Mithridates the Great by Philip Matyszak

Author:Philip Matyszak
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mithridates The Great
ISBN: 9781844158348
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Published: 2009-04-19T16:00:00+00:00

Peace talks

Whilst Sulla delicately fenced with the envoys of Archelaus on talks about talks, Fimbria took his army into Asia Minor and, by damaging Mithridates there, improved Sulla’s negotiating position. Sulla had a single overriding concern. He had to get back to Italy and sort out the situation there before his enemies became too entrenched. Yet if he gave too much to Mithridates he would lose the support of his own legions as well as his political credibility back home.5 For his part, Mithridates knew that if he surrendered too much he would lose the respect of his subjects and mutiny and rebellion would cost him what little he managed to retain in negotiations. And Mithridates still had his fleet and possession of all of Asia Minor to bargain with. Militarily he was weak, but by no means finished. Politically, his strength, and possibly his survival, depended on getting a good settlement from Sulla.

It helped that, from the siege of Piraeus onward, Sulla and Archelaus had come to respect each other as adversaries. In the first face-to-face meeting of the pair, at a place on the coast called Aulis, the serious bargaining began. Archelaus made the opening proposal: Mithridates and Sulla should each keep what they now held and become allies in memory of the family friendship the Mithridatids had enjoyed with Sulla’s father.6 Mithridates would supply everything that Sulla was not getting from Rome – ships, supplies and money. All Sulla had to do was wipe out Fimbria’s army and return to take command of Rome.

Sulla dryly remarked that it was unfortunate that it had taken the death of 160,000 of Mithridates’ soldiers to remind the king that he and Sulla were friends. As for being allies, there was the matter of 80,000 dead Romans and Italians still unavenged. Abandoning their cause would be tantamount to treason. Talking of which, Sulla could certainly assure the senate that guilt for the Asian massacre lay with Mithridates alone. If a more suitable candidate for the rule of Pontus could come forward, say Archelaus himself, Sulla would certainly back him to the best of his considerable ability. To sweeten his offer, Sulla made Archelaus a unilateral grant of ten thousand acres of land in Euboea, his to keep no matter how the negotiations turned out.

Archelaus diplomatically refrained from pointing out that he held Euobea for Pontus at present in any case, and if hostilities resumed Sulla would certainly try to conquer his ‘gift’. Instead, he and Sulla agreed that neither man was going to betray his side, so they had better settle on terms. After considerable debate, it was agreed that Archelaus would take the following proposal to his king. Mithridates would return Cappadocia to Ariobarzanes, and Bithynia to Nicomedes. He would withdraw from Paphlagonia, Greece and the Cyclades immediately, and he would abandon at once his attempts to deport the Chians. Mithridates would pay the entire cost of the war - some 2,000 talents – and turn over all prisoners, deserters and escaped slaves in his dominions.

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