Mithridates: The Roman Republic's Greatest Enemy [Re-uploaded, FIXED]

this video is brought to you by Squarespace the all-in-one platform where entrepreneurs can easily create and customize their own personal and professional website more on Squarespace later in the video Welcome Back to biographics I'm your host Cosmic horror madman Eric Malachite and today we're diving into some Roman and Greek history our protagonist being myth rates the great the Roman Republic's deadliest enemy with a script penned by Ru Alexander so be sure to give ru your thanks for this script because he does not have socials yet for you to follow with that said let's get to it mithradates was a man about whom one cannot speak except with concern nor yet pass by in silence he was ever eager for war of exceptional bravery always great in spirit and sometimes in achievement in strategy a general in bodily prowess a soldier in hatred to the Romans a Hannibal mithradates the king of pontis took a small Kingdom and turned it into a regional power right on Rome's doorstep he was ambitious cunning at times ruthless and pursued his goals with an unrelenting tunnel vision that ultimately became his downfall in the end mithradates did not best Rome it had simply become too powerful but he went down as an unyielding and implacable symbol of defiance that made even his greatest enemies fear and respect him [Music] mithradates the six yupiter dionisis also spelled myth rates which will be on screen thanks to our amazing editor Jen was born Circle 135 BC in the Kingdom of pontis probably in the capital city of copi pontis is not one of the better known kingdoms of the ancient world so some of you may be wondering what and where it is fortunately for us the Greek historian and geographer strabo happened to be from pontis so he was able to provide the world with a detailed description of his homeland pontis was divided both culturally and geographically into two regions the coast and the interior with the two of them physically separated by the pontic Alps the coast was rich in food and resources so most of the big cities were located there and they were Greek whereas the Persian culture was more predominant throughout the Inland region which was inhabited by the capid doans or capid doans it's pronounced either way and pelagonians as to who lived there before the Greeks and the Persians came around not even strabo was sure describing them as local tribes which are on the whole just names to us now in mythra's time pontis was a relatively small Kingdom on the southern coast of the Black Sea which was called pontis yenus in Latin occupying a part of the Anatolian Peninsula also known as Asia Minor by the time he would be finished though pontis would occupy almost the entire Peninsula plus territories on the Northern Western and eastern coast almost enveloping the Black Sea but that's getting ahead of ourselves a bit centuries earlier pontis and its Southern neighbor capid doia were part of the Persian satrapy also called cidia belonging to the aeonid Empire having been conquered by Darius the great bio available if you wish by then the Persian Empire was itself conquered by Alexander the even greater not to be confused with ser not appearing in this film yes that is a Monte python reference and most of Anatolia became part of his domain but then Alexander died without naming a successor so many of his top generals began fighting each other for power as they will want to do and ended up dividing the empire into smaller chunks while all of this was going on ambitious Kings and Warlords stepped up looking to get a piece of the pie for themselves and that is where the mithridates lineage comes in the first mithradates that we know of ruled over a Greek city in Asia Minor named cus myth rates II was the one in charge when Alexander died and he stayed in charge by becoming a vassal of antigonus one of Alexander's aformentioned generals however antigonous soon changed his mind and had mith rates 2 killed in 302 BC he also wanted to kill his son mith rates III but the latter managed to escape and outlasted antigonus who himself died the following year with no pressing thre rat Smith rases III traveled to the northern region of Anatolia where he founded the kingdom of pontis and to make things less confusing he pressed the reset button on his lineage and became mithradates the first of pontis here on biographics we talk in detail about people who shaped the ancient world but how can you in this modern day and age get noticed in our world without having to challenge all of Rome to do it that's where the sponsor for today's video squares space comes in with Squarespace you can build a professional website at an affordable price with flexible easy to ouse tools your site can be up and running quicker than the presidency of William Henry Harrison so what are these tools well Squarespace has introduced a new guided design system they have called Squarespace blueprint with this tool you can choose from professionally curated 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clear pay interested well head to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com biographics to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using the code biographics now back to past [Music] Eric as you can already tell there are a lot of myth rates involved in the story but this video is only about one of them so we'll skip ahead until we reach mithradates I 5th urries the father of our subject for today he had a long reign of approximately three decades between 150 and 120 BC he was married to a saluci princess named leoi I 6th and mithradates I 7th was their eldest son unlike his son Papa mithradates was an ally of Rome and helped them during the third Punic War against Carthage he was assassinated by poison in 120 BC Junior was around 13 years old when his father died so his mother ruled his Regent we hop now briefly into the realm of Legend to tell you how mithradates supposedly made himself immune to all poisons some historians claimed that his mother was the one behind his father's death and that she also wanted to do away