The History of Rome, Book V - Theodor Mommsen
Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61
Mithradates
King Mithradates acted with greater moderation. He refrained
from aggressions in Asia Minor, and contented himself with--
what no treaty forbade--placing his dominion along the Black Sea
ona firmer basis, and gradually bringing into more definite dependence
the regions which separated the Bosporan kingdom, now ruled
under his supremacy by his son Machares, from that of Pontus.
But he too applied every effort to render his fleet and army efficient,
and especially to arm and organize the latter after the Roman model;
in which the Roman emigrants, who sojourned in great numbers
at his court, rendered essential service.
Demeanor of the Romans in the East
Egypt not Annexed
The Romans had no desire to become further involved in Oriental
affairs than they were already. This appears with striking
clearness in the fact, that the opportunity, which at this time
presented itself, of peacefully bringing the kingdom of Egypt
under the immediate dominion of Rome was spurned by the senate.
The legitimate descendants of Ptolemaeus son of Lagus had come
to an end, when the king installed by Sulla after the death of Ptolemaeus
Soter II Lathyrus--Alexander II, a son of Alexander I--was killed,
a few days after he had ascended the throne, on occasion of a tumult
in the capital (673). This Alexander had in his testament(8) appointed
the Roman community his heir. The genuineness of this document
was no doubt disputed; but the senate acknowledged it by assuming
in virtue of it the sums deposited in Tyre on account of the deceased king.
Nevertheless it allowed two notoriously illegitimate sons of king Lathyrus,
Ptolemaeus XI, who was styled the new Dionysos or the Flute-blower
(Auletes), and Ptolemaeus the Cyprian, to take practical possession
of Egypt and Cyprus respectively. They were not indeed expressly
recognized by the senate, but no distinct summons to surrender
their kingdoms was addressed to them. The reason why the senate allowed
this state of uncertainty to continue, and did not commit itself
to a definite renunciation of Egypt and Cyprus, was undoubtedly
the considerable rent which these kings, ruling as it were on sufferance,
regularly paid for the continuance of the uncertainty to the heads
of the Roman coteries. But the motive for waiving that attractive
acquisition altogether was different. Egypt, by its peculiar
position and its financial organization, placed in the hands
of any governor commanding it a pecuniary and naval power and generally
an independent authority, which were absolutely incompatible
with the suspicious and feeble government of the oligarchy:
in this point of view it was judicious to forgo the direct possession
of the country of the Nile.
Non-Intervention in Asia Minor and Syria
Less justifiable was the failure of the senate to interfere directly
in the affairs of Asia Minor and Syria. The Roman government did not
indeed recognize the Armenian conqueror as king of Cappadocia
and Syria; but it did nothing to drive him back, although the war,
which under pressure of necessity it began in 676 against the pirates
in Cilicia, naturally suggested its interference more especially
in Syria. In fact, by tolerating the loss of Cappadocia and Syria
without declaring war, the government abandoned not merely
those committed to its protection, but the most important
foundations of its own powerful position. It adopted
a hazardous course, when it sacrificed the outworks of its dominion
in the Greek settlements and kingdoms on the Euphrates
and Tigris; but, when it allowed the Asiatics to establish
themselves on the Mediterranean which was the political
basis of its empire, this was not a proof of love of peace,
but a confession that the oligarchy had been rendered by the Sullan
restoration more oligarchical doubtless, but neither wiser
nor more energetic, and it was for Rome's place as a power
in the world the beginning of the end.
On the other side, too, there was no desire for war. Tigranes
had no reason to wish it, when Rome even without war abandoned
to him all its allies. Mithradates, who was no mere sultan and had
enjoyed opportunity enough, amidst good and bad fortune, of gaining
experience regarding friends and foes, knew very well that in a second
Roman war he would very probably stand quite as much alone
as in the first, and that he could follow no more prudent course
than to keep quiet and to strengthen his kingdom in the interior.
That he was in earnest with his peaceful declarations, he had
sufficiently proved in the conference with Murena.(9) He continued
to avoid everything which would compel the Roman government
to abandon its passive attitude.
Apprehensions of Rome
But as the first Mithradatic war had arisen without any of the partie
properly desiring it, so now there grew out of the opposition
of interests mutual suspicion, and out of this suspicion
mutual preparations for defence; and these, by their very gravity,
ultimately led to an open breach. That distrust of her own readiness
to fight and preparation for fighting, which had for long governed
the policy of Rome--a distrust, which the want of standing armies
and the far from exemplary character of the collegiate rule
render sufficiently intelligible--made it, as it were, an axiom
of her policy to pursue every war not merely to the vanquishing,
but to the annihilation of her opponent; in this point of view
the Romans were from the outset as little content with the peace
of Sulla, as they had formerly been with the terms which Scipio
Africanus had granted to the Carthaginians. The apprehension often
expressed that a second attack by the Pontic king was imminent,
was in some measure justified by the singular resemblance between
the present circumstances and those which existed twelve years before.
