| Battle: Amnias River | Archelaus+Neoptolemus/Nicomedes IV | 89 |
| Battle: Scorobas | Pontic/Bithynian cavalry skirmish | 89 |
| Battle: Protopachium | Neoptolemus/Aquillius (3) | 89 |
| Asiatic Vespers | massacre of Roman & Italian residents | 88 |
| Siege: Rhodes | v. Mithridates (f) | 88 |
| S: Piraeus+Athens | v. Cornelius (31) Sulla (s) | 87/6 |
| Battle: Chaeronea | Cornelius (31) Sulla/Archelaus | 86 |
| Battle: Orchomenus | Cornelius (31) Sulla/Archelaus | 85 |
| Battle: Miletopolis | Flavius (3) Fimbria/son of Mithridates | 85 |
| Sea Battle: Lectum | Licinius (12) Lucullus/Pontic fleet | 85 |
| Sea Battle: Tenedos | Licinius (12) Lucullus/Neoptolemus | 85 |
| Treaty: Dardanus | Cornelius (31) Sulla-Mithridates VI | 85 |
At the outbreak of the war the Romans and their allies had four armies spread out along the western borders of Pontus and Cappadocia. Nicomedes advanced through Paphlagonia until he ran into a Pontic army on the wide plain bordering the Amnias River. Here, Mithridates’ force was commanded by two of his generals, the brothers Neoptolemus and Archelaus.
The battle started with Nicomedes driving Pontic troops off a rocky hill on the plain. Neoptolemus attempted to recover the hill but was driven back. Archelaus then led an attack from the right and Nicomedes had to turn his army to face the new threat. The turning point came when Pontic scythed chariots ploughed into Nicomedes’ army. Hideous wounds and confusion in the Bithynian army gave Neoptolemus time to rally his men and attack what was now the Bithynian rear. This final stage of the battle only ended after Nicomedes had lost most of his army. The survivors fled westwards where they joined up with Aquillius who was posted in eastern Bithynia with the second of the four Roman armies.
Mithridates’ army crossed Mount Scorobas into eastern Bithynia where a mere hundred allied Sarmatian cavalry defeated eight hundred Bithynian horse. Nicomedes retreated south to join Cassius (4) who was posted with a small Roman army on the border between Bithynia and Galatia.
Neoptolemus caught up with Aquillius’ army close to the fortress of Protopachium, in eastern Bithynia, and forced a battle. Appian states that Aquillius lost a quarter of his forty-four thousand men before he was able to escape to temporary safety at Pergamum and then on to Lesbos. Nicomedes, having given up all hope of retaining Bithynia, parted with Cassius and also made his way to Pergamum. Cassius retreated southwards to the Aegean coast and crossed to Rhodes.
Mithridates and his generals soon took control of most of the Roman province of Asia. Quintus Oppius (1), the governor of Cilicia, had taken up position in the foothills of Cappadocia with the last of the four Roman armies. He now retreated westwards to Laodicea on the Lycus in Phrygia.
Mithridates offered the Loadiceans an amnesty if they surrendered Oppius. They handed him over and Mithridates set him free whereupon Oppius made his way to Cos. On Lesbos the citizens of Mytilene handed Aquillius over and he was later killed by having molten gold poured down his throat in mockery of his avarice having brought about the war.
In spring 88 BC Mithridates prompted the ‘Asiatic (or ‘Ephesian’) Vespers’, the slaughter of perhaps as many as eighty thousand Romans and Italians resident in Asia Minor. In the autumn he led a force against Rhodes. The Rhodians quickly destroyed a number of his ships by ramming and fire. After an abortive night attack, Mithridates then decided on an assault from the sea. For this he built a particular siege engine which from its shape was called a sambuca (‘harp’) – in fact a covered ramp that would be positioned normal to a city wall for soldiers to rush up with some protection and reach the top of the parapet. However, it could not bear its own weight and fell apart. With this, Mithridates abandoned the siege.