with him to either claim power for herself or her other son who you'll be absolutely shocked to find out was also called mithradates that's not confusing at all is it anyway after a few failed attempts on his life our myth rates decided to get the hell out of Dodge and lived for years in the wild where it was safer eventually he came of age and returned to successfully claim his throne and had both his mother and brother removed from their positions to put it politely however this experience left mithr so paranoid about being poisoned that he became obsessed with toxicology following Decades of research he supposedly developed an Elixir out of over 50 different ingredients that was a universal antidote to all known toxins which became known as mithridate he ingested this concoction regularly and this allowed him to consume deadly substances such as arsenic or venoms with no ill effects so he's basically Greek Batman it is said that by the end of his life myth rates had become completely immune to all poisons unfortunately he never bothered to write the recipe down so this miraculous Panacea has been lost forever the reality is that we don't know exactly how myth rates came to rule on his own both his mother and brother simply disappeared from the historical record around 115 BC whether they were killed imprisoned or something else happened in irely we can't say but the end result is the same myth rates the 7th yupiter was now the king of pontis right off the bat myth rates had Grand Ambitions of growing his Empire and it didn't take him very long because the first opportunity immediately presented itself on a silver platter the cities and kingdoms on the Crimean Peninsula on the northern coast of the Black Sea were under Threat by the cians they didn't really have any good options available to them so it was more a matter of choosing the one that was the least worst therefore they were willing to give up their independence and accept the rule of pontis if mithradates could protect them from the seian kingdom led by King silarus who I do not know how to pronounce his name because I couldn't find a guide so have at it in the comments pronunciation police you're welcome intended to conquer all of Crimea mythr said sure and went on a war path although the actual Waring seems to have been done by one of his generals named Diop fantis the pontic Army geared up and marched to Crimea and since it was on the way it also subjugated kulus a region on the eastern coast of the Black Sea part of the modern-day Georgia after that the boser Kingdom on the Northeast Coast which was willingly handed over by its king parades he knew that he did not have the money or soldiers to keep the invading Barbarians at Bay so life under myth rates was preferable since at least pontis was a Greek civilization like them the main destination was chersonesus the Crimean City that originally requested aid from mithradates they also provided the most detailed account of this conflict thanks to an inscription honoring diophantus it says that as soon as the pontic general arrived in Crimea he was faced with a surprise attack from pakus the son of silarus and the new king of cyia diaphanus was Victorious thus becoming the first foreign Invader to conquer the cians however the honor went to mithradates since the boss man collected the credit even if he wasn't actually there after warding off the initial strike pontis launched a Counterattack in the interior of the Crimean Peninsula deep in cian territory at this point the ancient account becomes vager simply stating that diaphanus achieved many great things in a short time the general managed to conquer several cian cities including the capital of neapolis and once that was done all the others surrendered Crimea was now part of the kingdom of pontis so with his job done diaphanus returned home this however did not last long or maybe it lasted decades we're not sure to be honest since no specific years are mentioned but at one point the cians rebelled against myth rates and this time they Allied themselves with a group of Samaritan people people called and I could not find a definitive way to pronounce this but I believe it is rolian correct me if I'm wrong once again rolani diaphanus made his way North once more with an army of 6,000 soldiers matched up against 50,000 cians and rolani despite the number's disadvantaged the pontic general defeated his enemies soundly thanks mainly to Superior weapons training and Military skill and the cians were forced to come to terms again on his way back home again diaphanus made a pit stop to solve another issue in the bosing Kingdom which was experiencing sellers remorse parades the king who willingly abdicated power into myth rates had been assassinated by a group led by a guy named Samus they wanted Independence again now that the cians were no longer a threat but the no takes Backes rule was in effect and pontis was not about to give up any territory without a fight diantus had to wait until Mithra sent him reinforcement but once he did the general crushed the Revolt captured somus and sent him to pontis where we assume many unpleasant things happened to him although most of the Black Sea Coastline was now either part of the kingdom of pontis or a protectorate that paid tribute that was not enough to quell the Ambitions of mithradates he began looking South and West to the rest of the Anatolian Peninsula and he liked what he saw there was just one problem though because now he wanted something that that somebody else wanted as well Rome at the time there was one other power in Asia Minor the kingdom of bethenia ruled by King nicomedes III although he and myth rates weren't exactly Drinking Buddies they also saw no reason to fight each other for the time being there was more value in them becoming allies than enemies so around 108 BC the two invaded pagonia easily conquered it and divided it between Their Kingdoms afterward myth rates subjugated Galia as well this kind of activity was bound to attract the attention of the Roman Republic which considered Asia Minor under its sphere of influence plus it is not