No More Learning

The history of Rome; tr. with the sanction of the author by William
Purdie Dickson.
Mommsen, Theodor, 1817-1903. New York, Scribner, 1905.
http://hdl. handle. net/2027/coo. 31924014688380
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THE HISTORY OF ROME
MOMMSEN
THE
HISTORY OF ROME
BY THEODOR MOMMSEN
TRANSLATED
WITH THE SANCTION OF THE AUTHOR
BY
WILLIAM PURDIE DICKSON, D. D. , LL. D. PROFESSOR OF DlVlNl" "I TH! UNIVIRSITY 0F GLASGOW
A NEW EDITION REVISED THROUGHOUT AND EMBODYING RECENT ADDITIONS
VOL. IV
NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S
1905
T RM
SONS
lkd1~rvd :DGPj’Iy
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Anni-x S’s-O
A
CONTENTS
BOOK FOURTH THE REVOLUTION--—C0ntinued
CHAPTER VIII Tn: EAST AND KING MITHRADATES .
CHAPTER IX CINNA AND SULLA . . .
CHAPTER X THE SULLAN CONSTITUTION . .
CHAPTER XI Tm: Counouwnm‘n AND rrs Economy
PAGI 3
56
97
.
CHAPTER XII
NATIONALITY, RELIGION, AND EDUCATION v . .
CHAPTER XIII Lmu'runAND ART. . . . . .
189
219
. . .
. . .
. . .
. .
. 1 53
Vl
CONTENTS
BOOK FIFTH
THE ESTABLIS‘HMENT OF THE MILITARY MONARCHY
CHAPTER I MARCUS LEPIDUS AND QUINTUS SERToRws .
CHAPTER II RULE OF THE SULLAN REsToRAT1oN .
PAGE . . 263
CHAPTER III
THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY AND THE RULE OF PoMPEws
CHAPTER IV
POMPEIUS AND THE EAST . . . . - .
CHAPTER V
. .
305
370
400
453
492
THE STRUGGLE 0F PARTIES DURING THE ABSENCE OF PoMPEws. . . . . . .
CHAPTER VI
RETIREMENT 0F POMPEIUS AND COALITION OF THE PRE TENDERs . . . . ’ . . .
VOL. IV
IOI
BOOK FOURTH
THE REVOLUTION Continued
¢‘\
CHAPTER VIII
m EAST AND KING MITHRADATB
THE state of breathless excitement, in which the revolution State of kept the Roman government by perpetually renewing the the East. alarm of fire and the cry to quench made them lose sight
of provincial matters generally; and that most of all in the
case of the Asiatic lands, whose remote and unwarlike nations did not thrust themselves so directly on the atten
tion of the government as Africa, Spain, and its Transalpine neighbours. After the annexation of the kingdom of Attalus, which took place contemporaneously with the outbreak of the revolution, for whole generation there
hardly any evidence of Rome taking serious part in Oriental affairs—with the exception of the establishment
of the province of Cilicia in 652 (iii. 382), to which the 10’ Romans were driven by the boundless audacity of the Cilician pirates, and which was in reality nothing more than the institution of permanent station for small division of the Roman army and fleet in the eastern waters.
It was not till the downfall of Marius in 654 had in some 100. measure consolidated the government of the restoration,
that the Roman authorities began anew to bestow some attention on the events in the east.
In many respects matters still stood as they had done Eml thirty years ago. The kingdom of Egypt with its two
a
a
a
a
is
it,
96.
4
THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES B00K 1V
appendages ot Cyrene and Cyprus was broken up, partly 117. dejure, partly dc fizcto, on the death of Eutxgetes II. (637), Cyrene went to his natural son, Ptolemaeus Apion, and
was for ever separated from Egypt. The sovereignty of
the latter formed a subject of contention between the 89. widow of the last king Cleopatra (1'v665), and his two sons
81. 88. Soter II. Lathyrus 673) and Alexander
which gave occasion to Cyprus also to separate itself for
Cyrene Roman.
considerable period from Egypt. The Romans did not interfere in these complications; in fact, when the 96. Cyrenaean kingdom fell to them in 658 by the testament of the childless king Apion, while not directly rejecting the acquisition, they left the country in substance to itself by
declaring the Greek towns of the kingdom, Cyrene, Ptolemais, and Berenice, free cities and even handing over to them the use of the royal domains. The supervision of the governor of Africa over this territory was from its remoteness merely nominal, far more so than that of the governor of Macedonia over the Hellenic free cities. The
of this measure—which beyond doubt originated not in Philhellenism, but‘simply in the weakness
and negligence of the Roman government—were sub
consequences
similar to those which had occurred under the like circumstances in Hellas; civil wars and usurpations so rent the land that, when Roman oflicer of rank accident
86. ally made his appearance there in 668, the inhabitants urgently besought him to regulate their affairs and to establish permanent government among them.
In Syria also during the interval there had not been much change, and still less any improvement. During the twenty years’ war of succession between the two half-brothers
95. Antiochus Grypus and Antiochus of Cyzicus 59), which after their death was inherited by their sons, the kingdom which was the object of contention became almost an empty name, inasmuch as the Cilician sea-kings, the
stantially
666);
(1'
6 5
(1'
8)
a
(1' 6
I. (1'
a
a
CHAP- V! ! ! THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES
5
Arab sheiks of the Syrian desert, the princes of the Jews, and the magistrates of the larger towns had ordinarily more to say than the wearers of the diadem. Meanwhile the Romans established themselves in western Cilicia, and the important Mesopotamia passed over definitively to the Par thians.