For the period 91-88 BC Athens was under the pro-Roman and anti-Mithridatic tyranny of Medeius. He was ousted by a coup and the philosopher Athenion (2) was sent as an emissary to Mithridates. When he returned a few months later he was elected hoplite-general and immediately assumed the tyranny over Athens. Soon, however, he reversed his former policy and declared himself to be pro-Roman. With the Pontic forces now approaching Greece, a new ruler had to be found and the choice fell on another philosopher, Aristion, who chose to demonstrate his loyalty to Mithridates by murdering all the aristocrats he thought still had sympathies with Rome.
While Mithridates was attacking Rhodes, Archelaus, his best general, with a second Pontic fleet, was sweeping westwards, subduing the Cyclades and all the islands east of Cape Malea (southeast corner of the Peloponnese). One of his officers, Metrophanes, overran the island of Delos and killed the greater part of the large Italian trading community there.
For his attack on the mainland, Mithridates sent a force of over a hundred thousand men, led by his son Arcathius (who had taken part in the Battle at Amnias River) and a general Taxiles, across to Thrace to take control of Amphipolis on the Macedonian border.
Archelaus sailed to Piraeus (Athens’ port to the southwest) and secured Athens, while Metrophanes ravaged coastal Magnesia and conquered Chalcis, which had remained loyal to Rome. Metrophanes was later bested by Quintus Bruttius Sura, a legate of Gaius Sentius the governor of Macedonia, a defeat that forced Metrophanes to leave his base on Sciathus unprotected for Sura to capture.
Archelaus and Aristion advanced with their forces against Thespiae in Boeotia, which was still held out for Rome. Sura attacked the two allies at Chaeronea, forcing their withdrawal by sea. Sura moved quickly south and captured Athens, but the arrival of Archelaus and his fleet rendered Sura’s position untenable and he was forced to retreat northwards.
In spring 87 BC Sulla landed at Epirus with thirty thousand veterans of the Social War and then marched for Athens and Piraeus, while his quaestor 12Licinius Lucullus (61; fl.89-57 BC) met up with Sura and ordered him to withdraw because sole command had been given to Sulla.
The Long Walls which had once connected Athens to Piraeus were now in ruins. Outnumbered, Archelaus decided to defend Piraeus – the land side of the port would be blockaded, but his supplies and reinforcements should reach him on ships because of Mithridates’ command of the sea. Aristion would be in Athens defending the city as best he could.
Sulla invested Athens and Piraeus. He dug a trench and built a ring of forts around Athens and intercepted supply columns from the Piraeus. On 1 March 86 BC he launched an assault on the city, and its citizens exhausted by hunger offered little resistance. Aristion and his supporters retreated to the Acropolis, but hunger and thirst soon forced their surrender. His supporters were executed, but Aristion survived for a little longer before being put to death.
The fall of Athens allowed Sulla to concentrate his efforts against Piraeus. Archelaus withdrew his men to their ships and then sailed to Thessaly to join with the second Pontic army that was approaching from the north. With both Piraeus and Athens in his hands, Sulla marched northwards with the bulk of his army to counter this new threat.
When Archelaus joined Taxiles in Thessaly, he learned that Arcathius had fallen ill and died. With Archelaus in overall command the Pontic army of one hundred and twenty thousand including ten thousand cavalry moved south towards Sulla. The two armies confronted each other at Elateia in Phocis on an open plain that would have favoured the Pontic cavalry. Sulla naturally declined several offers of battle from Archelaus who decided to push on southeastwards to Chaeronea in Boeotia with Sulla following.
The Pontic force arrived to find that Chaeronea was occupied by a Roman garrison and Sulla was behind them blocking their retreat. Trapped in the valley between Mount Hedylium and Mount Acontium, Archelaus was forced to fight on rock-strewn ground unsuitable for cavalry operations.
The action started with an attack by the chariots, but they had little room to gather momentum and when they reached the palisade in front of the Roman line a hail of missiles forced them back. When the main battle lines joined there was a prolonged tactical battle but eventually the Pontic phalanx was driven back to the Cephissus River. A huge number of Archelaus’ troops were killed on the plain and more in the flight across the river. Only ten thousand were retrieved by Archelaus and conveyed by sea to Chalcis in Euboea.