surprising that Rome wouldn't want a regional power to grow so close to its own borders who knows what ideas it might get but at the time Rome wasn't exactly in a position to make demands it was trying and failing to win a war with numidia led by King yertha in Northern Africa so all it could do was wag its finger at mith rates in a disappointing manner while mith rates was busy with gasia nicomedes invaded capid doia the next part gets a little tricky mainly because we can only speculate on the true intentions of everyone involved the queen of capid dohio was leoi mies's Sister who ruled his region for her underage son arthes I 7th her husband arthes I 6 had recently been assassinated by a capid Doan nobleman named gordius on her brother's orders why we're not sure but Leo DC then agreed to marry nicomedes when mithradates heard about this he invaded capid doia and was successful in driving nicomedes back to bethenia with their Alliance officially crumbled mithradates restored his young nephew to the throne but instead of leod Dei ruling as Regent the pontic king insisted that gordius would assume the role this could suggest that myth daes no longer trusted his sister or perhaps he had a far more devious plan in mind all along unsurprisingly arthes the seventh did not want his father's killer as his Regent and even though he was a kid he was ready to go to war against his uncle things never got that far though because myth rates had him assassinated around 100 BC the pontic king then installed his own underage son also called arthes the 9th as the new ruler of capid doia with gordus as his Regent so it is possible that this was myth rates' intention all along cunning as it might be the plan didn't work the capid doans did not want arthes the 9th as their king and the underage Monarch had trouble holding on to his power when daddy wasn't around instead he was deposed by that's right it's arthes the 5678 the younger brother of arthes the 7th Son of arthes the 6th and cousin to arthes the nth confusing enough for you don't worry it's almost over this compelled mithradates to invade capid doia again and put his son back on the throne driven into Exile arthes VII died of an unknown disease mithradates might have hoped that this would finally calm things down but if anything they were only about to get much worse all the shenanigans in capid dohia finally prompted Rome to stand up and say enough is enough the Senate delivered a warning to mithradates be stronger than the Romans or obey their commands in silence at first mith rates tried diplomacy he and nicomedes sent envoys to Rome to argue why their candidates were legitimate enough to claim the capid Doan Throne Rome however was having none of it and decided that if they couldn't play nice together then neither one could have it the Senate ruled that pontis and bethenia must restore independence not not only to capid doia but to pagonia as well or else this was a fork in the road for myth rates did he obey or defy Rome he chose to obey for now no point in starting a fight he couldn't win he returned his troops to ponus and saw Rome install a puppet King named Ario barzen in capid doia if mithradates wanted to take them on and stand a chance he would need time to prepare and find new allies his first Ally came in the form of Armenia which was starting to emerge as a powerful Kingdom under its new King tiganis II mithradates wasted no time in securing an alliance by marrying tiganis to his daughter Cleopatra no not that one he even persuaded tiganis to invade capid doia and restore arthes the 9th to the throne but then the Romans came along and installed ariobarzanes again this would happen a few times over the next few years as the two sides played hot potato with capid doia myth rates didn't offer any resistance when the Romans came for the moment he was content with building up his army and forging new alliances in 90 BC a Roman liation led by a general named Manus ailis was really pushing his buttons at this point both Rome and pontis knew that war had become inevitable but each side wanted to have a casus belly AKA a justification for war ais's actions were likely intended to provoke an armed response from myth rates he even convinced the new king king of bethenia nicomedes IV to invade and plunder lands belonging to pontis something which nicomedes was compelled to do because he owed Rome a lot of money for keeping him in power the armed response from myth rades did not come at least for now instead he allowed bethenia to trample his land so he could play the victim card this way he could Lodge an official Complaint with the Senate against bethenia while also gaining sympathy from local kingdoms particularly the Greeks who were getting fed up with how Rome kept swinging its short sword around willy-nilly myth rades ran a good PR campaign and he made a few friends Armenia Parthia pic Egypt the cusd and the Greeks were on his side or more accurately they were against Rome the enemy of my enemy and all that only one thing was left now and that was war and it began in ' 89 BC as was tradition with the invasion of capid doia and kicking out Aria barzen after that came IA and then the rest of Asia Minor which could offer Little Resistance to a force that had been preparing for almost a decade it was at this point that the kingdom of pontis reached the peak of its power with control over almost all of Anatolia plus the coast of the Black Sea myth rates had picked his opportunity well Rome was busy with the social war against other Italian tribes that lasted until 87 BC it couldn't immediately send troops to Asia Minor so the pontic king had almost 2 years to gain as much ground as possible and in 88 BC mithradates planned and carried out the massacre known as the Asiatic Vespers targeting Romans and Latin speakers in Asia Minor between 80,000 and 150,000 people were killed depending on the source there was no going back the first Roman response came from Manus achillus since he was in the area and was itching to go to war against ponus anyway well he certainly got his wish only to discover that he was severely outnumbered