Mithridates VI, circa 88-85 BC
- sulla80
- 6 hours ago
- 9 min read
Over the last decade or so my collection has been growing from an interest in the late Roman Republican period - with Sulla and the events of the 80s BC as the seed for the collection. A portrait coin of Mithridates has been on my list for most of that time - and I haven't been willing to commit to the price for a tetradrachm of Mithridates VI. Mithridates VI ruled Pontus from 120 to 63 BCE and built a power that, for a time, posed a signiticant challenge to Roman dominance in Asia Minor. Today's coin fills the gap.
You say "Mithri" I say "Mithra"
The first challenge in writing about Mithridates is - how do I spell his name. There are many references using Mithradates, and I will consistently use Mithridates, influenced by the Greek spelling Μιθριδάτης, however both are interchageable. The name is not originally Greek, it is Persian, Miθra-dāta, meaning "given by Mithra" (the Persian solar deity). Auction catalogs typically use Mithradates, while most historians writing in English prefer Mithridates.
The Poison King
Where does the Poison King epithet come from (besides Andrenne Mayer's book)? Mithridates' father died by poisoning at a banquet and Laodice VI, his mother, was a suspect in the poisoning. Mithridates from an early age had good reason to fear poisoning - and studied poisons for defensive and offensive use.
Mithridates is recognized as the first experimental toxicologist for his extensive investigations into a vast number of poisons and antidotes. Fearing assassination by poison, he gathered a team of botanists, physicians, and shamans seeking to create a “universal antidote” that would protect him from all poisons.
-Mayor, Adrienne. Mithridates of Pontus and His Universal AntidoteThe modern explanation for his acquired resistance to poisoning is enzymatic activation or metabolic functional changes. Today this is called mithridatism. A.E. Houseman put Mithridates in verse:
The Coin
Ionia, Smyrna Bronze circa 88-85, Æ 25.00 mm., 13.28 g. Hermogenes and Phrixos magistrates.
Obv: Diademed head of Mithridates VI right
Rev: ZMYPNAIΩN right, ERMOGENHΣ ΦPIXOΣ left, Nike walking right, holding wreath in right hand, palm over left shoulder
Ref: de Callatay 293. Milne 340.
Notes: Very rare. Good Very fine. From the Dr. W. R. collection (a large collection auctioned by Kuenker). Here are some past auction photos for this coin.
This coin comes with a story of Smyrna caught between empires, Rome and the Pontic king who presented himself as a liberator.
The Setting
Smyrna occupied an advantageous position in the ancient Aegean. On the slopes and shoreline near Mount Pagos, at the head of the Smyrnaean Gulf, the city was the principal port for the Hermus valley, from which the wealth of Lydia descended to the sea.
Strabo (Geography 14.1.37), writing in the following century, described Smyrna as among the finest cities of Asia Minor.
"After Smyrna had been rased by the Lydians, its inhabitants continued for about four hundred years to live in villages. Then they were reassembled into a city by Antigonus, and afterwards by Lysimachus, and their city is now the most beautiful of all; a part of it is on a mountain and walled, but the greater part of it is in the plain near the harbour and near the Metroüm and near the gymnasium."In 133 BC, when the last Attalid king, Attalus III, died and bequeathed his kingdom to Rome, Smyrna became part of the new Roman province of Asia. For roughly forty years before our coin was struck, the city had lived under Roman provincial administration. Those decades were prosperous for Roman creditors and tax-farming publicani, operating on 5-year contracts. The province of Asia was systematically exploited: the tax burden created anger that would have consequences.
The Expansion of Pontus
Lucius Cornelius Sulla and Mithridates VI of Pontus clashed over the support of Capadoccia (circa 94 BC). A few years later, 89 BC, Rome was preoccupied with the Social War against its Italian allies, its military resources were strained and its attention divided. Mithridates VI, king of Pontus, who controlled a formidable army and a sprawling kingdom around the Black Sea, decided to take advantage of a distracted Rome. He swept through Bithynia and Phrygia, defeated the outnumbered Roman forces in Asia, and by early 88 had extended his control to the Aegean coastline.
