Mithridates the Great

This military biography of the ancient King of Pontus, one of the Roman Republic's greatest rivals, draws on a wealth of new scholarly evidence.

Fought between the Roman Republic and the Kingdom of Pontus, the Mithridatic wars stretched over half a century and two continents. Their story is one of pitched battles, epic sieges, double-crosses, world-class political conniving, assassinations and general treachery. Through it all, one rogue character stands out among the rest. Mithridates VI of Pontus was a connoisseur of poisons, arch-schemer and strategist. He was as resilient in defeat as he was savage in victory.


Few leaders went to war with Rome and lived to tell the tale, but in the first half of the first century BCE, Mithridates did so three times. At the high point of his career his armies swept the Romans out of Asia Minor and Greece, reversing a century of Roman expansion in the region. Even after fortune had turned against Mithridates, he did not submit. Up until the day he died, a fugitive driven to suicide by the treachery of his own son, he was still planning an overland invasion of Roman itself.