By the summer of 88 BC Tigranes was still consolidating his position in Asia Minor as the junior member of the Pontus/Parthia/Armenia tripartite alliance that undoubtedly had Rome as its raison d‘être.373 He had already cemented his ties with Mithridates of Pontus through a marriage alliance with his daughter, Cleopatra, not long after coming to the throne in 96/5 BC.374 In 89/8 BC Rome was still struggling with the Samnites in the Social Wars and their leader, Silo, had appealed to Mithridates for aid.375 In the months leading up to the summer of 88 BC diplomatic relations had broken down between Rome‘s representative in Asia, Lucius Cassius, and Mithridates over the suzerainty of Cappadocia and war soon broke out between Pontus and Bithynia. Asia Minor was quickly overrun by Mithridates and this eventually led to the murder of thousands of Roman and Italian citizens throughout Asia Minor on his orders. Sulla was eventually designated the province of Asia and the command of the war, but in the meantime his predecessor, Lucius Cassius, was soundly defeated and then besieged in Rhodes. Meanwhile Sulla was struggling with the rapidly deteriorating constitutional crisis and civil strife back at Rome.376
Despite Rome‘s internal discord, the threat of Mithridates could not be ignored. His armies had occupied Greece by 87 BC and an all out assault on Italy could not have been far from realisation.377 Sulla carried the war into Greece and by 87/6 BC had besieged Athens and its port with Archelaus, Mithridates‘ principle general, within. A second army was sent by Mithridates led by his son, Arcathias, into Macedonia, which met with some success until his sudden death through illness at Tisaeum at the time that Sulla was preoccupied with the monumental siege of Athens and the Piraeus.378
Athens eventually succumbed, largely through famine rather than direct assault, and was sacked. Archelaus fled Piraeus and eventually rallied a force at Thermopylae consisting of newly acquired reinforcements and the deceased Arcathias‘ forces.379 A massive set piece battle took place at Chaeronea, Greece‘s infamous place of decision, and Sulla summarily
373 Jus. 38.3.1 and 5. 374 App. Mith. 3.15. 375 App. Mith. 3.16. 376
Liv. Per. 77, 78; App. Mith. 3.17, 19, 24; Plut. Sull. 6.10; 7.1-10.2; Mar. 34.1-35.4; App. BC 1.55-63; Mith.
3.22, 30; Cic. Phil. 8.7; Diod. 37.29; Val. Max. 3.8.5; 6.5.7; 8.6.2; 9.7,ext.1; Flor. 2.9.6-8; Eutr. 5.4; Auct. Vir. Ill. 75.7-8; Oros. 5.19.3-7. Appian dates the outbreak of hostilities to about the 173rd Olympiad, ―ἀμφὶ τὰς ἑκατὸν καὶ ἐβδομήκοντα τρεῖς ὀλυμπιάδας‖, which translates to late spring/summer 88 BC.
377
App. Mith. 5.28f.
378 App. Mith. 5.35f. 379 App. Mith. 6.40-1.
defeated Archelaus‘ army, a force three times his army‘s size.380
A further battle took place at Orchomenus leading to final defeat for Archelaus in Greece. Sulla went into winter (86/5 BC) quarters in Thessaly by which time he had been declared a public enemy back at Rome and had the war against Mithridates taken from him and handed to L. Valerius Flaccus. Flaccus was eventually murdered by his legate C. Flavius Fimbria who then prosecuted a relatively successful campaign against Mithridates and took revenge against the towns of Asia that had sided with the Pontic King or Sulla―including, infamously, Ilium.381
By 84 BC Sulla had carried the war into Asia Minor and in the summer met with Mithridates sealing the Treaty of Dardanus. He then quickly dealt with Fimbria and brought Asia Minor back into line, imposing crippling restitution.382 Satisfied that he had bested Mithridates‘ forces to the point where he could leave Asia Minor in relative security, he returned to Rome to deal finally with the ongoing constitutional crisis and factional discord.
The Second Mithridatic War (83-1 BC) was a comparative sideshow incited by Sulla‘s propraetor in Asia, L. Licinius Murena purely for rapine and self-aggrandisement. 383 He used the civil war back in Italy as a distraction from his illegal actions having moved out of his provincia and contravened the tenets of the Dardanus treaty. He was eventually restrained by Sulla in 81 BC, but only after Murena had suffered a severe defeat in Cappadocia at the hands of Mithridates and Gordius. Ariobarzanes was expelled from Cappadocia then reinstated when Sullas‘ legate A. Gabinius mediated a peace between Ariobarzanes and Mithridates, but it seems with the Pontic King still maintaining some significant control of Cappadocian territory. Interestingly a future marriage alliance was offered to Ariobarzanes, albeit with Mithridates‘ daughter of four years of age.384
Meanwhile Tigranes of Armenia had not been idle. He had managed to keep Mithridates‘ struggle with Rome at arm‘s length. Some Armenian forces, 10,000 horse from Lesser Armenia, had been involved in the first war under the command of one Nemanes who
380 App. Mith. 6.42-5.
381 Cic. Flacc. 61; Diod. 38.8.1-2; Strab. 13.1.27, 594c; Liv. Per. 82, 98; Vell. 2.24.1; Plut. Sull. 20.1;23.6; Luc.
7.2; App. BC 1.75; Mith. 8.51-3; Memn. FGrH 3B.353, 34 and 356, 40; Dio 30-35, fr. 104.1-5; Auct. Vir. Ill. 70.1; Oros. 6.2.9; Sall. Hist. 3.33;2.78M; 5.13M. The sack of Ilium occurred at the close of the 173rd Olympiad (early summer 85 BC), stated by Appian to be 1050 years after its sack by Agamemnon, which is interestingly close to modern archaeological interpretations of the site that associate the events of the Iliad with Troy VIIa, ca. 1200 BC; App. Mith. 8.53.
382 App. Mith. 9.62-3.
383 App. Mith. 9.64-6 and 112; Memn. 36, FGrH 3 B.354; Cic. Mur. 11, 15 and 32; Leg. Man. 8; Acad. 2.2; Phil.
11.33; SIG3 745; I. v. Priene 121, line 40f.
384
Murena‘s excuse was that there was no treaty as it was made verbally and, by implication, without the ratification of the Roman Senate. Sulla was outlawed at the time and therefore could not have been a representative of the Senate in any case. App. Mith. 9.60; ―...τῇ τε βουλῇ περὶ πάντων ἐπέστελλεν, οὐχ ὑποκρινόμενος ἐψηφίσθαι πολέμιος.” Ibid, 9.64; “...καὶ πρέσβεσιν αὐτοῦ τὰς συνθήκας προτείνουσιν οὐκ ἔφη συνθήκας ὁρᾶν. οὐ γὰρ συνεγέγραπτο ύλλας, ἀλλ᾿ ἔργῳ τὰ λεχθέντα βεβαιώσας ἀπήλλακτο.‖
was a sub-commander of Mithridates‘ son, Arcathias.385 It is uncertain whether these were involved in Greece as they are not mentioned.386 It is likely Tigranes was able to cushion the blow of Mithridates‘ defeat by virtue of his remoteness to the events.