Once more a dangerous civil war coincided with serious armaments
of Mithradates; once more the Thracians overran Macedonia,
and piratical fleets covered the Mediterranean; emissaries were coming
and going--as formerly between Mithradates and the Italians--
so now between the Roman emigrants in Spain and those at the court
of Sinope. As early as the beginning of 677 it was declared
in the senate that the king was only waiting for the opportunity
of falling upon Roman Asia during the Italian civil war;
the Roman armies in Asia and Cilicia were reinforced
to meet possible emergencies.
Apprehensions of Mithradates
Bithynia Roman
Cyrene a Roman Province
Outbreak of the Mithradatic War
Mithradates on his part followed with growing apprehension
the development of the Roman policy. He could not but feel
that a war between the Romans and Tigranes, however much
the feeble senate might dread it, was in the long run almost inevitable,
and that he would not be able to avoid taking part in it. His attempt
to obtain from the Roman senate the documentary record of the terms
of peace, which was still wanting, had fallen amidst the disturbances
attending the revolution of Lepidus and remained without result;
Mithradates found in this an indication of the impending renewal
of the conflict. The expedition against the pirates, which indirectly
concerned also the kings of the east whose allies they were,
seemed the preliminary to such a war. Still more suspicious
were the claims which Rome held in suspense over Egypt and Cyprus:
it is significant that the king of Pontus betrothed his two daughters
Mithradatis and Nyssa to the two Ptolemies, to whom the senate
continued to refuse recognition. The emigrants urged him
to strike: the position of Sertorius in Spain, as to which Mithradates
despatched envoys under convenient pretexts to the headquarters
of Pompeius to obtain information, and which was about this very time
really imposing, opened up to the king the prospect of fighting
not, as in the first Roman war, against both the Roman parties,
but in concert with the one against the other. A more favourable
moment could hardly be hoped for, and after all it was always
better to declare war than to let it be declared against him.
In 679 Nicomedes III Philopator king of Bithynia, died, and as
the last of his race--for a son borne by Nysa was, or was said
to be, illegitimate--left his kingdom by testament to the Romans,
who delayed not to take possession of this region bordering
on the Roman province and long ago filled with Roman officials
and merchants. At the same time Cyrene, which had been already
bequeathed to the Romans in 658,(10) was at length constituted
a province, and a Roman governor was sent thither (679). These
measures, in connection with the attacks carried out about
the same time against the pirates on the south coast of Asia Minor,
must have excited apprehensions in the king; the annexation of Bithynia
in particular made the Romans immediate neighbours of the Pontic
kingdom; and this, it may be presumed, turned the scale. The king
took the decisive step and declared war against the Romans
in the winter of 679-680.
Preparations of Mithradates
Gladly would Mithradates have avoided undertaking so arduous a work
singlehanded. His nearest and natural ally was the great-king
Tigranes; but that shortsighted man declined the proposal of his
father-in-law. So there remained only the insurgents and the pirates.
Mithradates was careful to place himself in communication
with both, by despatching strong squadrons to Spain and to Crete.
A formal treaty was concluded with Sertorius,(11) by which Rome
ceded to the king Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Galatia, and Cappadocia--
all of them, it is true, acquisitions which needed to be ratified
on the field of battle. More important was the support
which the Spanish general gave to the king, by sending Roman officers
to lead his armies and fleets. The most active of the emigrants
inthe east, Lucius Magius and Lucius Fannius, were appointed by Sertorius
as his representatives at the court of Sinope. From the pirates
also came help; they flocked largely to the kingdom of Pontus,
and by their means especially the king seems to have succeeded
in forming a naval force imposing by the number as well as
by the quality of the ships. His main support still lay in his
own forces, with which the king hoped, before the Romans should arrive
in Asia, to make himself master of their possessions there;
especially as the financial distress produced in the province
of Asia by the Sullan war-tribute, the aversion of Bithynia towards
the new Roman government, and the elements of combustion left
behind by the desolating war recently brought to a close in Cilicia
and Pamphylia, opened up favourable prospects to a Pontic invasion.