and got curb stomped on the battlefield achiles fled tail tucked between his legs to the safety of the Greek Islands except that there was no safety to be had he tried hiding in molini but the people there hated the Romans as much as myth rates did so they captured the Roman general and turned him over to pontis mithradates paraded achillus as a prisoner of war and then had him executed supposedly by by pouring molten gold down his throat this was just the starter though and Rome was getting ready to deliver the main course a large army commanded by General Sula so far we've been talking about all the Capers and conspiracies that were going on in Asia Minor but Rome was dealing with its own Monkey Business at the time there was a lot of infighting intrigues and betrayals going on which culminated with the first large scale Civil War in Rome's history one by the aformentioned Sula if you want to learn about that we have a bio on him ready to go anyway the first mithraic war took place mostly in Greece specifically a region called viia myres had a lot of Greek allies who wanted to escape from under the Roman yoke or at least he thought he did as sulb made his way through Greece most cities quickly surrendered without a fight one exception was Athens which Sula had to besiege for almost a year before finally emerging triumphant he then gained two decisive victories at the battles of kirenia and arenus and another General named fimbria bested myth rades as well and the war was pretty much won Sula could have eliminated mith rades right then and there if it hadn't been for treachery back in Rome in the years he was gone sula's enemies stripped him of his command and gave another General named flacas the ambitious task of dealing with both Sula and myth rades he never got the chance his men mutinied and he was assassinated by the aformentioned fimbria as far as Sula was concerned myth rendes was a problem but he had an even bigger problem back in Rome so he offered the pontic king good terms for a speedy resolution surrender all the territories gained in the war restore the kings of capid doia and bethenia pay Sula 2,000 talents and give him 70 warships given the circumstances this was the best myth rades could hope for so he agreed and thus the first mithraic war ended in 85 BC the second war was a lot shorter when Sula departed for Rome he left a guy named Marina in charge of Asia Minor with two Legions but he started conducting unauthorized raids into mith rates' territory under the pretense that the pontic King was building up his forces for war with Rome again in reality mithradates was dealing with revolts in culus and bosporus but he still felt compelled to retaliate and actually won this time he drove all the Roman Harrisons out of capid doia and of course he also deposed the king since it had become a custom by this point eventually a Roman Envoy arrived and settled the matter he recalled Marina back to Rome for acting without senatorial approval and put Ario barzen on the throne of capid doia for the third or fourth time maybe we've lost count at this point and so the second mithraic war ended in 81 BC the third one was the biggie both sides felt justified in attacking the other mith rades had Allied himself with sertorius a Roman Rebel who was Public Enemy Number One as far as the Senate was concerned and myth rades was angry because Rome planned to Annex bethenia which would have made them neighbors so he invaded to stop this from happening this was in 73 BC 8 years after the end of the second war so myth rades had plenty of time to regain his strength the conflict initially went his way myth rades delivered a serious blow to the Roman forces in Asia Minor at the Battle of Caledon where he practically destroyed the entire Roman Fleet in the region after that he conquered city after City virtually unopposed but then Roman reinforcements arrived and the time started to turn Sula was dead by this point instead the Roman armies were led by two of his former proteges a general named lucus and a promising upand Comer named pompe lucus set the tone with a victory at the Battle of ricus which then allowed him to enter pontis itself forcing myth rades to retreat to Armenia it took lucus a few years to get pontis under control but in 69 BC nice he invaded Armenia he gained several important victories but this time he was outmaneuvered by myth rades who launched a surprise attack on pontis following a decisive win at the Battle of zeala in 67 BC mith rades regained his kingdom and drove back the Romans after Lucas's failure pompe was placed in command of the campaign against rades and he was determined to end it once and for all and to give him credit he did Pomp's Army and let's be honest his military prowess was Superior in every way and he scored Victory after Victory against myth rades pushing him deeper and deeper into his Empire from pontis to the eastern coast of the Black Sea and then finally to Crimea everyone except myth rades could see the writing on the wall this time king tiganis of Armenia didn't allow mithradates into his kingdom he didn't want none of pompe and instead he sued for peace and became a client of Rome to add insult to injury mith rides's own son Maus king of bosporus refused to help his father and another son farus even rebelled against him to try to end the war and Salvage what was left of the Empire it had become clear that mith rades had pushed too far and someone much bigger pushed back faced with capture the pontic king committed suicide in 63 BC Legend goes that myth radies tried to poison himself but his immunity proved too strong so instead he had his bodyguard stab him with his sword out of respect pomi had his body delivered to pontis where mithradates received a royal funeral and was buried in the tombs of the Kings copi because pompe admired his great achievements and considered him the first of the kings of his time well I certainly hope you found this video to be as entertaining and informative as I did and if you did be sure to do All That algorithmic Jazz I'm Eric Malachite and I'll see you next time space cowboy [Music]