The monarchy of the Arsacids had to pass through a dangerous crisis about the time of the Gracchi, chiefly in
The Parthian state.
of the inroads of Turanian tribes. The ninth Arsacid, Mithradates II. or the Great (63o P~667 had recovered for the state its position of ascendency in the
interior of Asia, repulsed the Scythians, and advanced the
frontier of the kingdom towards Syria and Armenia; but
towards the end of his life new troubles disturbed his reign
and, while the grandees of the kingdom including his own
brother Orodes rebelled against the king and at length that
brother overthrew him and had put him to death, the hitherto unimportant Armenia rose into power. This Armenll.
which since its declaration of independence (ii. 473) had been divided into the north-eastern portion or Armenia proper, the kingdom of the Artaxiads, and the south-westem or Sophene, the kingdom of the Zariadrids, was for the first time united into one kingdom the Artaxiad Tigranes (who had reigned since 660); and this
doubling of his power on the one hand, and the weakness of the Parthian rule on the other, enabled the new king of all Armenia not only to free himself from dependence on the Parthians and to recover the provinces formerly ceded to them, but even to bring to Armenia the titular supremacy of Asia, as had passed from the Achaemenids to the Seleucids and from the Seleucids to the Arsacids.
Lastly in Asia Minor the territorial arrangements, which Asia had been made under Roman influence after the dissolution Minor. of the kingdom of Attalus (iii. :80), still subsisted in the
main unchanged. In the condition of the dependent states
consequence
country,
124-87.
it
by
P),
;
Mithn dates
Eupator.
1 80438.
6 THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES 300x IV
—the kingdoms of Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pontus, the prin cipalities of Paphlagonia and Galatia, the numerous city leagues and free towns—no outward change was at first discernible. But, intrinsically, the character of the Roman rule had certainly undergone everywhere a material altera- tion. Partly through the constant growth of oppression naturally incident to every tyrannic government, partly through the indirect operation of the Roman revolution— in the seizure, for instance, of the property of the soil in the province of Asia by Gaius Gracchus, in the Roman tenths and customs, and in the human hunts which the collectors of the revenue added to their other avocations there—the Roman rule, barely tolerable even from the first, pressed so heavily on Asia that neither the crown of the king nor the hut of the peasant there was any longer safe from confiscation, that every stalk of corn seemed to grow for the Roman decumanur, and every child of free parents seemed to be born for the Roman slave-drivers. It is true that the Asiatic bore even this torture with his inexhaustible passive endurance; but it was not patience and reflection that made him bear it peacefully. It was rather the peculiarly Oriental lack of initiative; and in these peaceful lands, amidst these effeminate nations,
strange and terrible things might happen, it once there should appear among them a man who knew how to give the signal for revolt.
There reigned at that time in the kingdom of Pontus Mithradates VI. surnamed Eupator (born about 624, t 691) who traced back his lineage on the father’s side in the six teenth generation to king Darius the son of Hystaspes and
in the eighth to Mithradates I. the founder of the Pontic kingdom, and was on the mother’s side descended from the Alexandrids and the Seleucids. After the early death of his father Mithradates Euergetes, who fell by the hand of an assassin at Sinope, he had received the title of king
CHAP- vm THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES
7
about 634, when a boy of eleven years of age; but the 110. diadem brought to him only trouble and danger. His guardians, and even as it would seem his own mother called to take a part in the government by his father’s will, conspired against the boy-king's life. It is said that, in order to escape from the daggers of his legal protectors, he became of his own accord a wanderer, and during seven years, changing his resting-place night after night, a fugitive
in his own kingdom, led the homeless life of a hunter. Thus the boy grew into a powerful man. Although our accounts regarding him are in substance traceable to written records of contemporaries, yet the legendary tradi tion, which is generated in the east with the rapidity of lightning, early adorned the mighty king with many of the traits of its Samsons and Rustems. These traits, how ever, belong to the character, just as the crown of clouds belongs to the character of the highest mountain-peaks; the outlines of the figure appear in both cases only more coloured and fantastic, not disturbed or essentially altered. The armour, which fitted the gigantic frame of king Mithra dates, excited the wonder of the Asiatics and still more that of the Italians. As a runner he overtook the swiftest deer; as a rider he broke in the wild steed, and was able by changing horses to accomplish 120 miles in a day; as a charioteer he drove with sixteen in hand, and gained in competition many a prize—it was dangerous, no doubt, in such sport to carry of victory from the king. In hunting on horseback, he hit the game at full gallop and never missed his aim. He challenged competition at table also —he arranged banqueting matches and carried off in person the prizes proposed for the most substantial eater and the hardest drinker—and not less so in the pleasures of the harem, as was shown among other things by the licentious letters of his Greek mistresses, which were found among his papers. His intellectual wants he satisfied by the
8 THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES BOOK 1v
wildest superstition—the interpretation of dreams and the Greek mysteries occupied not a few of the king’s hours and by a rude adoption of Hellenic civilization. He was fond of Greek art and music; that is to say, he collected
articles, rich furniture, old Persian and Greek objects of luxury—his cabinet of rings was famous—he had constantly Greek historians, philosophers, and poets in his train, and proposed prizes at his court-festivals not only for the greatest eaters and drinkers, but also for the merriest jester and the best singer. Such was the man ; the sultan corresponded. In the east, where the relation between the ruler and the ruled bears the character of natural rather than of moral law, the subject resembles the dog alike in
fidelity and in falsehood, the ruler is cruel and distrustful. In both respects Mithradates has hardly been surpassed.
