Introducing the Ancient Greeks: From Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western Mind

by Edith Hall

Yet the most colorful descendant of Macedonian imperialists was Mithridates VI Eupator, King of Pontus (134–63 BC), who made a concerted stand against the might of Rome. With the exception of Hannibal, Mithridates was the most intimidating foe the Romans ever faced. He was also a star of the eighteenth-century stage, the protagonist in operas by both Scarlatti and Mozart. The trajectory of his life was inherently dramatic. He came to power only after his father was poisoned and his mother plotted against him in favor of her other son. Mithridates expanded the Pontic empire to an unprecedented size, to encompass coastal regions adjoining the northern, eastern, and southern Black Sea and some of Anatolia. He was as formidable at sea as on land, maintaining a potent navy. At one point, during the first of the three Mithridatic wars in which he challenged the expanding Roman Empire (88–84 BC), he occupied Cappadocia as well as Asia Minor and had even established his authority as far west as Athens, which he ruled through a vassal magistrate.