Mithridates, << `mith` rih DAY teez, >> VI (120?-63 B.C.) was king of Pontus, an area in what is now Turkey. One of Rome’s most dangerous enemies, Mithridates opposed Roman expansion into Asia Minor.
Mithridates fought three wars against Rome. The first of these wars occurred in 90 B.C., when Rome’s Italian allies in central and southern Italy revolted. Mithridates drove the Romans from Asia. He ordered every Roman citizen in Asia Minor killed–an estimated 80,000 people were put to death.
When Rome attacked Mithridates’s allies in Greece, he sent two armies there. But Sulla, a Roman general, defeated them, and Mithridates had to make peace in 84 B.C. The greatest war broke out in 75 B.C. when Rome took over Bithynia, a region adjoining Pontus. The Roman general Pompey drove Mithridates out of Asia Minor. Mithridates planned to continue the war from the Crimea, a peninsula that extends from what is now southern Ukraine. But his son, Pharnaces, rebelled against him. Mithridates had himself killed by a bodyguard.