There was no lack of stores; 2,000,000 -medimni- of grain lay
in the royal granaries. The fleet and the men were numerous and well
exercised, particularly the Bastarnian mercenaries, a select corps
which was a match even for Italian legionaries. On this occasion
also it was the king who took the offensive. A corps under Diophantus
advanced into Cappadocia, to occupy the fortresses there
and to close the way to the kingdom of Pontus against the Romans;
the leader sent by Sertorius, the propraetor Marcus Marius,
went in company with the Pontic officer Eumachus to Phrygia, with a view
to rouse the Roman province and the Taurus mountains to revolt;
the main army, above 100,000 men with 16,000 cavalry and 100
scythe-chariots, led by Taxiles and Hermocrates under the personal
superintendence of the king, and the war-fleet of 400 sail
commanded by Aristonicus, moved along the north coast of Asia Minor
to occupy Paphlagonia and Bithynia.
Roman Preparations
On the Roman side there was selected for the conduct of the war
in the first rank the consul of 680, Lucius Lucullus, who as governor
of Asia and Cilicia was placed at the head of the four legions
stationed in Asia Minor and of a fifth brought by him from Italy,
and was directed to penetrate with this army, amounting to 30,000
infantry and 1600 cavalry, through Phrygia into the kingdom
of Pontus. His colleague Marcus Cotta proceeded with the fleet
and another Roman corps to the Propontis, to cover Asia and Bithynia.
Lastly, a general arming of the coasts and particularly
of the Thracian coast more immediately threatened by the Pontic fleet,
was enjoined; and the task of clearing all the seas and coasts
from the pirates and their Pontic allies was, by extraordinary decree,
entrusted to a single magistrate, the choice falling on the praetor
Marcus Antonius, the son of the man who thirty years before had
first chastised the Cilician corsairs.(12) Moreover, the senate
placed at the disposal of Lucullus a sum of 72,000,000 sesterces
(700,000 pounds), in order to build a fleet; which, however,
Lucullus declined. From all this we see that the Roman government
recognized the root of the evil in the neglect of their marine,
and showed earnestness in the matter at least so far as
their decrees reached.
Beginning of the War
Thus the war began in 680 at all points. It was a misfortune
for Mithradates, that at the very moment of his declaring war
the Sertorian struggle reached its crisis, by which one of his
principal hopes was from the outset destroyed, and the Roman
government was enabled to apply its whole power to the maritime
and Asiatic contest. In Asia Minor on the other hand Mithradates
reaped the advantages of the offensive, and of the great distance
of the Romans from the immediate seat of war. A considerable
number of cities in Asia Minor opened their gates to the Sertorian
propraetor who was placed at the head of the Roman province,
and they massacred, as in 666, the Roman families settled among them:
the Pisidians, Isaurians, and Cilicians took up arms against Rome.
The Romans for the moment had no troops at the points threatened.
Individual energetic men attempted no doubt at their own hand
to check this mutiny of the provincials; thus on receiving accounts
of these events the young Gaius Caesar left Rhodes where he was staying
on account of his studies, and with a hastily-collected
band opposed himself to the insurgents; but not much could be
effected by such volunteer corps. Had not Deiotarus, the brave
tetrarch of the Tolistobogii--a Celtic tribe settled around
Pessinus--embraced the side of the Romans and fought with success
against the Pontic generals, Lucullus would have had to begin with
recapturing the interior of the Roman province from the enemy.
But even as it was, he lost in pacifying the province and driving
back the enemy precious time, for which the slight successes
achieved by his cavalry were far from affording compensation.
Still more unfavourable than in Phrygia was the aspect of things
for the Romans on the north coast of Asia Minor. Here the great
Pontic army and the fleet had completely mastered Bithynia,
and compelled the Roman consul Cotta to take shelter with his
far from numerous force and his ships within the walls
and port of Chalcedon, where Mithradates kept them blockaded.
The Romans Defeated at Chalcedon
This blockade, however, was so far a favourable event
for the Romans, as, if Cotta detained the Pontic army before Chalcedon
and Lucullus proceeded also thither, the whole Roman forces might unite
at Chalcedon and compel the decision of arms there rather than
in the distant and impassable region of Pontus. Lucullus did take
the route for Chalcedon; but Cotta, with the view of executing a great
feat at his own hand before the arrival of his colleague, ordered
his admiral Publius Rutilius Nudus to make a sally, which not only
ended in a bloody defeat of the Romans, but also enabled the Pontic
force to attack the harbour, to break the chain which closed it,
and to burn all the Roman vessels of war which were there, nearly
seventy in number. On the news of these misfortunes reaching
Lucullus at the river Sangarius, he accelerated his march
to the great discontent of his soldiers, in whose opinion Cotta
was of no moment, and who would far rather have plundered an undefended
country than have taught their comrades to conquer. His arrival
made up in part for the misfortunes sustained: the king raised
the siege of Chalcedon, but did not retreat to Pontus; he went
southward into the old Roman province, where he spread his army
along the Propontis and the Hellespont, occupied Lampsacus,
and began to besiege the large and wealthy town of Cyzicus.
