Mithridates the Great Read Online Free PDF

beyond the mountains had a deep and personal interest in them. It is not known whether Mithridates II actually made a military grab for the city, but if he did he was unsuccessful, since Sinope remained independent for another generation and Pontus vanishes off the pages of history; apart that is, from mention of Mithridates II scoring a further diplomatic coup by marrying his daughter to the Seleucid king – the first time that a Seleucid monarch had taken a wife outside Macedonian royalty. 4
    One has to assume the period of 220 –190 BC as the reign of Mithridates III, simply because he has to be fitted into the record somewhere. The only evidence for the existence of Pontus at this time is the coinage which archaeologists are still unearthing in the region. They show a distinctly Asiatic–looking Mithridates (presumably III) on the obverse, together with the crescent moon and star which was to become a symbol of Pontus and the Mithridatids (a symbol which has since become a bone of heated contention both as to its origins and its relationship with the star and crescent symbol of the Turks). However, it is probable that Mithridates III tightened the Pontic noose around Sinope by bringing Amisus (a coastal city to Sinope’s east), into his hegemony.
    If Mithridates III was content to keep a low profile, the next ruler, Pharnarces I, was not. He immediately became involved in a messy war between Pergamum and Bithynia, and when the Romans forced a ceasefire in about 183 BC, he did not stand down his army but instead pounced on and captured Sinope. 5 This was a crucial acquisition. With a splendid harbour, onceused by the Hittites, Sinope was the Black Sea terminus for trade caravans from Mesopotamia, and thus another stop on the Silk Road which so enriched all the countries which it passed through. Pharnarces brought Sinope’s colonies of Cerasus and Cotyora into his kingdom at the same time, and shifted the populations of these colonies to a site near Cerasus. There he established an omnibus edition of the two colonies which he named Pharnarcia. At about the same time the rich mines of the Chalybes region are recorded as belonging to the Mithridatids, though Mithridates III may have acquired these late in his reign rather than Pharnarces early in his. In any case, this area, in the east of the kingdom, was immensely rich in iron, but also boasted substantial silver and copper deposits. With control of this area came Trapezus, a city on the coast which specialized in refining the metals from the Chalybes mines and exporting them to the Mediterranean world. Pharnarces also made the first ventures into the Chersonese; the start of a family project aimed at turning the entire Black Sea into a Pontic lake.
    This vigorous empire builder also moved aggressively into Cappadocia and Paphlagonia, and even attempted to steal the town of Tium from Bithynia in the west. This was too much for the neighbours, and Pharnarces was brought to heel by an armed coalition which forced him to withdraw from many of his conquests (Though he kept Sinope and most of the Pontic gains to the east). Pharnarces died about 170 BC, leaving the finances of the kingdom in some disorder, testimony to the fact that his ambition had outstripped his resources. Yet Pharnarces also bequeathed his heirs the infrastructure to make those resources considerably more extensive.
    Mithridates IV nicknamed himself Philadelphus, which suggests he was probably the brother of Pharnarces (the name Philadelphus suggests fraternal love). Love of a sister was also involved, as Mithridates IV adopted a practice not uncommon among Hellenistic kings and married his sister, Laodice (one of the many Laodices who crop up in the history of the region). Laodice appears on the coins of Mithridates IV associated with Hera, queen of the gods, a portrayal which, like his Greek nickname, shows that this Mithridates was trying hard to make his new Greek subjects like him. Under Mithridates