Mithridates the Great (24 page)

Area of the Cyzicus campaign, showing the position of Cyzicus in relation to access to the Black Sea and Pontic coastline to the north and east

Cyzicus had an eminently-suitable harbour for the grain ships which would supply the Pontic army, and the city’s capture and salutary punishment would signal to the rest of the region that Mithridates meant business. Furthermore Cyzicus was already weakened by the loss of thousands of its soldiers outside Chalcedon. In short, it was ideally suited to become Mithridates’ next conquest.

If Cyzicus was politically and strategically the correct choice, the drawback was geographical.
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Cyzicus was difficult for the Pontic army to reach, let alone besiege. For all practical purposes, the city was on an island. This island was called Arctonnesus; shaped roughly like a broad spearpoint about to plunge into the mainland of Bithynia. Cyzicus occupied the triangle right at the tip of the spearpoint. From this tip the only contact with the mainland was a narrow causeway.
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On the approach of Lucullus, Mithridates withdrew his army by night and set off for Cyzicus. On arriving at the city the following morning, Mithridates opened hostilities with psychological warfare. The Cyzicans were treated to the sight of boatload after boatload of ships transporting the soldiers of Mithridates from the mainland in their tens of thousands. These immediately set about taking control of the harbour and walling the city off from the outside. In clear view of the besieged, Pontic engineers under the direction of Niconides of Thessaly, Mithridates’ chief engineer, began assembling a 150-foot wooden tower, battering rams, catapults and other siege weaponry, including giant crossbows. The intention was to make the Cyzicans feel that Mithridates was concentrating all his strength on their small, friendless city.

The psychological pressure was stepped up even further when another large force moved onto the slopes of Adrastia, a mountain overlooking the city. Pontic heralds gleefully informed the Cyzicans that Tigranes of Armenia had sent tens of thousands of extra troops to join the siege. The Cyzicans readily believed this, for they knew that access to the heights was by way of a narrow valley which Mithridates would certainly have guarded.

Mithridates had indeed done so, but was betrayed by the Romans in his camp. Some of these, despairing of the cause of Sertorius in Spain, were preparing to turn their coats once more and defect back to the Roman side. After secret negotiations with Lucullus, they advised Mithridates that the Fimbrian legions were preparing to desert, and needed only a secure position from which to do so. Trustingly, Mithridates withdrew his guard from the pass, and allowed Lucullus to establish his troops on the mountain – a position from where they had clear access to the Bithynian hinterland, from which Mithridates was now blocked. The besieger was now himself besieged, and the Cyzicans, regarding what seemed a hopeless situation, were unaware that their rescuers were now camped in plain view on the hillside before them.

For Mithridates, the situation was grave, but not critical. True, he was effectively blocked from the mainland, but he still had his fleet and, at a pinch, he could evacuate much of his army by this means. And if he could get into Cyzicus and use the docks there, he could evacuate his forces in their entirety, leaving Lucullus to watch over a gutted and empty city. Thus the capture of Cyzicus, which had earlier seemed advisable, was now imperative. Furthermore, because the weather was deteriorating with the onset of the first storms of winter, sustaining a long siege would have been tricky, even if the Pontic army had somehow contrived to find itself supplies with which to do so.

The psychological pressure was then stepped up by the launch of Mithridates’ naval siege weapon, an improvement of the model which had been deployed unsuccessfully at Rhodes. This device was intended to start the hostilities. Before it was deployed, a convoy of ships sailed slowly under the city walls. Aboard were 3,000 Cyzican prisoners, either captured at Chalcedon or those who had failed to take shelter in time within the city. The prisoners had been told that their only chance of survival lay in persuading their fellow-citizens to surrender. In a piteous scene the hostages raised their hands in supplication to friends and relatives within the city and pleaded to be saved. They were given the resolute reply from the city’s general that they were in the hands of the enemy and should bear with courage whatever fate awaited them. That fate is unknown, but was probably grim. The unsentimental Mithridates was hardly going to waste scarce supplies on hostages whose purpose had failed.

