Description

Rome faced many formidable enemies over the course of nearly 1000 years but perhaps none were as enigmatic and forgotten as King Mithridates VI of Pontus Despite numerous ancient sources detailing the life of the foreign monarch and his wars with Rome and despite being an interesting character who endured years as a fugitive in his youth enjoyed a fascination with poisons and held mercy and pragmatic ruthlessness in a delicate balance very few scholarly books and works have been produced about the king It may be that his largely unsuccessful military campaigns have contributed to his disappearance from active historical examination but despite his poor record in engagements against the Romans the Kingdom of Pontus dominated much of Asia Minor in the 1st century BCE and the Romans themselves considered the kingdom one of its most dangerous enemies According to Plutarch when Mithridates died the Roman soldiers felt that in the person of Mithridates ten thousand enemies had died By then it had required three of Romes most famous generals Sulla Lucullus and Pompey to finally subdue his kingdom