Mithridates the Great (18 page)

The Fimbrians

The dysfunctional state of Roman politics had produced the odd result that Mithridates’ best hope was now the army which the Roman government had sent against him. If this could be encouraged to fall on the Sullans, perhaps the rival Roman armies might cancel each other out. Therefore, in order to encourage Sulla to turn his attention to the new arrivals, Archelaus deliberately adopted as unthreatening a posture as possible. Garrisons were unilaterally withdrawn from anywhere that Sulla might be tempted to attack. After Chaeronea, Archelaus had stepped up naval activity as the only means of hurting the Romans then available, but he now ceased operations altogether. These measures were confirmed by Mithridates, who went further and suggested that now might be a good time to sound Sulla out about a more formal cessation of hostilities.

Sulla responded to the calm after the storm by moving back to Thessaly where he could better keep an eye on Flaccus whilst setting up his winter camp. Three coastal towns facing Euboea had their harbour facilities destroyed in case they tempted the Pontic navy to make use of them. At the same time, having heard nothing from Lucullus, Sulla finally began to start work on a navy of his own. The cost of this, along with the wages of his troops, doubtless came from the pockets of the Boeotians, who were thus punished for their readiness to change sides every time a Pontic army came calling.

Mithridates would have found both interest and consolation in the reports reaching him on the new Roman force. Flaccus was making heavy weather of his trip across Greece. The Roman government in Italy had chosen the army commander for political reasons, as they wanted a general who, above all, would not simply hand his army over to Sulla once he got to Greece. Consequently, because his skills as a general were somewhat lacking, Flaccus also had with him a legate to advise on military matters, in this case a senator
called Fimbria. Fimbria was becoming increasingly frustrated. Flaccus did not just insist on commanding the army himself, he was also doing an exceptionally bad job of it. Unlike Sulla, who had an immediate empathy with those under his command, Flaccus had no idea how to handle his men and seems to have veered erratically between excessive leniency and injudicious punishments. At the same time, Flaccus evidently regarded his command as a means to wealth and blatantly took every opportunity for enrichment that came his way.

His men were none too enthusiastic about taking on the man and the veteran army busily expelling Mithridates from Greece. After a steady flow of deserters from his army to Sulla’s, Flaccus apparently decided on some morale-raising victories against the Pontics before challenging his fellow Roman. A brutal winter march to Thrace followed. If the newcomers wanted to fight the Pontics rather than Sulla, Mithridates was ready to oblige, and his garrisons along the route resisted bitterly.

By the time the Romans reached the Hellespont, relations between Fimbria and Flaccus had deteriorated to bitter enmity. Fimbria threatened to leave Flaccus and return to Rome, whereupon Flaccus appointed a man called Thermus in Fimbria’s place. When Flaccus had left the army on business, Fimbria returned, knowing that the soldiers vastly preferred him as a commander. Faced with a mutiny, the furious Flaccus had to flee and it soon occurred to him that he was running for his life. Fimbria pursued him from city to city, finally capturing Rome’s consul and army commander as he hid in a well. Flaccus’ inglorious part in the expedition ended with his murder, with some reporting that Fimbria cut off Flaccus’ head and hurled it into the sea.

Peace talks

Whilst Sulla delicately fenced with the envoys of Archelaus on talks about talks, Fimbria took his army into Asia Minor and, by damaging Mithridates there, improved Sulla’s negotiating position. Sulla had a single overriding concern. He had to get back to Italy and sort out the situation there before his enemies became too entrenched. Yet if he gave too much to Mithridates he would lose the support of his own legions as well as his political credibility back home.
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For his part, Mithridates knew that if he surrendered too much he would lose the respect of his subjects and mutiny and rebellion would cost him what little he managed to retain in negotiations. And Mithridates still had his fleet and possession of all of Asia
Minor to bargain with. Militarily he was weak, but by no means finished. Politically, his strength, and possibly his survival, depended on getting a good settlement from Sulla.

