The Coming of War With Mithridates
As it happened, Mithridates' submission to the Roman imperium was short-lived and perhaps specious from the beginning.[112] Perhaps in 92 one Socrates Chrestus, backed by Mithridates, wrested Bithynia and Paphlagonia from his half brother Nicomedes IV, who had succeeded to the throne upon the death of Nicomedes III with the approval of Rome against the claims of Socrates. At about the same time the young king of Armenia, Tigranes, now Mithridates' son-in-law, had Ariobarzanes expelled from
Cappadocia and Ariarathes IX reintroduced to the unhappy kingdom. Naturally, both dispossessed kings appealed to Rome, and the Senate's answer was to send in 91 or 90 a commission headed by M'. Aquillius to restore Ariobarzanes and Nicomedes to their thrones.[113]
From this point events lead in a fairly direct line to war with Mithridates. In such cases it is extraordinarily difficult to escape the distorting effect of our knowledge of the outcome, particularly when the outcome is a disaster that cries out for scapegoats. Our chief source for the origins of the Mithridatic War, Appian's Mithridatica , is dearly susceptible to both historiographic sins. In this account the Roman envoys, under the guise of neutrality, insidiously force war upon Mithridates: after restoring Nicomedes and Ariobarzanes to their thrones, they urge them against their will to start a great war with Mithridates in which Rome would come to their assistance; while Ariobarzanes does nothing, the envoys are able to prod the reluctant Nicomedes into action only by means of the huge debts he owed them for securing his restoration (11). In the subsequent discussions we are reminded again and again that the envoys were attempting to force war upon Mithridates and to assist Nicomedes directly in his developing conflict with Pontus (12, 14); finally, fearing (it is implied) Mithridates' imminent formal complaint to the Senate about their behavior (16), they attacked Mithridates without waiting for the authorization of the Senate to start "a war of such magnitude" (17:
). But despite the blatant tendentiousness of Appian's account, modern scholarship has accepted it with surprising docility.[114]
Some preliminary considerations should give pause. It is now clear that the Mithridatic War began in 89 at the worst possible moment for Rome, while the Italian war was still raging; and the tiny Roman military establishment in Asia Minor had evidently not been augmented for action beyond its normal peacetime duties.[115] The scapegoating tendency of Appian's source is manifest but deserves a little closer attention. It has been pointed out that the holder of imperium , C. Cassius, under whose auspices the war with Mithridates actually broke out, is lightly passed over while blame is explicitly fixed on M'. Aquillius, "the man most responsible for the embassy and this war."[116] He quickly meets a punishment appropriate to an avaricious bribe taker: molten gold is poured down his throat after his capture by Mithridates.[117] Curiously, no other source singles out Aquillius's responsibility in this way; and while Roman sources beginning with Cicero imply that Aquillius ought to have killed himself rather than fallen into the hands of his enemies, there is no suggestion that he received harsh but condign punishment; in fact, Cicero once employs Aquillius as a contrary exemplum against the doctrine that the bonus is always happy, even when tormented—which suggests a rather different assessment of Aquillius than that given by Appian.[118] Indeed, doubt is cast on Appian's account of Aquillius's end by other evidence that in 85, as part of peace negotiations with Mithridates, Sulla demanded the return of Aquillius as well as of the proconsul Oppius.[119] At the very least, then, the story of Aquillius's death
has been moved forward chronologically in order to form an effective coda to the opening chapters, which indict him for causing the war; and whatever end Aquillius actually met, there can be little doubt why Appian's source prefers the draught of gold.[120] It has been argued with great plausibility that the ultimate source of Appian's chapters on the opening of the Mithridatic War was P. Rutilius Rufus. Rutilius, much embittered by his allegedly groundless conviction for extortion, will have been glad to pin the blame for the subsequent catastrophe upon a man who, despite a reputation for avarice, had escaped his brush with the extortion court shortly before Rutilius's disaster and was an associate of Rutilius's enemy Marius.[121] The portrayal of Aquillius we find in Appian is quite in keeping with Rutilius's historiographical style, well known for its indulgence in personal vendetta.[122] Something more than personal enmity may lurk under its surface. Aquillius took refuge after Mithridates overran Asia at Mytilene, but was seized by the Mytileneans and delivered up along with other Romans to the Pontic king. Rutilius, however, a resident of the same city since his conviction some years before, escaped disaster somewhat ignominiously by shedding his toga—not perhaps, to judge from his extended residency, to escape recognition but as a renunciation of Roman allegiance.[123] Pompey's Mytilenean friend Theophanes later went so far as
to allege that Rutilius had urged Mithridates to order the massacre (Plut. Pomp . 37.2-3)—an absurd fabrication, but one that suggests that Rutilius's own escape was a sensitive point. It seems unlikely that Rutilius, writing his history, would have let the opportunity pass to explain the curious difference between his fate and that of Aquillius by diminishing the legate's moral standing as much as he dearly enhanced his own. Rutilius presented his exile as the voluntary undertaking of an innocent man disgusted at the moral turpitude of his contemporaries, and underscored the point by refusing Sulla's invitation to return to Rome after the war was over;[124] Aquillius could be made into precisely the kind of man he had turned his back on. We cannot pierce the fog of recrimination 2,000 years after the facts; what is important is to recognize its existence and to make allowance for it.