By his orders there died or pined in perpetual captivity for real or alleged treason his mother, his brother, his sister espoused to him, three of his sons and as many of his daughters. Still more revolting perhaps is the fact, that among his secret papers were found sentences of death,
drawn up beforehand, against several of his most con fidential servants. In like manner it was a genuine trait of the sultan, that he afterwards, for the mere purpose of
from his enemies the trophies of victory, caused his two Greek wives, his sister and his whole harem to be put to death, and merely left to the women the choice of the mode of dying. He prosecuted the experi mental study of poisons and antidotes as an important branch of the business of government, and tried to inure his body to particular poisons. He had early learned to look for treason and assassination at the hands of every body and especially of his nearest relatives, and he had
early learned to practise them against everybody and most of all against those nearest to him ; of which the necessary consequence—attested by all his history-—was, that all his
precious
withdrawing
CHAP. VIII THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES 9
undertakings finally miscarried through the perfidy of those whom he trusted. At the same time we dcubtless meet with isolated traits of high-minded justice: when he punished traitors, he ordinarily spared those who had become involved in the crime simply from their personal relations with the leading culprit; but such fits of equity are not wholly wanting in every barbarous tyrant. What really distinguishes Mithradates amidst the multitude of similar sultans, is his boundless activity. He disappeared one fine morning from his palace and remained unheard of for months, so that he was given over as lost; when he returned, he had wandered incognito through all western Asia and reconnoitred everywhere the country and the people. In like manner he was not only in general a man of fluent speech, but he administered justice to each of the twenty-two nations over which he ruled in its own language without needing an interpreter—a trait significant of the versatile ruler of the many-tongued east. His whole activity as a ruler bears the same character. So far as we know
(for our authorities are unfortunately altogether silent as to his internal administration) his energies, like those of every other sultan, were spent in collecting treasures, in assem bling armies—which were usually, in his earlier years at least, led against the enemy not by the king in person, but by some Greek £0na'0tz‘z'ere—in efforts to add new satrapies to the old. Of higher elements—desire to advance civiliza tion, earnest leadership of the national opposition, special gifts of genius-there are found, in our traditional accounts at least, no distinct traces in Mithradates, and we have no reason to place him on a level even with the great rulers of the Osmans, such as Mohammed II. and Suleiman. Notwithstanding his Hellenic culture, which sat on him not much better than the Roman armour sat on his Cappa docians, he was throughout an Oriental of the ordinary stamp, coarse, full of the most sensual appetites, super
IO THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES BOOK IV
stitious, cruel, perfidious, and unscrupulous, but so vigorous in organization, so powerful in physical endowments, that his defiant laying about him and his unshaken courage in resistance look frequently like talent, sometimes even like genius. Granting that during the death-struggle of the re public it was easier to offer resistance to Rome than in the times of Scipio or Trajan, and that it was only the complica tion of the Asiatic events with the internal commotions of Italy which rendered it possible for Mithradates to resist the Romans twice as long as J'ugurtha did, it remains neverthe less true that before the Parthian wars he was the only enemy who gave serious trouble to the Romans in the east, and that he defended himself against them as the lion of the desert defends himself against the hunter. Still we are not entitled, in accordance with what we know, to recognize in him more than the resistance to be expected from so vigorous a nature.
But, whatever judgment we may form as to the individual character of the king, his historical position remains in a high degree significant. The Mithradatic wars formed at once the last movement of the political opposition offered by Hellas to Rome, and the beginning of a revolt against the Roman supremacy resting on very different and far deeper grounds of antagonism—the national reaction of the Asiatics against the Occidentals. The empire of Mithradates was, like himself, Oriental; polygamy and the system of the harem prevailed at court and generally among persons of rank ; the religion of the inhabitants of the country as well as the official religion of the court was pre-eminently the old national worship; the Hellenism there was little different from the Hellenism of the Armenian Tigra nids and the Arsacids of the Parthian empire. The Greeks of Asia Minor might imagine for a brief moment that they had found in this king a support for their political dreams ; his battles were really fought for matters very different from those which were decided on the fields of
CHAP. VIII THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES I1
Magnesia and Pydna. They formed—after a long truce— a new passage in the huge duel between the west and the east, which has been transmitted from the conflicts at Marathon to the present generation and will perhaps reckon its future by thousands of years as it has reckoned its past.
Manifest however as is the foreign and un-Hellenic cha The
racter of the whole life and action of the Cappadocian king, nationali ties of
it is diflicult definitely to specify the national element pre Asia
in nor will research perhaps ever succeed in Minor. getting beyond generalities or in attaining clear views on
this point. In the whole circle of ancient civilization there
no region where the stocks subsisting side by side or cross ing each other were so numerous, so heterogeneous, so variously from the remotest times intermingled, and where in consequence the relations of the nationalities were less clear than in Asia Minor. The Semitic population continued in an unbroken chain from Syria to Cyprus and Cilicia, and to the original stock of the population along the west coast in the regions of Caria and Lydia seems also to havc belonged, while the north-western point was occupied by the Bithynians, who were akin to the Thracians in Europe. The
interior and the north coast, on the other hand, were filled chiefly Indo-Germanic peoples most nearly cognate to the
ponderating
Iranian. In the case of the Armenian and languages1 ascertained, in that of the Cappadocian
highly probable, that they had immediate aflinity with the Zend and the statement made as to the Mysians, that
among them the Lydian and Phrygian languages met, just denotes mixed Semitic-Iranian population that may be compared perhaps with that of Assyria. As to the regions stretching between Cilicia and Caria, more especially Lydia, there still, notwithstanding the full remains of the native
The words quoted as Phrygian Ba-yaTos=Zeus and the old royal name Mdns have been beyond doubt correctly referred to the Zend bagluz=God and the Germanic Murmur, Indian Mama (Lassen, leimbnftderdeumbcn morgmldnd. Gudhcbafl, voL x. p. 329 L).
Phrygian
1
is
is
is
; a
it
it is
it,
it
by
Pontus.
language and writing that are in this particular instance extant, a want of assured results, and it is merely probable that these tribes ought to be reckoned among the Indo Germans rather than the Semites. How all this confused mass of peoples was overlaid first with a net of Greek mercantile cities, and then with the Hellenism called into life by the military as well as intellectual ascendency ot the Greek nation, has been set forth in outline already.
In the condition of the dependent states
consequence
country,
124-87.
it
by
P),
;
Mithn dates
Eupator.
1 80438.