It helped that, from the siege of Piraeus onward, Sulla and Archelaus had come to respect each other as adversaries. In the first face-to-face meeting of the pair, at a place on the coast called Aulis, the serious bargaining began. Archelaus made the opening proposal: Mithridates and Sulla should each keep what they now held and become allies in memory of the family friendship the Mithridatids had enjoyed with Sulla’s father.
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Mithridates would supply everything that Sulla was not getting from Rome – ships, supplies and money. All Sulla had to do was wipe out Fimbria’s army and return to take command of Rome.

Sulla dryly remarked that it was unfortunate that it had taken the death of 160,000 of Mithridates’ soldiers to remind the king that he and Sulla were friends. As for being allies, there was the matter of 80,000 dead Romans and Italians still unavenged. Abandoning their cause would be tantamount to treason. Talking of which, Sulla could certainly assure the senate that guilt for the Asian massacre lay with Mithridates alone. If a more suitable candidate for the rule of Pontus could come forward, say Archelaus himself, Sulla would certainly back him to the best of his considerable ability. To sweeten his offer, Sulla made Archelaus a unilateral grant of ten thousand acres of land in Euboea, his to keep no matter how the negotiations turned out.

Archelaus diplomatically refrained from pointing out that he held Euobea for Pontus at present in any case, and if hostilities resumed Sulla would certainly try to conquer his ‘gift’. Instead, he and Sulla agreed that neither man was going to betray his side, so they had better settle on terms. After considerable debate, it was agreed that Archelaus would take the following proposal to his king. Mithridates would return Cappadocia to Ariobarzanes, and Bithynia to Nicomedes. He would withdraw from Paphlagonia, Greece and the Cyclades immediately, and he would abandon at once his attempts to deport the Chians. Mithridates would pay the entire cost of the war - some 2,000 talents – and turn over all prisoners, deserters and escaped slaves in his dominions.
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As a final condition, Sulla had noticed during the war the grave inconvenience caused by lack of a fleet, so perhaps Mithridates should give Sulla his? At least seventy first-class warships would do, provided these were fully kitted out and ready to sail.

That Archelaus was prepared to take such terms to Mithridates showed
the general’s faith in his king. He had lost two armies in their entirety and was now carrying terms that amounted to the surrender of all his gains since 88 BC. And someone with Mithridates well-developed political antennae was bound to at least consider that Archelaus had colluded with Sulla. The pair were now so friendly that when Archelaus fell dangerously sick at Larissa on his return journey, Sulla halted his entire army so that he could stay and nurse him.

Sulla’s army was on the move because the tribes invading northern Macedonia had become increasingly aggressive since the collapse of organized government in the region. Sulla intended to pass the summer of 85 BC hammering them (and incidentally cutting Fimbria’s supply lines) whilst he awaited Mithridates’ reply.

The sticking point in the negotiations was Paphlagonia. Mithridates had given up and retaken Cappadocia almost more times than he could recall, and was quite prepared to go through the process again. Bithynia, it might reasonably be expected, was about to go through a severe economic recession. Since Mithridates had to give the kingdom back anyway, he might as well first wring out of the place the 2,000 talents he had to pay in reparations. If there must be a hostile kingdom on Pontus’ western border, it should at least be one which was too financially strapped to act on that hostility. But Mithridates had convinced himself that Paphlagonia was a part of his patrimony, almost a part of Pontus itself, and something he was prepared to stand up to Sulla to defend. Mithridates also denied that Archelaus had any authority to negotiate away his fleet.

Sulla himself was harbouring second thoughts about his own generosity, not least because his troops were carping that the liberation of Greece was all very well, but they had not signed up for a campaign which left their principal enemy undefeated and themselves low on booty. Consequently, when the news came that Mithridates was cavilling about giving up Paphlagonia, the Roman general erupted into a fit of temper.

He informed the cowering ambassadors that he was astounded that Mithridates was not prepared to throw himself at his feet in gratitude for being allowed to keep even that hand which had signed the death warrant of so many Romans. If Mithridates thought that he had some experience of war, he should wait until Sulla crossed over to Asia and explained his error to him in person. Archelaus desperately undertook to explain to his king that Sulla’s terms were non-negotiable, whilst Sulla set about pacifying Macedon by the simple and brutal expedient of wholly depopulating any troublesome areas.