The immediate background of the crisis, in which Mithridates repeatedly retreated from direct confrontation with Rome, is a better due to contemporary perceptions than what lay still in the future: the Senate and the envoys it sent will have had every reason to expect that Mithridates would ultimately yield to Roman pressure rather than fight—hence the lack of formal authorization for war, and the failure to provide the legates with appropriate Roman forces. Aquillius may have been chosen to head the embassy precisely for his connection to Mithridates through their fathers, allies in the war against Aristonicus. Mithridates was even requested to cooperate; according to Appian, he declined, but in Trogus's speech for Mithridates at the outbreak of war he claims to have had Socrates Chrestus, Nicomedes' rival for the Bithynian throne, killed to please the Senate.[125] Aquillius and the other legates, with the cooperation of the proconsul of Asia, C. Cassius, whose small Roman contingent was supplemented with a "large" force of Galatians and Phrygians, successfully completed their mission to restore the kings in 90, clearly without meeting resistance from Mithridates.[126] Again Rome had been able to work its will without any
great effort and without increasing its manpower commitment to the East, and once again Mithridates had submitted meekly.
But there were more than two players to this game. Nicomedes IV, who had been toppled from the throne after a very short reign, stood much in need of military success to validate and secure his claim to rule. Since Mithridates evidently would not directly challenge the Roman imperium , there could be no better time for a show of strength against Mithridates than before the Roman envoys departed Asia Minor. Nicomedes invaded eastern Paphlagonia, an old bone of contention with Pontus, and plundered territory held by Mithridates as far as Amastris, while the Pontic king, as expected, fell back before him.[127] The booty won in the campaign was a precious addition to Nicomedes' empty coffers, drained by his expulsion from the kingdom and further strained by heavy debts to Roman creditors and, we are told, bribes promised to the commanders and legates who had effected his return.[128] The insistence of Appian that a reluctant Nicomedes had been forced by the Roman envoys to take this course is both gratuitous, for Nicomedes' own interests sufficiently account for his action, and too closely connected with the scapegoating Tendenz of Appian's account to be accepted without question.[129]
Mithridates showed his habitual deference to Rome's power by taking care, before responding in kind to Nicomedes, to complain to the Roman envoys and commanders and to request at least Rome's neutrality in the coming showdown on the basis of their friendship and alliance.[130] They responded that they "would not wish Mithridates to suffer any harm from Nicomedes, nor will we allow war against Nicomedes, for we do not think that it is in the Roman interest for Nicomedes to be harmed."[131] In effect, this was a warning to Mithridates not to counterattack, sugared with insincere regrets for Nicomedes' aggression. If we view this response against
the background of Mithridates' repeated retreats from confrontation with Rome, rather than projecting it against the disaster that still lay in the future, it is difficult to accept the traditional view, based on Appian's hostile account, that it was intended to force Mithridates to fight.[132] On the contrary, it seems most probable that Aquillius and Cassius expected this expression of Rome's concern for Nicomedes to leave Mithridates no choice but to patch up his differences with the new king and thereby bring to an end the crisis over the Bithynian succession.
