Product Description

A military biography of Mithridates VI `the Great' of Pontus, Rome's most persistent enemy. The Mithridiatic wars stretched over half a century and two continents, and have a fascinating cast of pirates, rebels, turncoats and poisoners (though an unfortunate lack of heroes with untarnished motives). There are pitched battles, epic sieges, double-crosses and world-class political conniving, assassinations and general treachery. Through it all, the story is built about the dominant character of Mithridates, connoisseur of poisons, arch-schemer and strategist; resilient in defeat, savage and vindictive in victory. Almost by definition, this book will break new ground, in that nothing has been written on Mithridates for the general public for almost half a century, though scholarly journals have been adding a steady trickle of new evidence, which is drawn upon here.

Few enough leaders went to war with Rome and lived long to tell the tale, but in the first half of the first century BC, Mithridates did so three times. At the high point of his career his armies swept the Romans out of Asia Minor and Greece, reversing a century of Roman expansion in the region. Even once fortune had turned against him he would not submit. Upto the day he died, a fugitive drive to suicide by the treachery of his own son, he was still planning an overland invasion of Roman itself.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #65190 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 208 pages

Customer Reviews

Persistent, implacable but an ultimate failure
This book, Matyszak states, "aims to make Mithradates [Mithradates VI Eupator of Pontus b 134 BC, d 63 BC] accessible to a more general readership." In terms of killing, family murders, epic battles on land and sea, political treachery, duplicitous politics and diplomacy et al this is hard-core brutal history. The book charts a persistent 25 year conflict, as much a diplomatic chess puzzle as military campaign. Some may see Mithradates as a bastion to the greed of Roman imperialism, but he was a cruel predator. Don't look for gallantry, or glory, in this story.

The events take place in Asia Minor, Greece, the Black Sea and Anatolia. Mithradates decided to confront Roman expansionism while advancing his own teritorial ambtions. Starting with a pogrom where estimates suggest between 50-150,000 Roman civillians (Asiatic Vespers, 88BC) were slaughtered. Mithradates ensured there would be no going back - 'Jacta alea est' perhaps! Yet relations could be subtle, the dead could always be walked over by the Generals. The First Mithridatic War was fought between 88 BC and 84 BC, where Sulla forced Mithradates from Greece and wasthen replaced the less impressive Murena. A transitory peace was broken by Rome. The Second Mithridatic War from 83 BC to 81 BC resulted in another cease fire after the Romans suffered several tactical defeats. But no one ever knew how to loose in these bloody wars! Mithradates rebuilt his forces, and when Rome attempted to conquer Bithynia, attacked with a larger army leading to the Third War 73 BC to 63 BC. First Lucullus and then Pompey were sent against the failing King, who retreated to his heartland of Pontus. He was finally defeated by Pompey (who was took rather more credit than he was entitled). Mithradates met a tepid demise, a sons betrayal inducing his suicide.

The most interesting aspect - hypothesis - advanced by Matyszak is that Mithradates cleverly calculated that Rome's extremity was his opportunity. He saw the upstart empire about to implode with the Social War (91-88BC), the Spartacus slave rebellion which came close to disembowelling Rome from the countryside and Sulla's (the Civil War with Marius) dictatorship seeing the Roman elite tearing at each other's throats. Even the seas were conspiring, riddled with pirates. "Rome was a colossus besieged on all sides." It is not hard to see why Mithradates calculated Rome was in its death throws and his time had come. This assumed a timely and comprehensive understanding of "geo-political events". Was Mithradates actaully making, was he able to make, such very sophisticated strategic calculations?

Roman nightmares were populated by demons, Gaul's from the north, Hannibal from the South via the Alps, and from the East Mithradates. The King of Pontus was an implacable and persistent opponent who knew how to cut throats and dupe diplomats but was never a fundamental threat to Rome. As ever we are cheated, history was belatedly written by the Romans and their less literate opponent's version obliterated or lost. Was Mithradates "Great"? Yes, in the sense that the First World War was "Great". It is an epitaph. He was persistent, the fighting ultimately pointless, the cost appalling. This is a useful book, a good orientation to the events while presenting the facts in a tidy manner. Matyszak makes one too many witty one liners which are tedious, a good editor would have helped.

He Died Old
Mithridates king of Pontus and enemy of Rome was an interesting mixture of cultures; Iranian clan chief and Greek king. His long life and numerous campaigns against Rome must surely tip him beyond even Hannibal as a dangerous enemy; to the last he is storied to have been plotting Danubian invasions of Italy.

Given the limits of the remaining texts and the suspicion that Roman sources ramped up enemy strength there must be many limits to our understanding of the period of Mithridates but this book provides a good summary, with some interesting battle reconstructions, of what we can say. And it is a remarkable tale of cunning, ambition and courage. The brutality of Rome (forget all that civilisation nonsense) and of the Asian Vespers in which large numbers of Italians were slaughtered in a pogrom make that distant world all too understandable.