6 THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES 300x IV
—the kingdoms of Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pontus, the prin cipalities of Paphlagonia and Galatia, the numerous city leagues and free towns—no outward change was at first discernible. But, intrinsically, the character of the Roman rule had certainly undergone everywhere a material altera- tion. Partly through the constant growth of oppression naturally incident to every tyrannic government, partly through the indirect operation of the Roman revolution— in the seizure, for instance, of the property of the soil in the province of Asia by Gaius Gracchus, in the Roman tenths and customs, and in the human hunts which the collectors of the revenue added to their other avocations there—the Roman rule, barely tolerable even from the first, pressed so heavily on Asia that neither the crown of the king nor the hut of the peasant there was any longer safe from confiscation, that every stalk of corn seemed to grow for the Roman decumanur, and every child of free parents seemed to be born for the Roman slave-drivers. It is true that the Asiatic bore even this torture with his inexhaustible passive endurance; but it was not patience and reflection that made him bear it peacefully. It was rather the peculiarly Oriental lack of initiative; and in these peaceful lands, amidst these effeminate nations,
strange and terrible things might happen, it once there should appear among them a man who knew how to give the signal for revolt.
There reigned at that time in the kingdom of Pontus Mithradates VI. surnamed Eupator (born about 624, t 691) who traced back his lineage on the father’s side in the six teenth generation to king Darius the son of Hystaspes and
in the eighth to Mithradates I. the founder of the Pontic kingdom, and was on the mother’s side descended from the Alexandrids and the Seleucids. After the early death of his father Mithradates Euergetes, who fell by the hand of an assassin at Sinope, he had received the title of king
CHAP- vm THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES
7
about 634, when a boy of eleven years of age; but the 110. diadem brought to him only trouble and danger. His guardians, and even as it would seem his own mother called to take a part in the government by his father’s will, conspired against the boy-king's life. It is said that, in order to escape from the daggers of his legal protectors, he became of his own accord a wanderer, and during seven years, changing his resting-place night after night, a fugitive
in his own kingdom, led the homeless life of a hunter. Thus the boy grew into a powerful man. Although our accounts regarding him are in substance traceable to written records of contemporaries, yet the legendary tradi tion, which is generated in the east with the rapidity of lightning, early adorned the mighty king with many of the traits of its Samsons and Rustems. These traits, how ever, belong to the character, just as the crown of clouds belongs to the character of the highest mountain-peaks; the outlines of the figure appear in both cases only more coloured and fantastic, not disturbed or essentially altered. The armour, which fitted the gigantic frame of king Mithra dates, excited the wonder of the Asiatics and still more that of the Italians. As a runner he overtook the swiftest deer; as a rider he broke in the wild steed, and was able by changing horses to accomplish 120 miles in a day; as a charioteer he drove with sixteen in hand, and gained in competition many a prize—it was dangerous, no doubt, in such sport to carry of victory from the king. In hunting on horseback, he hit the game at full gallop and never missed his aim. He challenged competition at table also —he arranged banqueting matches and carried off in person the prizes proposed for the most substantial eater and the hardest drinker—and not less so in the pleasures of the harem, as was shown among other things by the licentious letters of his Greek mistresses, which were found among his papers. His intellectual wants he satisfied by the
8 THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES BOOK 1v
wildest superstition—the interpretation of dreams and the Greek mysteries occupied not a few of the king’s hours and by a rude adoption of Hellenic civilization. He was fond of Greek art and music; that is to say, he collected
articles, rich furniture, old Persian and Greek objects of luxury—his cabinet of rings was famous—he had constantly Greek historians, philosophers, and poets in his train, and proposed prizes at his court-festivals not only for the greatest eaters and drinkers, but also for the merriest jester and the best singer. Such was the man ; the sultan corresponded. In the east, where the relation between the ruler and the ruled bears the character of natural rather than of moral law, the subject resembles the dog alike in
fidelity and in falsehood, the ruler is cruel and distrustful. In both respects Mithradates has hardly been surpassed.
By his orders there died or pined in perpetual captivity for real or alleged treason his mother, his brother, his sister espoused to him, three of his sons and as many of his daughters. Still more revolting perhaps is the fact, that among his secret papers were found sentences of death,
drawn up beforehand, against several of his most con fidential servants. In like manner it was a genuine trait of the sultan, that he afterwards, for the mere purpose of
from his enemies the trophies of victory, caused his two Greek wives, his sister and his whole harem to be put to death, and merely left to the women the choice of the mode of dying. He prosecuted the experi mental study of poisons and antidotes as an important branch of the business of government, and tried to inure his body to particular poisons. He had early learned to look for treason and assassination at the hands of every body and especially of his nearest relatives, and he had
early learned to practise them against everybody and most of all against those nearest to him ; of which the necessary consequence—attested by all his history-—was, that all his
precious
withdrawing
CHAP. VIII THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES 9
undertakings finally miscarried through the perfidy of those whom he trusted. At the same time we dcubtless meet with isolated traits of high-minded justice: when he punished traitors, he ordinarily spared those who had become involved in the crime simply from their personal relations with the leading culprit; but such fits of equity are not wholly wanting in every barbarous tyrant. What really distinguishes Mithradates amidst the multitude of similar sultans, is his boundless activity. He disappeared one fine morning from his palace and remained unheard of for months, so that he was given over as lost; when he returned, he had wandered incognito through all western Asia and reconnoitred everywhere the country and the people. In like manner he was not only in general a man of fluent speech, but he administered justice to each of the twenty-two nations over which he ruled in its own language without needing an interpreter—a trait significant of the versatile ruler of the many-tongued east. His whole activity as a ruler bears the same character. So far as we know
(for our authorities are unfortunately altogether silent as to his internal administration) his energies, like those of every other sultan, were spent in collecting treasures, in assem bling armies—which were usually, in his earlier years at least, led against the enemy not by the king in person, but by some Greek £0na'0tz‘z'ere—in efforts to add new satrapies to the old. Of higher elements—desire to advance civiliza tion, earnest leadership of the national opposition, special gifts of genius-there are found, in our traditional accounts at least, no distinct traces in Mithradates, and we have no reason to place him on a level even with the great rulers of the Osmans, such as Mohammed II. and Suleiman. Notwithstanding his Hellenic culture, which sat on him not much better than the Roman armour sat on his Cappa docians, he was throughout an Oriental of the ordinary stamp, coarse, full of the most sensual appetites, super
IO THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES BOOK IV
stitious, cruel, perfidious, and unscrupulous, but so vigorous in organization, so powerful in physical endowments, that his defiant laying about him and his unshaken courage in resistance look frequently like talent, sometimes even like genius. Granting that during the death-struggle of the re public it was easier to offer resistance to Rome than in the times of Scipio or Trajan, and that it was only the complica tion of the Asiatic events with the internal commotions of Italy which rendered it possible for Mithradates to resist the Romans twice as long as J'ugurtha did, it remains neverthe less true that before the Parthian wars he was the only enemy who gave serious trouble to the Romans in the east, and that he defended himself against them as the lion of the desert defends himself against the hunter. Still we are not entitled, in accordance with what we know, to recognize in him more than the resistance to be expected from so vigorous a nature.
