What is First Mithridatic War?

First Mithridatic War
Part of the Mithridatic Wars
Date 90– 85 BC Location Asia Minor, Achaea Result Roman victory Territorial changes None, (Mithridates left in possession of Pontus).
Combatants
Roman Republic, Bithynia	Mithridates VI of Pontus, Armenian kingdom
Commanders
Nicomedes IV of Bithynia, Manius Aquilius, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Lucullus, Valerius Flaccus, Gaius Flavius Fimbria	Mithridates VI of Pontus, Archelaus

Mithridatic Wars
First – Second – Third

First Mithridatic War
Amnias – Mount Scorobas – Orchomenus –Chaeronea – Tenedos

The First Mithridatic War was the first of three military conflicts fought in Greece and Asia Minor between Mithridates VI of Pontus and the Roman Republic.

Conflict between Mithridates and Nicomedes

The origin of the war was a dispute between Mithridates and Nicomedes IV, the king of Bithynia, over control of Cappadocia, a province of ancient Asia, modern Turkey.

In 90 BC, Mithridates took control of both Bithynia and Cappadocia, with the help of the Kingdom of Armenia. When Manius Aquilius, the Roman commander for Anatolia (former Greek territory, now western Turkey) arrived, however, Mithridates complied with Aquilius' request that he withdraw. The further demand, made in 89 BC, that Mithridates should hand over troops, he refused; and Aquilius put Nicomedes up to attacking Pontus.

In 88 BC, Mithridates met Nicomedes' Bithynian attack with a vigorous counter-attack. His commander, Archelaus, defeated the Bithynian army at the Battle of the River Amnias, and the Roman force, under Aquilius, at the Battle of Mount Scorobas. The Roman Black Sea fleet simply surrendered. Cappadocia, Bithynia, and the Roman province of Asia were overrun, and many of the former Greek cities, such as Pergamum, Ephesus, and Miletus, welcomed Archelaus as a liberator from Roman control.

Conflict between Mithridates and Rome

At this point, Mithridates ordered a massacre of all Romans in Asia. According to the sources, as many as 80,000 were murdered in an incident known as the Asiatic Vespers. This had the effect of tying the Greek cities irrevocably to Mithridates' cause, for they would now have cause to fear Roman vengeance.

Archelaus was sent to Greece, where he established Aristion as a tyrant in Athens.

In 87 BC, Consul Lucius Cornelius Sulla, landed in Epirus (western Greece), and marched on Athens. Marching into Attica through Boetia, Sulla found the immediate allegiance of most of its cities, foremost among them Thebes. Most of the Peloponnese would soon follow after a victory mentioned by Pausanias (1.20.5) and Memnon (22.11). Athens, nevertheless, remained loyal to Mithridates, despite a bitter siege throughout the winter of 87/6. Sulla captured Athens on March 1 86 BC, but Archelaus evacuated Piraeus, and landed in Boeotia, where he was defeated at the Battle of Chaeronea - notably the same site where Philip II of Macedon and a young Alexander the Great defeated combined Athenian and Theban resistance 250 years earlier, securing Macedonian supremacy.

Meanwhile, Sulla's legate, Licinius Lucullus, defeated a Mithridatic fleet off the island of Tenedos. The next year, in 85 BC, Archelaus had received sufficient reinforcements to again offer battle to Sulla, but was again defeated at Orchomenus.

By now, Rome had also sent a force under Valerius Flaccus, which landed in Asia, where many of the Greek cities were in rebellion against Mithridates. Flaccus was killed in a mutiny led by Flavius Fimbria. Fimbria was able to defeat Mithridates' army on the river Rhyndacus. Mithridates then met Sulla at Dardanus in 85 BC, and got terms, which left him his kingdom.

Realizing that he could not face Sulla, Fimbria fell on his sword, which left Sulla to settle Asia, which he did, by imposing a huge indemnity, along with five years of back taxes, which left Asian cities heavily in debt for a long time to come.

The start of the Mithridatic Wars resulted in a dark age for Anatolia. With the rise of the aggressive Armenian Empire war broke out all around Anatolia. The Romans and Armenians, the new superpowers in the region began rivalry.

See also

• Battle of Chaeronea and Orchomenus
• Treaty of Dardanos
• Mithridatic Wars;
• Second Mithridatic War.

References

• Beesley, A.H., The Gracchi Marius and Sulla, 1921.