The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History's 100 Worst Atrocities by Matthew White Read Free Book Online

candidates eventually learned it was worth the cost to have their supporters carted in from distant communities for the election season, and in time it became quite a rowdy holiday. 2

THIRD MITHRIDATIC WAR

     
Death toll: 400,000 at least 1
Rank: 81
Type: hegemonial war
Broad dividing line: Rome vs. Pontus
Time frame: 73–63 BCE
Location: Asia Minor (modern Turkey)
Who usually gets the most blame: Mithridates
Another damn: Roman conquest

     
    A FTER THE CARTHAGINIANS, THE KINGDOM OF PONTUS, WHICH ENCIRCLED much of the Black Sea and had its capital at Sinope on the north coast of Asia Minor, put up the most stubborn resistance to Roman expansion.
    Prelude: The First Mithridatic War (89–85 BCE)
     
    While the Romans were busy with the revolt of the allies in Italy, King Mithridates of Pontus took advantage of the distraction to encroach on the Roman sphere of influence in the east. After he overran Rome’s allied kingdoms of Bithynia (to the west) and Cappadocia (to the south), their refugee kings convinced the Romans to come to their rescue. As soon as the Romans declared war, however, the Pontic army occupied the Roman province of Asia (the western edge of present-day Turkey). Mithridates ordered all Italians living in these lands—80,000 merchants, sailors, travelers, family members, even Italian-born slaves—killed and their property seized.
    Mithridates crossed over to Greece for another easy conquest until Rome solved its problem with the Italian allies and retaliated. Lucius Cornelius Sulla—now a Roman consul—arrived and beat the Pontics in several battles, killing over 150,000 of them; 2 however, the terms of peace he imposed on Mithridates were light because Sulla wanted to get home quickly and shore up his power base in Rome.
    To pay for new armies, the warring sides looted the holiest shrines in Greece. Mithridates plundered the island of Delos, birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, while Rome plundered the Oracle at Delphi and Olympia, site of the Olympic Games. Each army hauled away cartloads of precious art to be auctioned for hard cash. 3
    Second Mithridatic War (83–82 BCE)
     
    The Second Mithridatic War was a border skirmish and hardly worth mentioning except that you would probably be confused if the story jumped from the first to the third war without an explanation. Mithridates started rebuilding his army in order to put down some local rebellions, but the local Roman commander thought this new manpower was going to be directed against Rome. After the first clashes, however, they settled the problem diplomatically.
    Third—and Deadliest—Mithridatic War (73–63 BCE)
     
    By now, most kings in the Mediterranean had come to terms with the fact that Rome was in charge. They cleared every major policy decision with their Roman ambassador first. Monarchs without sons sometimes went further and simply left their kingdoms to Rome in their wills, but when the king of Bithynia bequeathed his kingdom to Rome, Mithridates declared the will a Roman forgery and occupied Bithynia again. He expected that the Romans would be too busy chasing Spartacus to stop him.
    The Roman Senate dispatched Lucius Licinius Lucullus to fix the Pontic problem, but when he arrived, he found the local Roman forces to be an undisciplined rabble in no condition for a hard campaign. He took some time whipping them into shape, but this left another Roman commander in the area, Marcus Aurelius Cotta, on his own to be defeated at Chalcedon and besieged at Cyzicus by Mithridates. With an army that was still barely trained, Lucullus marched out and scared the Pontics into abandoning the siege.
    In the subsequent campaign, Lucullus systematically destroyed the Pontic army and overran Asia Minor. Mithridates fled east to his son-in-law, King Tigranes of Armenia, who refused Roman extradition requests. In 69 BCE, Lucullus fought his way into Armenia by way of upper Mesopotamia with a campaign that killed about 100,000 Armenians. The fortune