He thus entangled himself more and more deeply in the blind alley
which he had chosen to enter, instead of--which alone promised success
for him--bringing the wide distances into play against the Romans.
Mithradates Besieges Cyzicus
In few places had the old Hellenic adroitness and aptitude
preserved themselves so pure as in Cyzicus; its citizens, although
they had suffered great loss of ships and men in the unfortunate
double battle of Chalcedon, made the most resolute resistance.
Cyzicus lay on an island directly opposite the mainland
and connected with it by a bridge. The besiegers possessed themselves
not only of the line of heights on the mainland terminating at the bridge
and of the suburb situated there, but also of the celebrated
Dindymene heights on the island itself; and alike on the mainland
and on the island the Greek engineers put forth all their art
to pave the way for an assault. But the breach which they at length
made was closed again during the night by the besieged,
and the exertions of the royal army remained as fruitless as did
the barbarous threat of the king to put to death the captured Cyzicenes
before the walls, if the citizens still refused to surrender.
The Cyzicenes continued the defence with courage and success;
they fell little short of capturing the king himself
in the course of the siege.
Destruction of the Pontic Army
Meanwhile Lucullus had possessed himself of a very strong position
in rear of the Pontic army, which, although not permitting him
directly to relieve the hard-pressed city, gave him the means
of cutting off all supplies by land from the enemy. Thus the enormous
army of Mithradates, estimated with the camp-followers at 300,000
persons, was not in a position either to fight or to march, firmly
wedged in between the impregnable city and the immoveable Roman
army, and dependent for all its supplies solely on the sea,
which fortunately for the Pontic troops was exclusively commanded
by their fleet. But the bad season set in; a storm destroyed a great
part of the siege-works; the scarcity of provisions and above all
of fodder for the horses began to become intolerable. The beasts
of burden and the baggage were sent off under convoy of the greater
portion of the Pontic cavalry, with orders to steal away or break
through at any cost; but at the river Rhyndacus, to the east
of Cyzicus, Lucullus overtook them and cut to pieces the whole body.
Another division of cavalry under Metrophanes and Lucius Fannius
was obliged, after wandering long in the west of Asia Minor,
to return to the camp before Cyzicus. Famine and disease made
fearful ravages in the Pontic ranks. When spring came on (681),
the besieged redoubled their exertions and took the trenches
constructed on Dindymon: nothing remained for the king but to raise
the siege and with the aid of his fleet to save what he could.
He went in person with the fleet to the Hellespont, but suffered
considerable loss partly at its departure, partly through storms
on the voyage. The land army under Hermaeus and Marius likewise
set out thither, with the view of embarking at Lampsacus
under the protection of its walls. They left behind their baggage
as well as the sick and wounded, who were all put to death
by the exasperated Cyzicenes. Lucullus inflicted on them
very considerable loss by the way at the passage of the rivers
Aesepus and Granicus; but they attained their object. The Pontic ships
carried off the remains of the great army and the citizens of Lampsacus
themselves beyond the reach of the Romans.
