The Date of Sulla's Cappadocian Expedition
In 1959 E. Badian redated Sulla's Cappadocian expedition to 96, against the traditional date of 92. More recently, A. N. Sherwin-White has challenged Badian's chronology and reconstruction of the historical context of this event, and his view seems on the way to becoming the new orthodoxy.[59] It is necessary therefore to defend at some length my continued adherence to Badian's view.
i) Put in its simplest terms, the problem is that our main narrative source for Cappadocian history at this time, Justin's epitome of Trogus, leaves
Sulla's escorting of Ariobarzanes to take up the Cappadocia throne entirely out of the picture. Justin does, however, mention two appropriate occasions for the event: when Ariobarzanes is first "named" by the Senate (38.2.8), and, after his subsequent forcible expulsion from Cappadocia by Tigranes, when the Senate decrees his restoration (38.3.3-4). The second of these possible contexts is dearly excluded because the Senate's order in this case went out to the legates M'. Aquillius and Mallius Malthinus (sic ), whose activities ca. 90 are well known inasmuch as they led directly to the outbreak of the Mithridatic War.[60] Ariobarzanes' original accession to the throne is therefore the obvious choice prima facie. To assume that Sulla's expedition is not to be connected with any of the events mentioned by Justin, and thus of necessity to postulate yet a further expulsion of Ariobarzanes—not mentioned by Justin or directly attested by any other source—to set the stage for it[61] can only be a last resort, to be adopted only if other evidence gives good reason to doubt this reconstruction.[62]
ii) The sequence of events in Appian's account of Ariobarzanes' peregrinations before the Mithridatic War (Mith . 10) is entirely consistent with Justin's. Ariobarzanes had fled to Rome from Cappadocia, which was under Mithridates' control; the Romans ordered Mithridates to depart in favor of Ariobarzanes, who seemed to have better title to the throne; Mithridates obeyed but then expelled from Bithynia Nicomedes IV, whose succession to his father had been confirmed by Rome; at the same time (
) Mithraas and Bagoas drove Ariobarzanes from Cappadocia, to which he had been returned by the Romans, and brought back Ariarathes (IX). Aquillius is then sent to restore him. Therefore, while Appian provides some further background information, the pattern remains the same: Ariobarzanes is recognized as king by the Romans and brought back to his country only to be expelled, an event that leads directly to the outbreak of the Mithridatic War.
Justin believes that Ariobarzanes was expelled by Tigranes at about the same time as the accession of Nicomedes IV and his subsequent expulsion by Mithridates from the throne of Bithynia; and just as in Appian, it is this dual expulsion of Ariobarzanes and Nicomedes IV that leads directly to the Senate's order of 91 or 90 to M'. Aquillius to restore them to their
thrones.[63] (See below for the problem of the date of this event.) Therefore, although Appian names the agents of Ariobarzanes' removal as Mithraas and Bagoas while Justin gives Tigranes, the conclusion must be that the references are to the same event; Mithraas and Bagoas were, likely enough, Tigranes' generals.[64] If that is so, however, we are left with direct testimony to only one expulsion of Ariobarzanes from the throne before the arrival of Aquillius ca. 90. It begs the question to claim that Justin at 38.3.3 conflates two Armenian invasions of Cappadocia in the 90s.[65]
Justin and Appian tell essentially the same story and are mutually supportive. The assumption that one or the other is leaving out further expulsions and restorations of Ariobarzanes seems arbitrary and most dubious. Thus the line of interpretation sketched in (i) above is reinforced—that is, that only one dethroning of Ariobarzanes preceded the arrival of the senatorial commission (that he had been king before receiving Roman recognition is nowhere stated). This single expulsion, however, cannot have led to Sulla's intervention: it is too late, and in any case it was M'. Aquillius, not Sulla, who was given the job of restoring him on that occasion.
iii) Some objections Sherwin-White brings against Badian's reconstruction need to be considered.