The Asiatic Vespers
What followed was a horrific massacre that reshaped the history of Rome and Asia. At a prearranged signal, on a single day in the first half of 88, communities throughout the Roman province of Asia turned on their Roman and Italian residents. Appian, writing two and a half centuries later but drawing on earlier accounts, reports the number of dead at 80,000; Plutarch gives the higher figure of 150,000, both of which have been questioned by modern historians . Whatever the precise death toll, the event was significant. Smyrna, like most of the Ionian cities, came under Pontic control in the aftermath of this upheaval.
The animosity towards the Romans was fuels by years of predatory tax farming. The Roman publicani (tax collectors) were notorious for their corruption and extortion, plundering the region's wealth and driving many into poverty or debt slavery. Roman merchants and money lenders often exacerbated the problem with predatory loans. Mithridates established Pergamum as his headquarters. Appian says that Mithridates offered Greek cities freedom, cancelled debts in some places, granted citizenship to resident foreigners, and freed slaves, and promoted himself as the champion of Greek freedom against Roman exploitation
The First Mithridatic War
Preparing for war, Sulla & Marius clashed in Rome and ultimately Sulla led the Roman response - leaving a cesspool of political damage behind. Sulla defeated the Mithridatic forces in Greece at Chaeronea and Orchomenus. However, Sulla’s need to return home to confront his domestic enemies pushed him toward negotiation, and in 85 BCE he concluded the Treaty of Dardanus. The treaty restored Roman control in Asia minor while allowing Mithridates to remain king of Pontus.
Sulla's own men were not pleased with the outcome, according to Plutarch (Sulla Lives 24.4)
"But Sulla perceived that his soldiers were incensed at the peace which he had made; they thought it a terrible thing to see the most hostile of kings, who had caused one hundred and fifty thousand of the Romans in Asia to be massacred in a single day to go sailing off with wealth and spoils from Asia, which he had for four years continued to plunder and levy taxes on. He therefore defended himself to them by saying that he would not have been able to carry on war with Mithridates and Fimbria too, if they had both joined forces against him."Appian provides an account of Sulla's speech at the conclusion of the Treaty - where Sulla lists the crimes of Mithridates against Rome.
It was within this political atmosphere that Smyrna issued its bronze coinage bearing the Pontic king's portrait.
The Bitter End
The story of Smyrna under Mithridates did not end comfortably for the king. Later in the war, Smyrna was among the Ionian cities that revolted against Pontic control. After the Roman province of Asia was re-established, Smyrna was granted privileges and honors for having sided with the Romans in the war against Mithridates.
Strabo descibes an example of offensive poisoning (circa 67-65 BC) with "mad honey" which is honey that comes from bees that feed on Rhododendron flowers, which contain grayanotoxins. These toxins interfere with sodium channels in the body causing Dizziness, disorientation, nausea, vomiting, low blood pressure, slow heart rate, hallucinations, and in severe cases, death. The Heptacometae were a mountain tribe living in the dense forested highlands of Pontus.
The Heptacometae cut down three maniples of Pompey's army when they were passing through the mountainous country; for they mixed bowls of the crazing honey which is yielded by the tree-twigs, and placed them in the roads, and then, when the soldiers drank the mixture and lost their senses, they attacked them and easily disposed of them.
Strabo< Geography, XII.3 In the third and final conflict with Rome, at the Battle of the Lycus River (66 BC), Pompey routed what remained of Mithridates' army in a night attack, inflicting a defeat from which Pontus never recovered. Mithridates fled across the Black Sea to the Bosporan Kingdom (modern Crimea), which was ruled by his son Machares. Mithridates killed his son, who had allied with Rome, and took the throne.
Pharnaces II, another son of Mithridates, saw that submission to Rome offered a viable future, and rrebelled. Mithridates was enventually cornered with no remaining support and poetically failed to kill himself with poison. When poison failed, he prevailed upon his trusted office Bituitus to kill him, and Bituitus ended the life of Mithridates VI. Appian gives Mithridates poetic last words:
Although I've kept watch and ward against all the poisons that one takes with his food, I have not provided against that domestic poison, always the most dangerous to kings, the treachery of army, children, and friends."
- Appian, Mithridatic Wars, XXIII 111References
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