~ Mithridates ~ King of Pontus

Mithridates VI (Greek: ), from Old Persian Mithradatha, "gift of Mithra"; also known as Mithradates the Great (Megas) and Eupator Dionysius, was king of Pontus and Armenia Minor in northern Anatolia (now Turkey) from about 120 BC to 63 BC. Mithridates is remembered as one of the Roman Republics most formidable and successful enemies, who engaged three of the prominent generals from the late Roman Republic in the Mithridatic Wars: Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Lucullus and Pompey. He was also the greatest ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus.

 Mithridates was a prince of Persian and Greek Macedonian ancestry. He claimed descent from King Darius I of Persia and was descended from the generals of Alexander the Great and later kings: Antigonus I Monophthalmus, Seleucus I Nicator and Regent, Antipater. Mithridates was born in the Pontic city of Sinope, and was raised in the Kingdom of Pontus. He was the first son and among the children born to Laodice VI and Mithridates V of Pontus (reigned 150120 BC). His parents were distant relatives and had lineage from the Seleucid Dynasty. His father, Mithridates V, was a prince and the son of the former Pontic Monarchs Pharnaces I of Pontus and his wife-cousin Nysa. His mother, Laodice VI, was a Seleucid Princess and the daughter of the Seleucid Monarchs Antiochus IV Epiphanes and his wife-sister Laodice IV. Mithridates V was assassinated in about 120 BC in Sinope, poisoned by unknown persons at a lavish banquet which he held.In the will of Mithridates V, he left the Kingdom to the joint rule of Laodice VI, Mithridates and his younger brother, Mithridates Chrestus. Mithridates and his younger brother were both under aged to rule and their mother retained all power as regent. Laodice VIs regency over Pontus was from 120 BC to 116 BC (even perhaps up to 113 BC) and favored Mithridates Chrestus over Mithridates. During his mothers regency, he escaped from his mother's plots against him, and went into hiding.

 During this time, Mithridates started ingesting small doses of various poisons in order to develop an immunity. When Mithridates returned (c. 115111), at about the age of 17, he took command, imprisoned his mother, and, possibly, ordered her execution. He then started to extend his dominion. After he acquired Greek towns in Colchis and what's now the Crimea, Mithridates established a strong fleet to hold his territories. As usual, conquest meant wealth and power. Mithridates wanted to increase his Greek holdings for the resources they offered: revenue, officers, and mercenary soldiers.

Mithridates emerged from hiding and returned to Pontus between 116 BC and 113 BC and was hailed King. He removed his mother and brother from the throne, imprisoning both, and became the sole ruler of Pontus. Laodice VI died in prison of natural causes. Mithridates Chrestus may have died in prison from natural causes or was tried for treason and was executed on his orders.Mithridates gave both a royal funeral. Mithridates first married his younger sister Laodice, aged 16.He married her to preserve the purity of their bloodline, and to co-rule over Pontus, to ensure the succession to his legitimate children, and to solidify his claim to the throne.

Mithridates' antidote
In his youth, after the assassination of his father Mithridates V in 120 BC, Mithridates is said to have lived in the wilderness for seven years, inuring himself to hardship. While there, and after his accession, he cultivated an immunity to poisons by regularly ingesting sub-lethal doses of the same. He invented a complex 'universal antidote' against poisoning; several versions are described in the literature. Aulus Cornelius Celsus gives one in his De Medicina and names it Antidotum Mithridaticum, whence English mithridate. Pliny the Elder's version comprised 54 ingredients to be placed in a flask and matured for at least two months. After Mithridates' death in 63 BC, many imperial Roman physicians claimed to possess and improve on the original formula, which they touted as Mithradatium. In keeping with most medical practices of his era, Mithridates' anti-poison routines included a religious component; they were supervised by the Agari, a group of Scythian shamans who never left him. Mithridates was reportedly guarded in his sleep by a horse, a bull, and a stag, which would whinny, bellow, and bleat whenever anyone approached the royal bed.

Death
When Mithridates VI was at last defeated by Pompey and in danger of capture by Rome, he is alleged to have attempted suicide by poison; this attempt failed, however, because of his immunity to the poison.[According to Appian's Roman History, he then requested his Gaul bodyguard and friend, Bituitus, to kill him by the sword: Mithridates then took out some poison that he always carried next to his sword, and mixed it. There two of his daughters, who were still girls growing up together, named Mithridates and Nysa, who had been betrothed to the kings of [Ptolemaic] Egypt and of Cyprus, asked him to let them have some of the poison first, and insisted strenuously and prevented him from drinking it until they had taken some and swallowed it. The drug took effect on them at once; but upon Mithridates, although he walked around rapidly to hasten its action, it had no effect, because he had accustomed himself to other drugs by continually trying them as a means of protection against poisoners. These are still called the Mithridatic drugs. Seeing a certain Bituitus there, an officer of the Gauls, he said to him, "I have profited much from your right arm against my enemies. I shall profit from it most of all if you will kill me, and save from the danger of being led in a Roman triumph one who has been an autocrat so many years, and the ruler of so great a kingdom, but who is now unable to die by poison because, like a fool, he has fortified himself against the poison of others. Although I have kept watch and ward against all the poisons that one takes with his food, I have not provided against that domestic poison, always the most dangerous to kings, the treachery of army, children, and friends." Bituitus, thus appealed to, rendered the king the service that he desired.

 Cassius Dio Roman History, on the other hand, records his death as murder: Mithridates had tried to make away with himself, and after first removing his wives and remaining children by poison, he had swallowed all that was left; yet neither by that means nor by the sword was he able to perish by his own hands. For the poison, although deadly, did not prevail over him, since he had inured his constitution to it, taking precautionary antidotes in large doses every day; and the force of the sword blow was lessened on account of the weakness of his hand, caused by his age and present misfortunes, and as a result of taking the poison, whatever it was. When, therefore, he failed to take his life through his own efforts and seemed to linger beyond the proper time, those whom he had sent against his son fell upon him and hastened his end with their swords and spears. Thus Mithridates, who had experienced the most varied and remarkable fortune, had not even an ordinary end to his life. For he desired to die, albeit unwillingly, and though eager to kill himself was unable to do so; but partly by poison and partly by the sword he was at once self-slain and murdered by his foes.(Book 37, chapter 13) At the behest of Pompey, Mithridates' body was later buried alongside his ancestors (in Sinope, Book 37, chapter 14). Mount Mithridat in the central Kerch and the town of Yevpatoria in Crimea commemorate his name.

The poet A. E. Housman alludes to Mithridates' antidote, also known as mithridatism, in the final stanza of his poem "Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff" in A Shropshire Lad.

There was a king reigned in the East: There, when kings will sit to feast, They get their fill before they think With poisoned meat and poisoned drink. He gathered all that springs to birth From the many-venomed earth; First a little, thence to more, He sampled all her killing store; And easy, smiling, seasoned sound, Sate the king when healths went round. They put arsenic in his meat And stared aghast to watch him eat; They poured strychnine in his cup And shook to see him drink it up: They shook, they stared as whites their shirt: Them it was their poison hurt. I tell the tale that I heard told. Mithridates, he died old.