But, whatever judgment we may form as to the individual character of the king, his historical position remains in a high degree significant. The Mithradatic wars formed at once the last movement of the political opposition offered by Hellas to Rome, and the beginning of a revolt against the Roman supremacy resting on very different and far deeper grounds of antagonism—the national reaction of the Asiatics against the Occidentals. The empire of Mithradates was, like himself, Oriental; polygamy and the system of the harem prevailed at court and generally among persons of rank ; the religion of the inhabitants of the country as well as the official religion of the court was pre-eminently the old national worship; the Hellenism there was little different from the Hellenism of the Armenian Tigra nids and the Arsacids of the Parthian empire. The Greeks of Asia Minor might imagine for a brief moment that they had found in this king a support for their political dreams ; his battles were really fought for matters very different from those which were decided on the fields of
CHAP. VIII THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES I1
Magnesia and Pydna. They formed—after a long truce— a new passage in the huge duel between the west and the east, which has been transmitted from the conflicts at Marathon to the present generation and will perhaps reckon its future by thousands of years as it has reckoned its past.
Manifest however as is the foreign and un-Hellenic cha The
racter of the whole life and action of the Cappadocian king, nationali ties of
it is diflicult definitely to specify the national element pre Asia
in nor will research perhaps ever succeed in Minor. getting beyond generalities or in attaining clear views on
this point. In the whole circle of ancient civilization there
no region where the stocks subsisting side by side or cross ing each other were so numerous, so heterogeneous, so variously from the remotest times intermingled, and where in consequence the relations of the nationalities were less clear than in Asia Minor. The Semitic population continued in an unbroken chain from Syria to Cyprus and Cilicia, and to the original stock of the population along the west coast in the regions of Caria and Lydia seems also to havc belonged, while the north-western point was occupied by the Bithynians, who were akin to the Thracians in Europe. The
interior and the north coast, on the other hand, were filled chiefly Indo-Germanic peoples most nearly cognate to the
ponderating
Iranian. In the case of the Armenian and languages1 ascertained, in that of the Cappadocian
highly probable, that they had immediate aflinity with the Zend and the statement made as to the Mysians, that
among them the Lydian and Phrygian languages met, just denotes mixed Semitic-Iranian population that may be compared perhaps with that of Assyria. As to the regions stretching between Cilicia and Caria, more especially Lydia, there still, notwithstanding the full remains of the native
The words quoted as Phrygian Ba-yaTos=Zeus and the old royal name Mdns have been beyond doubt correctly referred to the Zend bagluz=God and the Germanic Murmur, Indian Mama (Lassen, leimbnftderdeumbcn morgmldnd. Gudhcbafl, voL x. p. 329 L).
Phrygian
1
is
is
is
; a
it
it is
it,
it
by
Pontus.
language and writing that are in this particular instance extant, a want of assured results, and it is merely probable that these tribes ought to be reckoned among the Indo Germans rather than the Semites. How all this confused mass of peoples was overlaid first with a net of Greek mercantile cities, and then with the Hellenism called into life by the military as well as intellectual ascendency ot the Greek nation, has been set forth in outline already.
In these regions ruled king Mithradates, and that first of all in Cappadocia on the Black Sea or Pontus as it was called, a district in which, situated as it was at the north eastern extremity of Asia Minor towards Armenia and in constant contact with the latter, the Iranian nationality pre sumably preserved itself with less admixture than anywhere else in Asia Minor. Not even Hellenism had penetrated far into that region. With the exception of the coast where several originally Greek settlements subsisted—especially the im portant commercial marts Trapezus, Amisus, and above all Sinope, the birthplace and residence of Mithradates and the
most flourishing city of the empire~—the country was still in a very primitive condition. Not that it had lain waste ; on the contrary, as the region of Pontus is still one of the most fertile on the face of the earth, with its fields of grain alternating with forests of wild fruit trees, it was beyond doubt even in the time of Mithradates well cultivated and also compara tively populous. But there were hardly any towns properly so called; the country possessed nothing but strongholds, which served the peasants as places of refuge and the king as treasuries for the custody of the revenues which accrued to him; in the Lesser Armenia alone, in fact, there were
counted seventy-five of these little royal forts. We do not . find that Mithradates materially contributed to promote the growth of towns in his empire ; and situated as he was,—in practical, though not perhaps on his own part quite conscious, reaction against Hellenism,—this is easily conceivable.
II THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES
BOOK Iv
CHAP. vm THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES
13
He appears more actively employed—likewise quite in A‘cquisi
the Oriental style—in enlarging on all sides his kingdom,
which was even then not small, though its compass is prob- by Mithra ably over-stated at 2 300 miles ; we find his armies, his fleets, dues‘ and his envoys busy along the Black Sea as well as towards
Armenia and towards Asia Minor. But nowhere did so free
and ample an arena present itself to him as on the eastern
and northern shores of the Black Sea, the state of which a’.
that time we must not omit to glance at, however difficult
or in fact impossible it is to give a really distinct idea of
On the eastern coast of the Black Sea—which, previously
almost unknown, was first opened up to more general knowledge by Mithradates—the region of Colchis on the
Phasis (Mingrelia and Imeretia) with the important com- Colchis. mercial town of Dioscurias was wrested from the native princes and converted into satrapy of Pontus. Of still
greater moment were his enterprises in the northern regions. 1
The wide steppes destitute of hills and trees, which stretch Nonhem to the north of the Black Sea, of the Caucasus, and of the 32%‘; Caspian, are by reason of their natural conditions—more Sea.
