Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Poison King The Life and Legend of Mithradates Rome's Deadliest Enemy by Adrienne Mayor The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates Rome's Deadliest Enemy by Adrienne Mayor. Our systems have detected unusual traffic activity from your network. Please complete this reCAPTCHA to demonstrate that it's you making the requests and not a robot. If you are having trouble seeing or completing this challenge, this page may help. If you continue to experience issues, you can contact JSTOR support. Block Reference: #f4dd2390-c32d-11eb-914e-973803c73d61 VID: #(null) IP: 188.246.226.140 Date and time: Tue, 01 Jun 2021 23:06:11 GMT. The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy. The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy (2009) was written by Dr. Adrienne Mayor, a Research Scholar at Stanford University. Examining the tumultuous life of this most tantalizing of ancient kings, Mayor contextualizes Mithradates VI’s political importance, intellectual brilliance, and complex character. Divided into 15 chapters, Mayor's work describes the life of a man "brimming with spectacle and excitement." Born in Pontus, the geographical buffer between the rising powers of late republican Rome and imperial Parthia, Mithradates VI of Pontus (r. 120-63 BCE) was loathed by Rome for his massacre of 80,000 Roman civilians in 88 BCE, but hailed by Greeks and Persians as a "savior" from oppressive Roman misrule. In this new biography, Mayor seeks to uncover the ways in which Mithradates VI of Pontus inspired fear, romance, courage, and intrigue across the Near East during the first century BCE. Given the challenges of researching and writing such a book--documented history of Mithradates VI is rather limited and many written sources come only from his innumerable of enemies--Mayor manages to recreate the world of Mithradates VI via the "the realm of educated guesswork" or counterfactual history. Many readers and scholars may take issue here with her approach, and understandably so. Mayor does succeed in offering countless alternative views to how history might have unfolded, and also what could have motivated other important historical figures like Tigranes II of Armenia (r. 95-55 BCE), but we urge caution and individual contemplation. One area where Mayor excels is her analysis of why Mithradates VI has been circumscribed in recent historiography, and why there are strong geopolitical parallels between the ancient and modern worlds. Regardless of whether or not one agrees with Mayor's conclusions, her style and execution is sharp and engaging. The Poison King includes an extensive bibliographical reference with titles in English, French, German, Italian, and Ukrainian (divided between ancient and modern sources). Other useful features include a timeline, a dramatis personae of important persons, illustrations (in black and white and color), and detailed maps of present-day Turkey, Greece, Armenia, the Black Sea, and the Caucasus. The Ancient History Encyclopedia recommends this interesting work to historians and folklorists in particular. The Poison King was a finalist for the 2009 National Book Awards and was published by Princeton University Press (448 pages, hardback). It has since been translated into many languages. It is widely available and listed for $29.95 in the United States. The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy. Judith Weingarten delights in the life of a leader who tested Romans with his battles and intrigues. Why do we know so little about Mithradates the Great, king of Pontos, who reigned from 120 to 63BC and was one of Rome's deadliest enemies? He seems to have dropped off history's radar. While Racine could opine, in his 1673 tragedy Mithridate, "Il n'y a guere de nom plus connu que celui de Mithridate", today even a well-educated person is likely to draw a blank. True, Mithradates fought the Romans in Anatolia and around the Black Sea, areas about which we know little and care less. Our awareness is rapidly increasing, however, stirred by the Danish National Research Foundation's Centre for Black Sea Studies, whose publications remove any excuse for ignorance other than stubborn parochialism. Not everyone wants the full academic works, of course, and now, thanks to Adrienne Mayor's provocative book, we can add Mithradates to our list of heroes - or devils, depending whose side you are on. The Poison King is the first full life since Alfred Duggan's flawed 1958 study He Died Old (whose title was taken from lines by A.E. Housman, "I tell the tale that I heard told/Mithridates, he died old"). Otherwise, you'd have to go back to the 1890 work Mithridates Eupator, roi de Pont by Theodore Reinach, for whom Mithradates was not just an enemy of