The reason for this literally unyielding Cyzican response is probably that the citizens had finally made contact with Lucullus. Because the causeway to
the city was held by Mithridates, Lucullus sewed his letters inside two inflated animal skins. Choosing one of his best swimmers, he got the man to straddle the skins so that his weight pulled them partly underwater. In the dimness of the night the resultant shape gliding through the water looked more like some marine animal than a man, and the swimmer had brought Lucullus’ message across the seven-mile strait.

The Cyzicans had by then received word from Archelaus that a relief force was coming and hastily interrogated a shepherd boy, who had escaped from the Pontic hostage-takers, as to whether he had heard anything of Lucullus’ whereabouts. The boy looked from his questioners to the Roman camp plainly visible outside the walls, and assumed this was some kind of joke. Even when the confusion had been cleared up, the Cyzicans had hardly dared to believe the boy, so Lucullus’ confirmation of the situation was extremely welcome.

The Pontic assault began badly. The naval assault ship ran itself up to the walls, dropped its bridge, and a group of soldiers ran straight onto the ramparts of Cyzicus. The speed of the attack took everyone by surprise, including the rest of the Pontic assault force. The Pontic soldiers –all four of them - frantically urged their comrades onto the walls, but the Cyzicans got their act together first. The unfortunate Pontic vanguard was unceremoniously tipped into the sea, and the naval assault craft was forced to back away beneath a waterfall of burning oil. After this somewhat farcical start, the attack began in earnest. Mithridates repeatedly switched the pressure from the landward to the seaward side so that the defenders were constantly rushing from one section of walls to the other.

The defenders had not been caught by surprise when Mithridates turned up, and now their preparations paid off. Burning oil splashed over the ships and stones were dropped with pinpoint precision on the heads of battering rams. Other rams were caught in nooses and the heads were yanked out of the machines operating them, while the impact of the remaining rams was blunted by wool-packed baskets lowered in front of their area of operation. Fire-fighting teams stood by within the walls with buckets of water mixed with vinegar, ready to pounce upon any flaming missiles which Mithridates launched over the walls. As further protection against incendiary attack, large screens of loose, damp cloth projected above the walls to literally dampen the impact of burning projectiles. After an afternoon of intense but unproductive activity, Mithridates called off the assault as the weather was worsening.
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It continued to worsen through the night, and developed into a full-blown storm. This was bad news for the infernal engines constructed for Mithridates by Niconides, as the wind pushed them from directions they were never intended to be pushed, and many were flipped over or blown down and totally destroyed. The people of Ilium later reported that Athena appeared to many of them that night in a dream. Breathless, and with her garments torn, the goddess reported that she was just back from helping the people of Cyzicus in their struggle. Either the gods or skilled propaganda continued to help the Cyzican cause thereafter. It was customary for the citizens of the city to sacrifice a black heifer to Prosperina, and as the siege had rendered heifers unobtainable, the Cyzicans were preparing to sacrifice a substitute made of dough. But lo! A black heifer of perfect dimensions bolted from the meadow where the sacred cows were grazing and swam across the strait. Untired by its exertions, it showed aquatic abilities hitherto unseen in the bovine species by diving under the chain blocking the harbour and heading for the docks. Returning to terrestrial mode, this prodigy navigated perfectly through the city and found its own way to the temple, where it trotted up to the altar and took its place under the knife.

Mithridates’ advisors pointed out that this ‘divine’ phenomenon gave him a perfect excuse for abandoning what increasingly seemed a profitless undertaking. Mithridates was unimpressed by the wonder cow and obstinately continued to press the siege. Nevertheless, whilst the bulk of the Roman forces were engaged in storming an outlying Pontic fort, Mithridates took advantage of their distraction to send away his cavalry. The horses were short of food and useless in siege warfare, and were in any case the core of the Pontic army about which a new force could be built if disaster befell the present one. After this, Mithridates occupied Mount Dindymus, which rose near the city walls. He had a mound constructed which connected this elevation with Cyzicus, and used it as a missile platform for his remaining towers. At the same time, Pontic engineers set about the long job of undermining the city walls. The Romans under Lucullus were not idle, and the historian Eutropius remarks that they fought ‘many battles’ with Mithridates’ men in the course of the siege, so the Pontic army was probably in action on two fronts at once.
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Winter set in, and with it the plague - probably dysentery, which often laid low ancient armies that stayed in one place for too long. With Lucullus blocking the supply lines from the mainland, and winter storms making deliveries by sea few and infrequent, hunger was a serious problem. There were
rumours of cannibalism in the army and men became sick from eating almost any vegetable matter they could put in their stomachs.