225,01;
from the variations of temperature fluctuating between the climate of Stockholm and that of Madeira, and from the absolute destitution of rain or snow which occurs not unfrequently and lasts for period of twenty-two months or longer—little adapted for agriculture or for permanent
settlement at all; and they always were so, although two thousand years ago the state of the climate was presumably somewhat less unfavourable than at the present
They are here grouped together, because, though they were in part doubtless not executed till between the first and the second war with Rome, they to some extent preceded even the first (Memn. 3o Justin. xxxviii. up. fin. App. Milhr. r3 Eutrop. v. and anarrative in chronological order in this case absolutely impracticable. Even the recently found decree of Chersonesus (p. 17) has given no information in this respect. According to Diophantus was twice sent against the Taurian Scythians but that the second insurrection of these connected with the decree of
the Roman senate in favour of the Scythian princes (p. 21) not clear from the document, and not even probable.
especially
is
;
is
it
5) is
;
1
it.
1 is ;
is ;
it
a
a
THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES B00! IV
The various tribes, whose wandering impulse led them
into these regions, submitted to this ordinance of nature and
led (and still to some extent lead) a wandering pastoral life
with their herds of oxen or still more frequently of horses, changing their places of abode and pasture, and carrying their effects along with them in Waggon-houses. Their equipment and style of fighting were consonant to this mode of life; the inhabitants of these steppes fought in great measure on horseback and always in loose array, equipped with helmet and coat of mail of leather and leather-covered shield, armed with sword, lance, and bow—the ancestors of the modern Cossacks. The Scythians originally settled there, who seem to have been of Mongolian race and akin in their habits and physical appearance to the present inhabitants of Siberia, had been followed up by Sarmatian tribes advancing from east to west,—Sauromatae, Roxolani, ]'azyges,—who are commonly reckoned of Slavonian descent, although the proper names, which we are entitled to ascribe to them, show more aflinity with Median and Persian names and those peoples perhaps belonged rather to the great Zend stock. Thracian tribes moved in the opposite direc tion, particularly the Getae, who reached as far as the Dniester. Between the two there intruded themselves— probably as offsets of the great Germanic migration, the main body of which seems not to have touched the Black Sea—the Celts, as they were called, on the Dnieper, the Bastarnae in the same quarter, and the Peucini at the mouth of the Danube. A state, in the proper sense, was nowhere formed; every tribe lived by itself under its princes and elders.
In sharp contrast to all these barbarians stood the
1 It is very probable that the extraordinary drought, which is the chief obstacle now to agriculture in the Crimea and in these regions generally, has been greatly increased by the disappearance of the forests of central and southern Russia, which formerly to some extent protected the coast-provinces from the parching north-east wind.
X4
day. 1
Hellenism in that quarter.
CRAP. vm THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES r 5
Hellenic settlements, which at the time of the mighty impetus given to Greek commerce had been founded chiefly
by the efforts of Miletus on these coasts, partly as trading— marts, partly as stations for prosecuting important fisheries
and even for agriculture, for which, as we have already said,
the north-western shores of the Black Sea presented in antiquity conditions less unfavourable than at the present
day. For the use of the soil the Hellenes paid here, like
the Phoenicians in Libya, tax and ground-rent to the native rulers. The most important of these settlements were the
free city of Chersonesus (not far from Sebastopol), built on
the territory of the Scythians in the Tauric peninsula (Crimea), and maintaining itself in moderate prosperity, under circumstances far from favourable, by virtue of its good constitution and the public spirit of its citizens; and Panticapaeum (Kertch) at the opposite side of the peninsula
on the straits leading from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov, governed since the year 457 by hereditary burgo- 297. masters, afterwards called kings of the Bosporus, the Archaeanactidae, Spartocidae, and Paerisadae. The culture
of corn and the fisheries of the Sea of Azov had rapidly raised the city to prosperity. Its territory still in the time of Mithradates embraced the lesser eastern division of the Crimea including the town of Theodosia, and on the opposite Asiatic continent the town of Phanagoria and the district of Sindica. In better times the lords of Panti capaeum had by land ruled the peoples on the east coast of the Sea of Azov and the valley of the Kuban, and had commanded the Black Sea with their fleet; but Panti capaeum was no longer what it had been. Nowhere was the sad decline of the Hellenic nation felt more deeply than at these distant outposts. Athens in its good times had been the only Greek state which fulfilled there the
duties of a leading power—duties which certainly were specially brought home to the Athenians by their need of
Mithra dates mater of the Bos poran kingdom.
16 THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES BOOK 1v
Pontic grain. After the downfall of the Attic maritime power these regions were, on the whole, left to themselves. The Greek land-powers never got so far as to intervene seriously there, although Philip the father of Alexander and Lysimachus sometimes attempted it ; and the Romans, on whom with the conquest of Macedonia and Asia Minor devolved the political obligation of becoming the strong protectors of Greek civilization at the point where it needed such protection, utterly neglected the summons of interest as well as of honour. The fall of Sinope, the decline of Rhodes, completed the isolation of the Hellenes on the
northern shore of the Black Sea. A vivid picture of their position with reference to the roving barbarians is given to us by an inscription of Olbia (near Oczakow not far from the mouth of the Dnieper), which apparently may be placed not long before the time of Mithradates. The citizens had not only to send annual tribute to the court-camp of the barbarian king, but also to make him a gift when he encamped before the town or even simply passed by, and in a similar way to buy ofl" minor chieftains and in fact sometimes the whole horde with presents; and it fared ill with them if the gift appeared too small. The treasury of the town was bankrupt and they had to pledge the temple jewels. Meanwhile the savage tribes were thronging with out in front of the gates; the territory was laid waste, the field-labourers were dragged away an mama, and, what was worst of all, the weaker of their barbarian neighbours, the Scythians, sought, in order to shelter themselves from the pressure of the more savage Celts, to obtain possession of the walled town, so that numerous citizens were leaving it and the inhabitants alreadycontemplated its entire surrender.
