The army of Pontus reflected the Kingdom itself, and even its king: it was a mixture of different fighting men with different styles, cultures, and ideas. In the best of circumstances, this mix led to sweeping victory, but in the end, it led to ultimate defeat. Fancying himself the heir of Alexander the Great, Mithridates VI followed Alex's tendency to augment his army with whatever kind of troops he conquered along the way. While this worked well for Alexander, it should be noted that Mithridates lived considerably longer and this region had been changing for almost three hundred years since the young Macedonian conqueror.
Asia Minor was and remains a land of many peoples. Considered prime colonial ground by the Greeks, it had an unmistakable flavor of Hellenist-style learning, fighting, and worship. However, there were also Persian colonists there, left-over from Darius' invasion years before Alexander. And this is all in combination with the native peoples, who were primarily tribal, though growing more and more agrarian and urban, forsaking their nomadic ways. In order to unite these people, Mithridates would often resort to xenophobia, at least the anti-Roman variety, thus giving them a common enemy. Here, truly, was a wise student in the art of war.
After he had conquered some of the Balkan region to the North, Mithridates looked to securing his borders in the south. So he made plans, along with Nicomedes III, the king of western neighbor Bithynia, to divy up the area called Cappadocia, just south of Pontus, between the two of them. Mithridates' sister was ruling as regent because her husband had just died. Nicomedes, being a cunning king himself, decided to marry the sister instead, leaving one of his sons in charge of the region.
The two men sent representatives to Rome to resolve the dispute, leaving Nicomedes in a position of comfort, thinking that there would be no battle until their dignitaries returned. Mithridates waited for a time, then invaded Cappadacia outright, and its puppet king was killed in the ensuing fight. This enraged the Romans in the area, who helped Nicomedes raid and burn several towns and settlements in southern Pontus as punishment for his invasion.
Mithridates was more than capable of stopping this looting, but instead he allowed it to happen. Nicomedes ravaged the countryside while the Pontic king merely took reports and made preparations. He knew that the Romans would likely move against him on the pretense of aiding Bithynia, and so he spread word far and wide that those villages had been pillaged under Roman advice, thus uniting the varied people of Pontus against Rome, and Bithynia, her handmaiden. Raising an army was easy for him at this point; those who had their crops and livestock stolen by the Bithynian raiders were only too happy to take up a spear and get some of it back, with interest.
Sure enough, the three Roman generals whose armies were in various parts of Asia Minor all moved against Pontus with the hope of quelling Mithridates VI. The three armies were probably about forty thousand each, along with Nicomedes' army which was reportedly fifty thousand foot, six thousand horse. If they had all joined together to take on this rogue Pontic despot, they may have had a chance. But in their anger, and without waiting for orders from the Roman Senate, they took him on individually, along with his army of two hundred and fifty thousand foot and forty thousand horse. He crushed them one by one, capturing their generals and subjecting them to horrible, humiliating treatment.
His footmen were likely Phalanx pikemen at the core, along with lighter armed auxiliaries and javilineers. The javelin-throwers of Pontus were legendary for their accuracy, and the deadliness of their weapons. The horsemen he employed were mostly, probably all, javelin-armed and heavily armored, capable of forming a kind of highly-mobile Phalanx which disrupted enemy formations with missiles before charging home at their flanks. His tactics were most likely pin-and-fork, using the heavy spearmen to hold the enemy in place while his horses harassed their flanks and caused a rout. He may have also had some Scythian horse archers in his ranks, recruited when he defeated them in the Bosporus up north, and if that were the case, their contribution would have been immeasurable. They were a Steppe people; born in the saddle and taught to ride and shoot from a very young age. Their accuracy was high, and their tactics were notorious: they would pretend to retreat in a panic, only to outrun their pursuers while shooting them with their poisoned arrows. No matter Mithridates' tactics, the comparatively small armies of Rome and Bithynia didn't stand a chance.
Because of this conquest, all of Asia Minor was under his control. He moved swiftly to secure the loyalties of Greek colonies in the western regions, and sent representatives to gain alliances with the Greek cities, who had been living almost a hundred years under Roman hegemony. They eagerly agreed, giving Mithridates a buffer region with which to hold back immediate Roman retaliation.
Unfortunately for him, when Rome did retaliate, they took all of Greece back, but signed a treaty with him that left him in control of Asia Minor. Though he accomplished much and did a lot to unify such a diverse group, it seems that their divisions were stronger than a mutual hatred of Rome. Mithridates the Great himself spoke at least twenty-two languages, which apparently was necessary just to communicate with all the captains in his army!
In the ensuing Mithridatic Wars, the Romans repeatedly punished Pontus with their manipular legions and flexible tactics. Eventually, trouble within his own household was Mithridates' undoing as he was betrayed by Pharnaces, his illegitimate son.
Opinion of this warlord varies, depending on the source. Some look upon him as just another petty king trying to build an empire and advance his own name. Others see him as a kind of freedom fighter against Roman imperial oppression. Personally, the jury's out for me. I think he was much smarter than the average despot, yet his cruelty toward Romans, both military and civilian, cannot be overlooked. It should be noted, however, that he never referred to himself with the surtitle “the Great.” That was something the Romans did shortly after he died. It seems that though they were enemies, there was something about this man that they deeply respected.
Pax vobiscum
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