Maritime War
Mithradates Driven Back to Pontus
The consistent and discreet conduct of the war by Lucullus
had not only repaired the errors of his colleague, but had also
destroyed without a pitched battle the flower of the enemy's army--
it was said 200,000 soldiers. Had he still possessed the fleet
which was burnt in the harbour of Chalcedon, he would have annihilated
the whole army of his opponent. As it was, the work of destruction
continued incomplete; and while he was obliged to remain passive,
the Pontic fleet notwithstanding the disaster of Cyzicus took
its station in the Propontis, Perinthus and Byzantium were blockaded
by it on the European coast and Priapus pillaged on the Asiatic,
and the headquarters of the king were established in the Bithynian port
of Nicomedia. In fact a select squadron of fifty sail,
which carried 10,000 select troops including Marcus Marius
and the flower of the Roman emigrants, sailed forth even into the Aegean;
the report went that it was destined to effect a landing in Italy
and there rekindle the civil war. But the ships, which Lucullus
after the disaster off Chalcedon had demanded from the Asiatic
communities, began to appear, and a squadron ran forth in pursuit
of the enemy's fleet which had gone into the Aegean. Lucullus himself,
experienced as an admiral,(13) took the command. Thirteen quinqueremes
of the enemy on their voyage to Lemnos, under Isidorus, were assailed
and sunk off the Achaean harbour in the waters between the Trojan coast
and the island of Tenedos. At the small island of Neae, between Lemnos
and Scyros, at which little-frequented point the Pontic flotilla
of thirty-two sail lay drawn up on the shore, Lucullus found it,
immediately attacked the ships and the crews scattered over the island,
and possessed himself of the whole squadron. Here Marcus Marius
and the ablest of the Roman emigrants met their death, either in conflict
or subsequently by the axe of the executioner. The whole Aegean fleet
of the enemy was annihilated by Lucullus. The war in Bithynia
was meanwhile continued by Cotta and by the legates of Lucullus,
Voconius, Gaius Valerius Triarius, and Barba, with the land army
reinforced by fresh arrivals from Italy, and a squadron collected
in Asia. Barba captured in the interior Prusias on Olympus and Nicaea
while Triarius along the coast captured Apamea (formerly Myrlea)
and Prusias on the sea (formerly Cius). They then united for a joint
attack on Mithradates himself in Nicomedia; but the king without
even attempting battle escaped to his ships and sailed homeward,
and in this he was successful only because the Roman admiral Voconius,
who was entrusted with the blockade of the port of Nicomedia,
arrived too late. On the voyage the important Heraclea was indeed
betrayed to the king and occupied by him; but a storm in these waters
sank more than sixty of, his ships and dispersed the rest; the king
arrived almost alone at Sinope. The offensive on the part of Mithradates
ended in a complete defeat--not at all honourable, least of all
for the supreme leader--of the Pontic forces by land and sea.
Invasion of Pontus by Lucullus
Lucullus now in turn proceeded to the aggressive. Triarius
received the command of the fleet, with orders first of all
to blockade the Hellespont and lie in wait for the Pontic ships
returning from Crete and Spain; Cotta was charged with the siege
of Heraclea; the difficult task of providing supplies
was entrusted to the faithful and active princes of the Galatians
and to Ariobarzanes king of Cappadocia; Lucullus himself advanced
in the autumn of 681 into the favoured land of Pontus, which had long
been untrodden by an enemy. Mithradates, now resolved to maintain
the strictest defensive, retired without giving battle from Sinope
to Amisus, and from Amisus to Cabira (afterwards Neocaesarea,
now Niksar) on the Lycus, a tributary of the Iris; he contented
himself with drawing the enemy after him farther and farther
into the interior, and obstructing their supplies and communications.
Lucullus rapidly followed; Sinope was passed by; the Halys, the old
boundary of the Roman dominion, was crossed and the considerable
towns of Amisus, Eupatoria (on the Iris), and Themiscyra (on
the Thermodon) were invested, till at length winter put an end
to the onward march, though not to the investments of the towns.
The soldiers of Lucullus murmured at the constant advance
which did not allow them to reap the fruits of their exertions,
and at the tedious and--amidst the severity of that season--
burdensome blockades. But it was not the habit of Lucullus
to listen to such complaints: in the spring of 682 he immediately
advanced against Cabira, leaving behind two legions before Amisus
under Lucius Murena. The king had made fresh attempts during the winter
to induce the great-king of Armenia to take part in the struggle;
they remained like the former ones fruitless, or led only
to empty promises. Still less did the Parthians show any desire
to interfere in the forlorn cause. Nevertheless a considerable army,
chiefly raised by enlistments in Scythia, had again assembled
under Diophantus and Taxiles at Cabira. The Roman army,
which still numbered only three legions and was decidedly inferior
to the Pontic in cavalry, found itself compelled to avoid as far as
possible the plains, and arrived, not without toil and loss,
by difficult bypaths in the vicinity of Cabira, At this town
the two armies lay for a considerable period confronting each other.
The chief struggle was for supplies, which were on both sides scarce:
for this purpose Mithradates formed the flower of his cavalry
and a division of select infantry under Diophantus and Taxiles
into a flying corps, which was intended to scour the country between
the Lycus and the Halys and to seize the Roman convoys of provisions
coming from Cappadocia. But the lieutenant of Lucullus, Marcus
Fabius Hadrianus, who escorted such a train, not only completely
defeated the band which lay in wait for him in the defile where it
expected to surprise him, but after being reinforced from the camp
defeated also the army of Diophantus and Taxiles itself, so that it
totally broke up. It was an irreparable loss for the king,
when his cavalry, on which alone he relied, was thus overthrown.