Such was the state in which Mithradates found matters, when his Macedonian phalanx crossing the ridge of the Caucasus descended into the valleys of the Kuban and Terek and his fleet at the same time appeared in the
CHAP. VIII THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES
17
Crimean waters. No wonder that here too, as had already been the case in Dioscurias, the Hellenes everywhere received the king of Pontus with open arms and regarded the half-Hellene and his Cappadocians armed in Greek fashion as their deliverers. What Rome had here neglected, became apparent. The demands on the rulers of Panti- capaeum for tribute had just then been raised to an exor bitant height; the town of Chersonesus found itself hard pressed by Scilurus king of the Scythians dwelling in the peninsula and his fifty sons; the former were glad to sur render their hereditary lordship, and the latter their long preserved freedom, in order to save their last possession, their Hellenism. It was not in vain. Mithradates’ brave generals, Diophantus and Neoptolemus, and his disciplined troops easily got the better of the peoples of the steppes. Neoptolemus defeated them at the straits of Panticapaeum partly by water, partly in winter on the ice; Chersonesus
was delivered, the strongholds of the Taurians were broken, and the possession of the peninsula was secured by judi ciously constructed fortresses. Diophantus marched against the Reuxinales or, as they were afterwards called, the Roxolani (between the Dnieper and Don) who came forward to the aid of the Taurians 5 50,000 of them fled before his 6000 phalangites, and the Pontic arms penetrated as far as the Dnieper. 1 Thus Mithradates acquired here a second
1 The recently discovered decree of the town of Chersonesus in honour of this Diophantus (Dittenberger, Syll. n. 252) thoroughly confirms the traditional account. It shows us the city in the immediate vicinity-the port of Balaclava must at that time have been in the power of the Tauri and Siinferopol in that of the Scythians—hard pressed partly by the Tauri on the south coat of the Crimea, partly and especially by the Scythians who held in their power the whole interior of the peninsula and the main land adjoining; it shows us further how the general of king Mithradates relieves on all sides the Greek city, defeats the Tauri, and erccts in their territory a stronghold (probably Eupatorion), restores the connection between the western and the eastern Hellenes of the peninsula, over powers in the west the dynasty of Scilurus, and in the east Saumacus prince of the Scythians, pursues the Scythians even to the mainland, and at length conquers them with the Reuxinales—such is the name given to the
VOL. IV 102
18 THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES BOOK Iv
kingdom combined with that of Pontus and, like the latter, mainly based on a number of Greek commercial towns. It was called the kingdom of the Bosporus; it embraced the modern Crimea with the opposite Asiatic promontory, and annually furnished to the royal chests and magazines 20o talents (£48,000) and 270,000 bushels of grain. The tribes of the steppe themselves from the north slope of the Caucasus to the mouth of the Danube entered, at least in great part, into relations of dependence on, or treaty with, the Pontic king and, if they furnished him with no other aid, afforded at any rate an inexhaustible field for recruiting his armies.
While thus the most important successes were gained towards the north, the king at the same time extended his dominions towards the east and the west. The Lesser Armenia was annexed by him and converted from a de pendent principality into an integral part of the Pontic kingdom ; but still more important was the close connection which he formed with the king of the Greater Armenia. He not only gave his daughter Cleopatra in marriage to Tigranes, but it was mainly through his support that Tigranes shook ofi" the yoke of the Arsacids and took their place in Asia. An agreement seems to have been made between the two to the effect that Tigranes should take in hand to occupy Syria and the interior of Asia, and Mithradates Asia Minor and the coasts of the Black Sea, under promise of mutual support ; and it was beyond doubt the more active and capable Mithradates who brought about this agreement
with a view to cover his rear and to secure a powerful
later Roxolani here, where they first appear--in the great pitched battle. which is mentioned also in the traditional account. There does not seem to have been any formal subordination of the Greek city under the king ; Mithradates appears only as protecting ally, who fights the battles against the Scythians that passed as invincible (Tot): dvwroo'rd'rovs (Iona/Was $1,149), on behalf of the Greek city, which probably stood to him nearly in the relation of Massilia and Athens to Rome. The Scythians on the other hand in the Crimea become subjects (i‘ndnoot) of Mithradates.
ally.
