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He become King of Syria about B.C. 83, and thus he supplanted the kings, the descendants of Seleukus. He lost Syria after his defeat by Lucullus, B.C. 69; and he was finally reduced to the limits of his native kingdom by Pompeius, B.C. 66. Mithridates held the parts on the Bosporus.
Flaccus, too, had arrived with a Roman army, but this incapable general was put to death by a mob-orator, Fimbria, more able than he, who defeated a Pontic army at Miletopolis. The situation of Mithridates then became perilous. Europe was lost; Asia Minor was in rebellion; and Roman armies were pressing upon him.
The annals of this town have been enriched by the passage of the Argonauts and of the Goths, by the siege of Mithridates and by the assistance received from the Romans under the leadership of Lucullus. Granted its freedom by the latter as a reward for its fidelity, Cyzicus was shortly afterward deprived of its privileges for having neglected the service of the temple of Augustus.
Antiochus Sidetes, the brother of Demetrius, had been generally accepted by the Syrians as their monarch, at the time when the news reached them of that prince's defeat and capture by Mithridates. He was an active and enterprising sovereign, though fond of luxury and display.
"And the more, madame," said Monte Cristo, "as the Orientals do not confine themselves, as did Mithridates, to make a cuirass of his poisons, but they also made them a dagger. Science becomes, in their hands, not only a defensive weapon, but still more frequently an offensive one; the one serves against all their physical sufferings, the other against all their enemies.
"Nay, even now," they said, "we are quitting Amisus, a prosperous and wealthy city, which it would be no great matter to take, if any one would press the siege, and the general is leading us to fight with Mithridates in the wilds of the Tibareni and Chaldæans."
He used this unlimited authority for war purposes alone, and, in three months, completely accomplished the work assigned him. He captured three thousand vessels, and put to death ten thousand men. Twenty thousand captives he settled in the interior of Cilicia. In 74 the contest began anew against Mithridates, and Tigranes of Armenia, his son-in-law.
Before he left the East, however, old Mithridates, who had taken refuge in the Crimea, had been attacked by his own favorite son, and, finding that his power was gone, had taken poison; but, as his constitution was so fortified by antidotes that it took no effect, he caused one of his slaves to kill him.
The young tribune had not the least doubt then that Cæsar had given command to burn Rome; and the vengeance which people demanded seemed to him just and proper. What more could Mithridates or any of Rome's most inveterate enemies have done? The measure had been exceeded; his madness had grown to be too enormous, and the existence of people too difficult because of him.
Greek monarchs of the Bactrian series continued masters of Oabul and Western India till about B.C. 126; no Parthian coins are found in this region; nor do the best authorities claim for Mithridates any dominion beyond the mountains which enclose on the west the valley of the Indus. By his war with Heliocles the empire of Mithridates reached its greatest extension.
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