of 1770, Sadie 1972 and “Mozart Mithridate,” L’Avant Scene Opera, special issue, July 1983, essays, photos, and libretto. Political, diplomatic, and emotional intrigues of M’s Pontic Kingdom held strong appeal for Racine and Louis XIV, at a time when armies of the Ottoman Empire of Turkey had marched into Europe (they would besiege Vienna in 1683). See Brèque 1983. McGing 1986, 166 n98. According to Herodotus 1.137, Persians “hold it utterly improbable that a son would ever murder his true father.”

20. See Ch 6 for substitution of M’s son. M presumed dead while in youthful exile, while reconnoitering as king, when he leaped onto a pirate ship in a raging storm, and when he disappeared into the Caucasus. Ptolemy’s ruse, Aelian Historical Miscellany12.64. “Faked celebrity death” conspiracies have fascinated since antiquity; there were postmortem sightings of Nero in the 1st century AD and of Alexander the Great in AD 221: Champlin 2003, 20–24, 235–37, on heroes and antiheroes who “die but return anyway,” eg King Arthur, Adolf Hitler, John Kennedy, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Saddam Hussein.

21. Some consider counterfactuals mere nostalgia for “what might have been” unless they test causation claims. In this alternative outcome, we can show that, despite Pompey’s and Rome’s anxiety, the specific place and time of M’s death, whether in the tower or among the nomads a decade or so later, would not have changed the course of history (thanks to Ian Morris). See Bekker-Nielson 2004 on whether M’s life or death “mattered” in the long run.

22. Appian 112. M pardoned, at the last minute, the Galatian Bepolitanus, believing he was innocent, Ch 10. M’s personality, see Olbrycht 2009 and Bekker-Neilsen 2004.

23. Pharnaces’ revolt and bid to take back his father’s kingdom crushed at Zela, Pontus, 47 BC, by Julius Caesar. The victory was so overwhelming that Caesar reported the result with the celebrated phrase Veni, Vidi, Vici (“I came, I saw, I conquered”). Cassius Dio 37.12–14; 42.7–9 and 42.45–48. Dynamis: Rostovtzeff 1919, esp 98–105, Eder and Renger 2007, 112.

24. M’s relatives who took refuge among the nomads, Rostovtzeff 1919, 104.

25. Achilles and Helen of Troy enjoyed a halcyon afterlife on the legendary White Isle, in the northern Black Sea. West 2003, 162–66.

26. For this Northern European-Scandinavian legend, based on the 9th-century Norse Saga, see Younger Edda 1879, 229–30 and sources cited, esp Paul Henri Mallet’s influential Northern Antiquities (1756), which Gibbon read in 1770. Mallet and Scott 1847, 51. Henri de Tourville, in Histoire de la formation particularise (1903), proposed that the hero Odin was originally based on a historical Scythian chieftain allied with M, a far-traveling caravan leader and warrior, who brought Asian nomad culture to the north, from the city “Asgarda” on the Azov, after M’s death. Thanks to William Hansen for help in tracing this legend’s origins. For a novel based on this legend in the writings of Snorri Sturlason, see Anderson 1960, 275–82. Wordsworth, Prelude (1798–1850), lines 185–89.

27. Ammianus Marcellinus 31.2. King 2004, 33–37. History of Bosporus after M’s and Pharnaces’ deaths, Rostovtzeff 1919.

28. Long-lived Persian ancestors of M: Cyrus the Great said to have died at 100, Artaxerxes at 86 or 94, Mithradates I at 84, and Tigranes the Great at 85, according to Lucian Macrobii (Long Lives) 10–14.

29. Numerous kurgans have been looted and excavated around the Sea of Asov and steppes of south Russia; many more are undiscovered. There is no evidence to support the rumor that Brigadier-General Sir Harry Paget Flashman (1822–1915) discovered the “true grave” of Mithradates in the Crimea in 1854–55.

30. Hypsicrates: Strabo 7.4.6 and 11.5.1–4. Strabo coyly says Hypsicrates was “not unfamiliar” with Amazon customs of Caucasia—if my theory is correct, this was “the historian’s” homeland. Hypsicrates mentioned in Josephus Jewish Antiquities 14.8.3 (as historian of Julius Caesar’s campaigns); fragment in FGrH 190 F 3; Orosius 5.3.5; Lucian Macrobii (Long Lives) 22. Rostovtzeff 1919, 103 and n28. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors 1.220; and Oxford Classical Dictionary sv (freed by Caesar when he took Amisus); Pauly-Wissowa sv. Did Hypsicrates give M’s antidote to Caesar’s doctor Aelius?

31. Battling the tide of history: M “was an anachronism,” McGing 1986, 171. Racine (1673) 1965, act 3, scene 1, lines 929–34, my translation. These words are spoken to M by his sons before his death.