CRAP. V"! THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES
19
Lastly, in Asia Minor the king turned his eyes towards Paphla the interior of Paphlagonia—the coast had for long belonged 3133;“ to the Pontic empire—and towards Cappadocia. 1 The docin former was claimed on the part of Pontus as having acquimd' been bequeathed by the testament of the last of the Pylaemenids to king Mithradates Euergetes: against this,
however, legitimate or illegitimate pretenders and the land
itself protested. As to Cappadocia, the Pontic rulers had
not forgotten that this country and Cappadocia on the sea had
been formerly united, and continually cherished ideas of re
union. Paphlagonia was occupied by Mithradates in concert
with Nicomedes king of Bithynia, with whom he shared
the land. When the senate raised objections to this course, Mithradates yielded to its remonstrance, while Nicomedes
equipped one of his sons with the name of Pylaemenes and under this title retained the country to himself. The policy
of the allies adopted still worse expedients in Cappadocia, King Ariarathes VI. was killed by Gordius, it was said by the orders, at any rate in the interest, of Ariarathes’ brother
in-law Mithradates Eupator: his young son Ariarathes knew no means of meeting the encroachments of the king of Bithynia except the ambiguous help of his uncle, in return for which the latter then suggested to him that he should allow the murderer of his father, who had taken flight, to return to Cappadocia. This led to a rupture and to war; but when the two armies confronted each other ready for battle, the
1 The chronology of the following eventscanonlybedetermined approxi
mately. Mithradates Eupator seems to have practically entered on the government somewhere about 640 ; Sulla‘s intervention took place in 662
(Liv. E). 70) with which accords the calculation assigning to the Mith
radatic wars 2. period of thirty years (662-691) (l’lin. 1:’. 1V. vii. 26, 97). 92-68, In the interval fell the quarrels as to the Paphlagonian and Cappadocian succession, with which the bribery attempted by Mithradates in Rome
(Diod. 631) apparently in the first tribunate of Saturninus in 651 (iii. 466) 103, was probably connected. Marius, who left Rome in 665 and did not 99. remain long in the east, found Mithradates already in Cappadocia and
Mnegotiated with him regarding his aggressions (Cic. ad Brut. i. 5 ; Plut. . War. 31); Ariarathes VI. had consequently been by that time put to
114, 92,
30 THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES BOOK |v
uncle requested a previous conference with the nephew and thereupon cut down the unarmed youth with his own hand. Gordius, the murderer of the father, then undertook the government by the directions of Mithradates ; and although the indignant population rose against him and called the younger son of the last king to the throne, the latter was unable to offer any permanent resistance to the superior forces of Mithradates. The speedy death of the youth placed by the people on the throne gave to the Pontic king the greater liberty of action, because with that youth the Cappadocian royal house became extinct. A pseudo
Ariarathes was proclaimed as nominal regent, just as had been done in Paphlagonia; under whose name Gordius administered the kingdom as lieutenant of Mithradates.
Mightier than any native monarch for many a day had been, Mithradates bore rule alike over the northern and the southern shores of the Black Sea and far into the interior of Asia Minor. The resources of the king for war by land and by sea seemed immeasurable. His recruiting field stretched from the mouth of the Danube to the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea; Thracians, Scythians, Sauromatae, Bastarnae, Colchians, Iberians (in the modern Georgia) crowded under his banners ; above all he recruited his war-hosts from the brave Bastarnae. For his fleet the
satrapy of Colchis supplied him with the most excellent timber, which was floated down from the Caucasus, besides flax, hemp, pitch, and wax; pilots and oflicers were hired in Phoenicia and Syria. The king, it was said, had marched into Cappadocia with 600 scythe-chariots, 10,000 horse,
80,000 foot; and he had by no means mustered for this war all his resources. In the absence of any Roman or other naval power worth mentioning, the Pontic fleet, with Sinope and the ports of the Crimea as its rallying points, had exclusive command of the Black Sea.
CHAP- VIII THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES 21
That the Roman senate asserted its general policy—of The keeping down the states more or less dependent on it--also if: in dealing with that of Pontus, is shown by its attitude on radates occasion of the succession to the throne after the sudden
death of Mithradates V. From the boy in minority who followed him there was taken away Great Phrygia, which
had been :‘onferred on his father for his taking part in
the war against Aristonicus or rather for his good money
(iii. 358), and this region was added to the territory im
mediately subject to Rome. 1 But, after this boy had at
attained majority, the same senate showed utter passiveness towards his aggressions on all sides and towards the formation of this imposing power, the development of which occupies perhaps a period of twenty years. It was passive, while one of its dependent states became
into a great military power, having at command more than a hundred thousand armed men ; while the ruler of that state entered into the closest connection with the new great-king of the east, who was placed partly by his aid at the head of the states in the interior of Asia; while he annexed the neighbouring Asiatic kingdoms and principalities under pretexts which sounded almost like a mockery of the ill-informed and far-distant protecting power; while, in fine, he even established himself in Europe and ruled as king over the Tauric peninsula, and as lord-protector almost to the Macedono-Thracian frontier. These circumstances indeed formed the subject of discussion in the senate; but when the illustrious corporation consoled itself in the affair of the Paphlagonian succession with the fact that Nicomedes appealed to his pseudo-Pylaemenes, it was evidently not so
1 A decree of the senate of the year 638 recently found in the village 116. Aresti to the south of Synnada (Viereck, Sermo Gran-ur qua rmalu: Romanur urur rit, p. 51) confirms all the regulations made by the king up
to his death and thus shows that Great Phrygia after the death of the father was not merely taken from the son, as Appian also states. but was thereby brought directly under Roman allegiance.
length
developed
Interven
Sulla sent to Cappa docia
22 THE EAST AND KING MITHRADATES BOOK iv
much deceived as grateful for any pretext which spared it from serious interference. Meanwhile the complaints became daily more numerous and more urgent. The
of the Tauric Scythians, whom Mithradates had driven from the Crimea, turned for help to Rome; those of the senators who at all reflected on the traditional maxims of Roman policy could not but recollect that formerly, under circumstances so wholly different, the crossing of king Antiochus to Europe and the occupation of the Thracian Chersonese by his troops had become the signal for the Asiatic war 453), and could not but see that the occupation of the Tauric Chersonese by the Pontic king ought still less to be tolerated now. The scale was at
princes
tion of the last turned by the practical reunion of the kingdom of senate.
Cappadocia, respecting which, moreover, Nicomedes of Bithynia—who on his part had hoped to gain possession of
another pseudo-Ariarathes, and now saw that the Pontic pretender excluded his own—would hardly fail to urge the Roman government to intervention. The senate resolved that Mithradates should reinstate the
Scythian princes—so far were they driven out of the track of right policy their negligent style of government, that instead of supporting the Hellenes against the barbarians they had now on the contrary to support the Scythians against those who were half their countrymen. Paphlagonia was declared independent, and the pseudo-Pylaemenes of Nicomedes was directed to evacuate the country. In like manner the pseudo-Ariarathes of Mithradates was to retire from Cappadocia, and, as the representatives of the country refused the freedom proffered to king was once more to be appointed by free popular election.
The decrees sounded energetic enough only was an error, that instead of sending an army they dircrted the governor of Cilicia, Lucius Sulla, with the handful of troops whom he commanded there against the pirates and robbers,
Cappadocia
;
it
it, a
by
by
(ii.