Mithridates the Great by Philip Matyszak Read Free Book Online Page B

empire,where was the new territory going to come from? The Romans, whilst helping themselves to the spoils of Asia (as they termed their new acquisition of Pergamum), kept a jealous eye on the balance of power amongst their new neighbours. From the Roman point of view, the westernmost borders of over-powerful Pontus had been trimmed back, and the kingdom had borne the humiliation with commendable fortitude. A major war in the west was only going to happen over strong Roman objections, and with Rome itself taking sides against the aggressor. Perhaps a coalition of all the powers in Asia Minor might have been able to deprive Rome of its possessions in the region, but for a herd of country bumpkins the Romans were proving annoyingly good at diplomacy. Anyone attempting to take on Rome would almost certainly suffer the fate of Aristonicus, with the other powers of Asia Minor piling in on the Roman side for whatever rewards they could get. Mithridates was probably sophisticated enough to recognize tactics of divide and conquer when he saw them in operation, but he was neither militarily strong enough in his own kingdom nor diplomatically trusted enough among his neighbours to be able to do anything about it.
    The only alternative was to take advantage of the Roman obsession with the status quo. If Rome would not permit Pontus’ rivals to attack him from the west, Mithridates could rely on the Pax Romana to secure that flank of the kingdom while the military power of Pontus was deployed elsewhere. South was Cappadocia, satisfactorily cowed at present, and anyway, another area where Rome frowned on explicit interference. East was Armenia. Mithridates and his advisers probably contemplated this rich and growing kingdom with predatory interest. But Armenia was hard to invade and easy to defend, closely linked with Parthia, and currently a useful buffer between Pontus and the expansionist Parthian empire.
    However, if Armenia was a sleeping dog best left to lie, there was still Armenia Minor. For generations Armenia Minor had been subject to Pontus without really being part of it. It lay snuggled between northeast Cappadocia, Armenia proper and southeast Pontus. Not only was it a rich area with an excellent supply of cavalry, but it offered access to the lands on the eastern shores of the Black Sea, especially the legendary lands of Colchis, north of Armenia. And it had probably occurred to Mithridates that if Pontus did not get established in Colchis, then the Armenians would probably get around to doing so, either by themselves or at the prompting of their Parthian suzerains.
    In consequence, probably some time around 115 BC, Mithridates sent a large army to the borders of Armenia Minor, and politely asked Antipater, the current ruler, to hand over the kingdom. 2 Antipater wisely did so withoutfighting. In later years Armenia Minor was to become a Mithridatid redoubt, a fortress-studded corner of the kingdom to which Mithridates fell back when life became too perilous in the west. Probably with the same expedition and the same army with which he annexed Armenia Minor, Mithridates next descended on the port of Trapezus, of which Pontus had long been suzerain and protector. It was suggested that the citizens of Trapezus could be better protected (for example, from large armies camped nearby) if they were fully enrolled citizens of Pontus and, unsurprisingly, the citizens agreed.
    Having tidied up his southeastern and eastern borders, Mithridates found that the north literally demanded his attention. Those doing the demanding were Greeks from the Tauric Chersonese, the area known today as the Crimea. The Greeks had been in the Crimea for a long time, as indeed they had been in the whole Black Sea region (they called the Black Sea ‘Pontus Euxinus’ - ‘the friendly sea’). For many years, the cities of the Chersonese had played a valuable role in the ancient economy. Not sharing the same Mediterranean climate as many other Greek