First, Sherwin-White believes that the phrase used by Livy's epitomator to describe Sulla's mission (in regnum . . . reductus est ) implies that Ariobarzanes had already lost the throne and was now restored to it.[66] To begin with, it is unwise to assume that the epitomator's wording is a reliable indication of the nature of the original: to take one instructive case in which Livy's text survives to refute him, he thinks that Aemilius Paulus created the province of Macedonia (Per . 45). Plutarch, on the other hand, unambiguously states that Sulla installed Ariobarzanes on the throne.[67] The choice of Plutarch over Livy's epitomator ought to be easy. But in any case we should not make so much of the Periochae's phrase. Ariobarzanes had
fled to Rome by the time the Senate made its decision about the Cappadocian succession, so in any case he was being "restored"; further, his backers in Cappadocia and Rome certainly thought he possessed the right to the throne.[68] Under these circumstances it is not surprising usage to write of restoration to a kingdom that was (allegedly) rightfully his. Similarly, an Athenian decree of ca. 175/174 speaks of the "restoration to the kingdom of his ancestors" of Antiochus IV, although in fact Eumenes II and Attalus had placed the royal claimant on the Seleucid throne;[69] and Tigranes himself, sent by the Parthians, among whom he had been hostage, to succeed to the Armenian throne, is said by Justin to be ab eisdem in regnum paternum remissus (38.3.1). (Compare Andriscus, who persuaded the Thracian king Barsabas
, [Diod. 32.15.7].)[70]
Second, many Armenians were killed by Sulla during the operation (Plut. Sull . 5.3). For Sherwin-White, this implies that Tigranes had already conquered Sophene, creating a common border between Armenia and Cappadocia, an event that cannot be earlier than ca. 96/95, the probable date of Tigranes' accession.[71] It is noteworthy that Sulla did not bring many Roman troops and relied on the assistance of allies[72] —a highly unlikely procedure if Ariobarzanes had been expelled with the help of Tigranes, as Sherwin-White holds.[73] But, in any case, does the presence of "many" Armenians indeed suggest a date for Sulla's campaign after 96? Tigranes' conquest of Sophene will indeed have made his own intervention in Cappadocia easier, and if we were to accept the general assumption (made even by Badian) that Armenians who skirmished with Sulla were Tigranes' men, this might force us to revise the absolute chronology downward
slightly, perhaps to ca. 95.[74] But it is by no means implausible that Gordius and the other Cappadocians hostile to Ariobarzanes had Armenian friends—or mercenaries—even before Tigranes' accession.[75] Nor should Armenia Minor be forgotten—a vassal state abutting Cappadocia, rich in horsemen, and under Mithridates' control by the time of the war with Rome.[76] Sulla's engagement with Armenians in Cappadocia, therefore, is open to other explanations and does not by any means force a date later than 96 for the expedition, nor does it create any difficulty for Badian's reconstruction of the sequence of events (i.e., the insertion of Sulla's campaign into Justin's and Appian's narrative).[77]
Third, Sherwin-White, discussing the apparent regnal years on the Cappadocian royal coinage, concedes that "the coinage evidence remains enigmatic" but still believes it can show that Ariobarzanes ruled only three years before 91.[78] However, the numismatic evidence is even more problematic than he allowed, and its interpretation is not yet on a sufficiently secure basis to have much weight in the reconstruction of these events.[79] For all that, recent discussions of the question would place the changeover from Ariarathes IX to Ariobarzanes in 96 or 95.[80]
iv) No evidence, therefore, outweighs the positive arguments in (i) and (ii) above that (a ) Ariobarzanes was toppled from the Cappadocian throne only once, not twice, before the arrival of Aquillius's commission, with its inevitable corollary that (b ) Sulla escorted Ariobarzanes to Cappadocia to assume the throne for the first time after the Senate threw out the rival claims of Nicomedes' and Mithridates' candidates.
Absolute dates are more difficult to assign. While the precise date of Sulla's tenure of the urban praetorship remains uncertain, his evident haste to move up the ladder of the cursus would suggest a date closer to his military exploits in Numidia and Gaul rather than later.[81] A praetorship
in 97, the earliest possible date in view of the lex annalis and his repulsa ,[82] would be perfectly consistent with a provincial assignment in 96 and 95. At present it appears that the evidence of the Cappadocian regal coinage points toward the installation of Ariobarzanes ca. 96-95,[83] although, as noted above, this cannot be pressed. The year 95 was one of pax domi forisque according to Julius Obsequens (50), but it is doubtful that Sulla's killing of numerous Cappadocians and Armenians would have disturbed the pax for Obsequens's purposes.[84]