Mithridates, however, perhaps emboldened by the progress of the Italian war and Rome's great difficulties at home, for once would not back down. Avoiding direct confrontation with Rome over Nicomedes' aggression, Mithridates continued the game of brinkmanship by sending his son Ariarathes to drive Ariobarzanes from Cappadocia yet again (App. Mith . 15). It has been thought that this action committed him to war with Rome, and that thereafter Rome "had no option but to fight."[133] In Appian's account, however, Mithridates sends again to the Roman envoys, declaring that the seizure of Cappadocia was due to their complicity in Nicomedes' attack on him and announcing his intention to take the dispute to the Senate. The Roman envoys order Mithridates to keep away from Nicomedes and Cappadocia and announce their intention to restore Ariobarzanes, forbidding Mithridates from sending to them again if he did not obey their commands.[134] Then, without awaiting ratification from the Senate and people for "such a great war," they began military preparations (Mith . 16-17). We hear nothing more from Appian about Mithridates' stated intention to appeal to the Senate; and yet, inasmuch as Mithridates' friendship and alliance with Rome still persisted, since both sides had refrained thus far from a direct clash, it would indeed be surprising if Mithridates did not send to the Senate to complain of Nicomedes' invasion. As it happens, other sources do mention such an appeal. Dio reports that Mithridates sent envoys to the Senate to complain about Nicomedes' invasion, but the partes for their part demanded that he give back Cappadocia to Ariobarzanes and make peace with Nicomedes, refusing to hear another embassy from him until he obeyed them (F 99.2); and an appeal by Mithridates to the Senate over Nicomedes' invasion is described as well by other, less authoritative sources, although placed before the invasion of
Cappadocia, rather than after, as in Dio.[135] It has been urged against the accounts of a senatorial audience on the eve of war with Mithridates that Roman legates would not normally refer back to Rome in the course of carrying out their instructions;[136] but what is at issue is not referral by the legates to Rome for "specific approval" of their actions but an appeal from a nominal ally for negotiation to avert a crisis, exactly paralleled by King Perseus's final appeal to the Senate in the winter of 172/171 while Roman legates in Greece were engaged in isolating him politically and making preparations for the eventuality of war.[137] Such an appeal is, then, probable a priori and specifically attested by sources other than Appian which have no obvious motive for fabrication, as the embassy effectively shifts responsibility for the disaster from Aquillius to the Senate. We are therefore entitled to suppose that Appian's source has suppressed the final appeal to the Senate in order to strengthen his charge that Aquillius had instigated a great war without authorization.
In either case, the point of Mithridates' invasion of Cappadocia emerges clearly. Avoiding a direct response to Nicomedes' aggression, which at this time would have left Rome little choice but to retaliate, he chose the indirect approach: the diversion to Cappadocia gave him an important bargaining chip for negotiation and put pressure on Rome to restrain its ally and alleged proxy in Bithynia; if it did not do so, Mithridates would not see himself bound to submit to Rome's will in Cappadocia, where he may now have brought home the virtual impossibility of continuously propping up Ariobarzanes, particularly under the present circumstances in Italy. In effect, Mithridates made the point that if he was to restrain his friends Gordius and Tigranes in Cappadocia, Rome would have to restrain its friend Nicomedes. But this would require Rome to back down from a position in which it had by this point invested its international prestige, and would suggest that Mithridates had emerged from sub imperio populi Romani . That could be a dangerous sign of weakness in the East, where the imperium had been upheld hitherto with a bare minimum of manpower and rested ultimately on general resignation to Rome's overwhelming power. Not surprisingly, Rome chose to reaffirm the imperium by forcing Mithridates back into the fold. It did so with a command: the response of the Senate, as I suggest, or of the envoys, if Appian's account be accepted, was framed as an order offering the choice between obedience
to Rome's will and treatment as an enemy. Mithridates was ordered to keep his hands off Cappadocia and Nicomedes, and his ambassadors were to be excluded in the future unless he obeyed. Mithridates had consistently backed down when directly confronted by Roman commands, and without clairvoyance Romans had no reason yet to think that, despite the escalation of tensions, he would not do so again when confronted with firm and decisive action.