Then came the news that the cavalry force had suffered a disaster during its withdrawal, ambushed by the Romans in falling snow and bitter cold as it crossed the River Rhyndacus. Some 15,000 men were reported lost, along with a substantial amount of baggage. The Cyzicans took advantage of the weakened and demoralized state of the Pontic army and sallied out, burning many of the beseigers’ engines before their assault was contained. Nothing was going right for Mithridates. It was time to take the hint offered so plainly by Prosperina all those weeks before. With grim reluctance he set about preparing his withdrawal.

In military terms, the endeavour Mithridates was contemplating was at the masterclass level. He had to disengage a large, demoralized force from two fronts simultaneously in the face of active and spirited opposition and brutal winter weather. However, it was probably that same vile weather that allowed the army, even lacking its cavalry, to break Lucullus’ stranglehold and struggle toward Lampsacus, with the Roman army gleefully in pursuit. Starved, half-frozen and demoralized, the Pontic army suffered huge casualties as it limped toward safety. River crossings were a particular problem. There were two of them, at the Granicus and the Aesepus, and both rivers were swollen with icy rain. At the bottleneck of the narrow fords the Romans massacred thousands of the Pontic army as the remainder struggled to cross. At Granicus alone, 20,000 were slain and tens of thousands more perished of cold and hunger during the march. With the Romans closing fast, the sick and wounded had to be abandoned to their fate. They were found by an advance guard of Cyzican soldiery, and these, probably remembering the killing of their own hostage citizens, had no compunction in killing every one of the helpless men.

Mithridates himself had departed by ship and he now sent his entire fleet to evacuate the army from Lampsacus. So few were the survivors of the once mighty force that had besieged Cyzicus that there was room for the people of Lampsacus to embark as well, and so escape Roman vengeance. Ten thousand men and fifty ships stayed with Marius with orders to garrison Lampsacus, guard the Hellespont and cause as many problems for the Romans in the region as possible. This garrison might have counted itself fortunate, as the vengeful gods were not yet done with the hapless Pontic army. The fleet was hit by a storm en route to Nicomedia and many of those who thought they had found safety after being evacuated were drowned. Of the 300,000 who had set out for
Bithynia that spring, only about 20,000 effective troops remained. The siege of Cyzicus could be considered an unmitigated disaster.

Mithridates after Cyzicus

Perhaps the most formidable aspect of Mithridates’ character was his indomitable energy and resolution in the face of defeat. Far from giving in to despair, the king gathered his forces and took stock. Above all, he needed time. Mithridates still held all of Pontus and most of Bithynia, both of which were rich in resources. Another well-equipped army could be raised if the Romans could be kept out of Pontus long enough. The obvious course was to plunder as much as possible of Bithynia before the Romans got hold of it and to use the mineral and human wealth of Pontus and the Black Sea kingdoms to build another army.

Meanwhile, the Pontic forces remained supreme at sea and Mithridates intended to use this advantage to harass and slow the Romans. As another obstacle to the Roman advance, forts and cities around the kingdom were strengthened to withstand the coming storm, starting with those to the west. If Lucullus wanted Pontus, Mithridates intended to make him fight every step of the way.

The measures Mithridates was taking were not intended to simply delay the inevitable. The Pontic king knew his enemy, and he knew that Roman soldiers were also Roman voters. Perhaps he could make the war sufficiently unpopular at home to force a Roman withdrawal, or perhaps the progressive collapse of the Roman political system would see the Roman army needed elsewhere, ideally for a nice internecine civil war. Either way, Mithridates had nothing to lose. There was no question of surrender being either offered or accepted. Both sides knew this was a fight to the death.