One of Mithridates’ generals, Dorylaus, landed in Boeotia with a new army for Archelaus, which later joined the ten thousand survivors of Chaeronea. Sulla marched to meet the Pontic commanders near Orchomenus on the Boeotian plain. As the Pontic army included a large number of cavalry, Sulla dug trenches to protect his flanks.
When the Pontic cavalry attacked his working parties, he attempted to rally them in person and this precipitated the battle. An initial chariot charge was countered by the Romans falling back to reveal a row of stakes. A counterattack with light infantry and light cavalry then drove the chariots back, carrying the Pontic infantry away in their flight. Archelaus lost ten thousand men. The following day his camp was stormed and the Pontic troops scattered into the marshes behind the camp. Archelaus himself escaped but his army had been destroyed.
After the battle Sulla marched northwards to meet with 13Valerius Flaccus, whom the Senate had sent with an army to Epirus, officially to fight Mithridates, but actually to confront Sulla. Flaccus, having had little military experience, brought with him as a legate 03Flavius Fimbria.
The two Roman armies encamped near each other on the northern slope of Mount Othrys. When Flaccus’ troops heard of Sulla’s great successes so far, they began to desert to the enemy camp. Flaccus decided not to fight but to quickly resume his advance through Macedonia and Thrace and across to Asia. This army reached Byzantium under the command of Flaccus, but once there he was deposed and killed by Fimbria, who took over the command and conducted a successful campaign along the coast of Asia Minor.
A large army under the command of Mithridates’ son, another Mithridates, attempted to block the Romans at the Rhyndacus River in Bithynia, but was defeated close to Miletopolis. The younger Mithridates managed to escape to join his father, but both were then chased to the coast at Pitane in Aeolis. Here Fimbria had a chance to end the war in a single stroke, for the fleet under 12Licinius Lucullus was close by, but Lucullus refused to cooperate with Sulla’s political enemies, and Mithridates was able to escape by sea.
Never having had a fleet, Sulla had been unable to follow Archelaus across to Asia. In winter 87/6 BC Sulla had sent Lucullus to raise a fleet from Rome’s allies around the eastern Mediterranean. Lucullus now sailed northwards for the Hellespont and two naval victories followed – one over a Pontic squadron off Lectum (=Cape Baba) in the Troad, and the second over Mithridates’ admiral Neoptolemus near the island of Tenedos. Lucullus then sailed on to Abydos in order to transport Sulla’s army into Asia Minor.
But Mithridates was now willing to come to terms. He met Sulla in summer 85 BC at Dardanus near Troy and concluded a treaty on exceptionally generous terms. He had to withdraw from Roman Asia (western Asia Minor), Bithynia and Cappadocia, and to pay an indemnity of two thousand talents; but he was confirmed in possession of his ancestral realm and recognized as a Roman ally.
Sulla was now free to deal with Fimbria, who was at Thyatira in Lydia. On Sulla’s approach Fimbria’s men began to desert and their leader took his own life. Sulla then took command of Fimbria’s legions and they were made to serve in Asia until the end of the Third Mithridatic War.
The Roman province was now conquered territory and Sulla imposed his settlement: those cities that had sided with Mithridates (e.g. Pergamum, Ephesus, Miletus) had to pay the crushing sum of twenty thousand talents (the taxes for five years plus a war indemnity) and to house, clothe and pay Sulla’s troops (at fifty times their normal rate) during the winter. The few cities that had kept faith with Rome were exempt and rewarded with privileges and territory.
This drain on the communities’ wealth was crippling far into the future. Loans could only be obtained at high interest, and theatres, gymnasia, harbours and city walls had to be mortgaged. An additional cause of trouble was that the disorder due to the war had brought a great increase in piracy. They are said to have carried off one thousand talents’ worth of treasure from Samothrace, while Sulla himself was on the island. Thus when he sailed for Greece in 84 BC, Sulla left a great deal of debt and despair behind him.
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