4Įarly in his career, Mithridates allied with his neighbor King Nicomedes III of Bithynia to divvy up territory in Anatolia. Mithridates controlled access to wealth, resources, and manpower that would make his Black Sea empire one of the strongest powers Rome ever encountered. Now joined under his benevolent protection, Mithridates controlled the entire circuit of Black Sea trade-with Russia to the north, Persia to the east, Greece and Italy to the west, and the entire Mediterranean to the south. Mithridates expelled the Thracians and won the justifiable submission of the Crimean communities. In the 110s, he answered a call for help from Greek cities in the Crimea, on the other side of the Black Sea, who were under attack from raiding Thracians. Upon his ascension to the throne, Mithridates built up a mercenary army to further project Pontic authority. At the end of the heroic montage, Mithridates returned to Sinope in 113 and evicted his wicked mother and brother, both of whom soon died of “natural causes.” 3 According to legend, Mithridates embarked on a seven-year-long training montage-hunting, swimming, reading, studying the people, learning fifty languages-until he had become the embodiment of the ideal prince. The teenage Mithridates dodged an assassination attempt by his mother and ran away from the palace. But contrary to all parental morality, Laodice clearly favored her younger son. With Mithridates still a minor, his mother, Queen Laodice, stepped in and took over as regent. Like any self-respecting Hellenic king, his father was assassinated by poison in 120, leaving a power vacuum in the kingdom. The eldest son of the king, Mithridates was expected to one day reign over Pontus, but his path to power would not be easy. Mithridates VI was born in Sinope fifty years after it became the capital of Pontus.
GAIUS JULIUS CAESAR STRABO VOPISCUS FULL
But in the mid-second century, Pontus remained a minor eastern kingdom in a world full of minor eastern kingdoms. Mixing Greek and Persian elements, the Pontic kings took advantage of the soil, metal, and trade connections they now controlled. Hemmed in by east-west-running mountains, the new Kingdom of Pontus occupied the fertile and mineral-rich strip of land between the mountains to the south and the coast to the north.
His successors continued this expansion, culminating with the capture of the Greek city of Sinope in 183. The first King Mithridates of Pontus hailed from the mountainous interior of Anatolia, but in the 280s he expanded his domains north to the shores of the Black Sea. In the 500s BC the Greeks had planted a ring of colonies around the Black Sea that were later absorbed into the Hellenic kingdoms that emerged after the death of Alexander the Great. T HE K INGDOM OF P ONTUS STRETCHED ACROSS WHAT IS today the Black Sea coast of Turkey.
“To deliver her from tyrants,” he replied. Envoys met him on the road and asked him why he was marching with armed forces against his country.
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