5
70
1.
While Mithridates was celebrating the rites of Ceres on the Bosphorus,71
there suddenly occurred such a severe earthquake that it is related to have
caused great damage to both cities and the countryside. 2. At this time too
Mithridates’ prefect, Castor, who was in command at Phanagorium,
72 killed
the king’s supporters, occupied the town’s citadel, and sent four of Mithridates’
sons to the Roman garrison.
73 3. Mithridates was burning with anger
and this soon blazed forth into crime. For it was then that he killed many of
his friends and his own son, Exipodra – he had already committed parricide
by butchering another of his sons, Machares. 4. His other son, Pharnaces,
was terrified by what had happened to his brothers, won over the army that
had been sent against him, and soon led it against his father. 5. For a long
time Mithridates pleaded in vain with his son from the top of the highest
wall, but when he saw that Pharnaces was implacable, he is said to have
cried out on the point of death, ‘Since Pharnaces commands my death, I beg
you, gods of my fathers, if you exist, that someday he too might hear this
command from his own children’.
74 He then at once went down to his wives,
concubines, and daughters and gave them all poison. 6. He was the last to
drink it, but, because of the antidotes that he had often used to fortify his
vitals against noxious potions, the poison could not kill him. He wandered
back and forth, hoping in vain that the fatal draught would at last spread
through his veins if he exercised his body. Then he summoned a Gallic
soldier who was fleeing from the breached wall and held out his throat
to be cut. 7. This was how Mithridates ended his life. He is said to have
been the most superstitious of men and has left us a clear statement of his
opinions. He was 72 at his death and had always surrounded himself with
philosophers and the most skilled practitioners of all the arts
Footnotes
70 The historical material in this chapter is drawn from Livy, 102
71 At his capital Panticapeum, the modern Vospro in the Crimea
72 The modern Taman in Russia
73 Implicit in the text is that pagan worship far from bringing aid to its practitioners, brings positive harm to them
74 This curse is only found in Orosius
