#mithridates vi

[catilinas]

mithridates vi’s shitty boat that sank badly btw

[twofielder]

Coin of the Day #31 (6/4/2024)

Maybe a little too early in the week for Dionysus but oh well…

Pontos

AE16 - 3.49g

Time of Mithridates VI 86-65 BC

Amisos Mint

Obverse Head of Dionysus right, wearing ivy wreath

Reverse ΑΜΙΣΟΥ

Thrysos, monogram left not visible

[lives-in-a-harpsichord]

Was looking for paper to put notes on and found a sketch I made of Mithridates VI with his children I made one time I was bored during marketing class

What did I do this for

[pansexualkiba]

Man Mithridates VI was cool as shit. Name outright means “gift from Mithra”. Dad was killed by poison so he spent seven years becoming immune to poison. Led the Kingdom of Pontus into a scientific golden age that spanned from Turkey to Crimea just so he could get more poison to become immune to. Fought off Sulla and Lucullus before being beat back by Pompey to Crimea. Preferred to ingest poison rather than let the Romans capture him, but since he was immune to every known poison, he just had a servant stab him. What a guy.

[gracchisuggestions]

Today’s shitpost: when Colleen McCullough let Mithridates do something cool

[...] Queen Laodice, smiling seductively, offered her Scythian goblet of gold to the King, licking at its rim with her pink tongue. 

“Drink from my cup, husband,” she commanded, but gently. 

Without hesitation Mithridates drank, a good deep draft which halved the goblet’s contents; he put it down on the table in front of the couch he shared with Queen Laodice. But the last mouthful of wine he kept in his mouth, rolling it round as he stared with his brown-flecked, grape-green eyes at his sister. Then he frowned, but not direfully; a thoughtful, reminiscent sort of frown that changed in a twinkling to a wide smile. 

“Dorycnion!” he said delightedly. 

The Queen went white. 

(The Grass Crown)

[beautyandtheharpsichord]

Drug jar for mithridate, attributed to Annibale Fontana, c. 1580. The relief shows Mithridates VI being given either his daily antidote or a dose of poison.

  The J. Paul Getty Museum. 

[imperium-romanum]

‘The World Between Empires’ helps dismantle the myths of Rome | Sun Journal

"The World Between Empires" focuses particularly on the period from 100 B.C. to about 250 A.D., when the empires of Rome to the west and Parthia to the east contested this territory, with shifting borders, long periods of uneasy peace and devastating wars that seemed to settle nothing.

BY PHILIP KENNICOTT

“NEW YORK — In 1770, the 14-year-old Mozart premiered an opera called “Mitridate, re di Ponto,” about the historical king of Pontus, who fought desperately to keep the Roman empire at bay in the 1st century B.C. The libretto was based on a minor play by Racine, which was based on various accounts from Roman historical writers. Today, the name (and the opera) are little known, a curious bit of old-fashioned narrative exotica that has long since fallen to the wayside of the layman’s knowledge of the ancient world.”

Continue reading

[whencyclopedia]

PEOPLE OF THE ANCIENT WORLD: Mithridates VI (King of Pontus) 

MITHRIDATES VI (120-63 BCE, also known as Mithradates, Mithradates Eupator Dionysius, Mithridates the Great) was the king of Pontus (modern-day northeastern Turkey) who was regarded by his people as their savior from the oppression of Rome and by the Romans as their most formidable – and hated – enemy since Hannibal Barca (247-183 BCE). Like Hannibal, Mithridates proved himself an unstoppable force, defeating Roman armies, manipulating neighboring governments, and even organizing a mass slaughter of Romans and Italians throughout Asia Minor to advance his cause in liberating the region from Roman control.

Mithridates declared himself an enemy of Rome early in his reign and fought three separate wars with the Romans – the so-called Mithridatic Wars – between 89-63 BCE. He eluded capture, made himself immune to poison by ingesting small doses to build up an immunity, and repeatedly won battles against Rome until he was defeated by Pompey the Great (c.70-48 BCE) after betrayal by his son Pharnaces who rose against him. Facing certain defeat and humiliation in a Roman triumph, Mithridates committed suicide.

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