The Roman plan, for which Aquillius, a general of some repute,[138] was probably responsible, can be divined from its field dispositions. Nicomedes was to renew his harassment of Pontic territory by invading the plain of the Amnias River, thus drawing Mithridates west, while Oppius, the proconsul of Pamphylia or Cilicia,[139] slipped into Cappadocia to restore Ariobarzanes while the Pontic king was otherwise occupied. The proconsul of Asia, C. Cassius, and Aquillius stood ready in reserve to assist Nicomedes if he required it with small Roman forces, boosted by a large native levy of Bithynians, Paphlagonians, and Galatians.[140] It seems most dubious that Aquillius expected a full-scale war against Mithridates;[141] rather, Nicomedes' invasion seems designed precisely to avoid a direct dash between Oppius and Mithridates in Cappadocia, while, on the other hand, the large reserves led by Aquillius and Cassius served as strong insurance for the Bithynian king. Even Appian concedes that Mithridates' victory over Nicomedes at the Amnias was paradoxical, for the Pontic king had been heavily outnumbered; indeed, at first the Bithynians had prevailed (Mith . 18, 19). On the other hand, Aquillius and Cassius had clearly not expected their native levies to see serious fighting. Only once Mithridates had already routed Aquillius's force did Cassius attempt briefly to train the raw, civilian recruits; but he soon gave up the idea of sending such men into
action and dismissed them before withdrawing.[142] The plan went all wrong; above all, Aquillius and his colleagues had contemptuously underestimated Mithridates' strength and decision. Mithridates threw back the Bithynian king, crushed Aquillius's reserve force, and pursued the enemy into Phrygia, whence he overran western Asia Minor and the coastal islands, except for Lycia and Rhodes, before year's end.[143]
The outbreak of war, therefore, was hardly the result of irresponsible adventurism launched by Aquillius and Cassius. Badian is closer to the mark in arguing that the war "arose (it seems) from a miscalculation rather than from deliberate provocation,"[144] although even he overestimates the resolution of the Roman legati to engage in a general war. Their actions were directed toward the successful completion of their mission to restore Nicomedes and Ariobarzanes, and they probably did not exceed their authority in attempting to drive Pontic forces from Cappadocia once again. The mission as a whole constitutes an unusually vigorous senatorial response against Mithridates' expansion, a new development perhaps born of exasperation, but not outright belligerence. Mithridates had not hitherto been a major concern in Rome. That was now to change.
Toward the end of the second century, Rome accepted some responsibility for the security of the Eastern seas. This burden was taken on only after the collapse of Seleucid authority made it dear that there was no alternative. A fleet was actually sent from the West in 102; but Roman actions in Cilicia remained sporadic and ad hoc in nature. Cilicia was probably not assigned again to a magistrate until 99, under the law on the praetorian provinces, and thenceforth perhaps only on occasion through the 90s. The Senate was not eager to increase its commitments in the East. The same attitude is apparent in its dealings with the kings of Pontus and Bithynia toward the end of the second century and the beginning of the first. The patres at first satisfied themselves with mere pronouncements, which were ignored or only speciously obeyed more often than not. After
the problem of the Cappadocian succession came to a head again in the mid-90s, Rome added to its verbal blessings for Ariobarzanes the essentially symbolic gesture of a Roman escort headed by Sulla. Soon enough Ariobarzanes had been expelled again, and this time the new Bithynian king, Nicomedes, with him. The Roman legates sent to restore the kings, deceived by Mithridates' pliability in the past, determined this time to drive home a lesson of Mithridates' vulnerability, first by inducing Nicomedes IV to raid Pontus, then by preparing a punitive expedition against Mithridates for his renewed attack on Ariobarzanes; the result was a full-scale war that they, no more than the Senate which had sent them, did not want or expect. The final crisis does not reveal a significant change in Roman policy toward Mithridates but its failure. An ambitious and expansionist Eastern king could not be contained without a commitment of forces and resources that the Senate had hitherto refused to contemplate. The disaster of 89 brings to an end an era during which Rome's supremacy and relatively limited exploitation of the East rested on an almost negligible commitment of manpower and resources, solidly buttressed by the prevailing conviction, confirmed in all previous trials of force, that Roman might was unchallengeable.[145]