Three things encouraged Mithridates to take the negotiations further. Firstly, due to his exceptional circumstances, Sulla was offering to overlook the Asian Vespers and the execution of Aquillius, deeds for which an enemy of Rome would usually expect to pay with his head. Secondly, even though he was required to give up his conquests in Asia Minor, this still left the lands around the Black Sea in his possession. It was, after all, a family trait for the Mithridatids to take on more than they could handle, and then temporarily retreat to a more realistic position until favourable circumstances for further expansion reappeared. And thirdly, Fimbria was proving to be painfully annoying.

Cut off from Rome by Sulla, Fimbria had been forced, like Sulla before him, to supply his army from the land during the summer. Fortunately, Asia Minor provided rich pickings, and the richest of these were to be found at Mithridates’ court in Pergamum. When Mithridates discovered that Fimbria’s Romans were making a bee-line for his capital, he scraped together an army of half-trained levies and mercenaries commanded by his son, accompanied by the generals Taxiles, Diophontes
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and Menander. This force was both large enough and commanded competently enough to cause Fimbria some difficulty. Nevertheless, Fimbria disposed of 6,000 of the Pontic cavalry by digging two lines of earthworks fronted by a ditch. He kept his men under cover until the cavalry had completely wandered into his trap, which he sprang with complete success. Thereafter, when the opposing armies encamped near Miletopolis, on opposite sides of the River Rhyndacus, Fimbria unexpectedly crossed the river at dawn under cover of a storm. He fell on the Pontic army and killed most of Mithridates’ men while they were still in their tents.

The loss of its defending army meant Pergamum itself was threatened with siege. The walls of Pergamum were solid, but the loyalty of its citizens less so. Mithridates decided to return to his native Pontus and conduct operations from there. He abandoned Pergamum to its own devices and retreated to the coast at Pitane, opposite the city-state of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, and waited for his fleet to pick him up.

This simple operation was almost Mithridates’ undoing. Ever since the reforms of Marius a generation before, Roman armies had lightened their baggage trains by the simple expedient of making each soldier carry his own kit. This caused the legionaries to ruefully refer to themselves as ‘Marius’ mules’ and it allowed Roman armies to move disconcertingly fast. Within an alarmingly brief time, Fimbria’s legionaries were at the gates of Pitane. Even
more alarmingly, the sails which appeared on the horizon were not those for the voyage Mithridates had ordered, but Lucullus, finally turning up with his makeshift fleet at the worst possible time.
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Lucullus had made it to Alexandria after a hair-raising voyage in which he had been hard-pressed to outrun pirates on several occasions. With the blessing of Ptolemy and a seed grant of cash, Lucullus had raised a respectable flotilla. Even this was no match for the pirate fleet and, on his return to Cyprus, Lucullus got word that the pirates were preparing a massive ambush. Accordingly he had acted as though he intended to winter on the island, sending off to various cities to organize supplies. Then, as soon as the wind was favourable, he took off unexpectedly for Rhodes. On the voyage he literally kept a low profile, taking his sails down by day and sailing at night.

With the help of the highly-capable Rhodian fleet, Lucullus was easily able to drive off Mithridates’ guarding ships and break the blockade of the island. The combined fleet brought Cos and several other islands back under Roman control and was greeted with immense relief at Chios. Now, off Pitane, Lucullus received an impassioned plea from Fimbria to block the harbour. With Mithridates unable to flee, and the walls of Pitane little more than a minor obstacle, the Mithridatic wars could be wrapped up within a week.

It is quite possible that at this point the cunning of Mithridates came into play. His best bet would have been to inform Lucullus that he had opened negotiations with Fimbria and now had no choice but to reach a settlement with the ‘official’ Roman army rather than Lucullus’ commander, the renegade Sulla. A settlement with Fimbria, reached on any terms at all, would give Sulla’s enemies the glory of finishing the war, and deny Sulla’s men any back pay they would have otherwise expected from Pontic reparations. Nor was Lucullus’ fleet any match for the full power of the Pontic navy, which could ensure that Sulla stayed cut off in Greece whilst a settlement was reached without him. Under such circumstances, it was unlikely that Sulla would keep either his army or his domestic support. In short, Mithridates could make a valid point that he and Sulla needed each other very badly at this stage.