Rome but of European culture; an Ottoman sultan, really. Who else but an Asian barbarian would have ordered the massacre of at least 80,000 Italian men, women and children living in western Anatolia, as Mithradates indubitably did in the spring of 88BC? This discreditable war crime clouds the start of Mayor's book, which otherwise begins as almost a fairytale. An expert folklorist, Mayor well knows that Mithradates' history is entwined with legend and heroic archetypes, or simply propaganda. Yet she writes: "Even if something reported in the past had small odds of occurring, that doesn't mean it didn't happen." Perhaps not. So she takes us on an unlikely romp through Mithradates' omen-filled birth and early years, often relying solely on the say-so of Justin (c AD200), who famously announced that he would leave out events that "did not make pleasurable reading or serve to provide a moral". Taking Justin's word for it, Mayor has Mithradates and a band of companions escape Sinope, the capital of Pontos, after his father's assassination and, to thwart his regicidal mother, travel incognito in the kingdom, "living like Robin Hood in the wilderness for seven years" - a standard mythic-hero theme. But what of the statues and inscriptions honouring Mithradates and his younger brother erected in Delos (BC115-116)? A cunning move by his treacherous mother to counter rumours that she had poisoned the prince as well. Of course, we don't know that she killed her husband, but it lets Mithradates off the hook for undoubted matricide, one of his first acts after a triumphal "return" to Sinope. Mayor's "thought experiment" goes too far for my taste. Admittedly, it allows the author to take us through the mountains, temples and strongholds of the Pontic kingdom as Mithradates and his merry band travel on. This pays off later when he battles Romans and enemy kings over now-familiar terrain. The book truly takes off when Mithradates begins his reign. Battles, intrigues, murder, treachery and "loot and love" follow in rapid succession. After every staggering loss, Mithradates slips away and starts again. Now we can understand why no fewer than 25 operas about Mithradates were composed in the 17th and 18th centuries (including Mozart's Mitridate, re di Ponto).The very stuff of drama, here it is carefully researched and narrated with verve. Even if it's overdone to condemn every convenient death as murder by poison (when all we really know are the accusations), Mithradates is indeed the "Poison King". His obsession with plant and animal poisons was notorious, and a universal antidote was still sold as Mithridatium into the 19th century. Mayor's explanations are almost always plausible and the characters wonderfully drawn. She handily rehabilitates Mithradates as "the Great". No longer a "wily Oriental", the king liberates Greek cities from the blood-soaked greed of Roman oppression. No doubt he was a brilliant ruler, although perhaps not wise. His polyglot Asian armies never matched the Roman legions. I was glad, though, that the Roman generals who beat him time and again - Sulla, Lucullus, Pompey - all came to sticky ends. For the Romans killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the three Mithradatic Wars, far more than Mithradates had slaughtered in the spring of 88BC. Some Anatolian cities didn't recover from Roman revenge until Byzantine times. Others thrived. History is like that. This is not a book for the classroom, but I enthusiastically recommend it as a Christmas gift for any history-minded friends or kin. The Poison King was a finalist for the US National Book Award, announced on 18 November - I hoped she'd won. The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy. Mithridates VI Eupator (120-63 B.C.) was a famous king of Pontus—a region on the Black Sea—who in the last century of the republic long defied the power of Rome. In a series of three wars, fought between the 80s and the 60s B.C., he engaged with such great soldiers of the day as Sulla, Lucullus and Pompey. In modern times this resourceful and energetic monarch was the subject of a classic study by Théodore Reinach which appeared first in French (1890) and subsequently in German (1895) and later of important works by B. McGing (1986) and J. Ballesteros Pastor (1996). Now Adrienne Mayor has given us this detailed biography here under review. Although for the most part grounded on the ancient sources and modern scholarly literature, this work differs from its predecessors in its bold epic sweep. This is a highly coloured portrait and a very readable account of a complex individual with whom Mayor plainly has considerable empathy. The book therefore should find a wide audience and serve as an attractive introduction to its subject. The title Poison King would seem to suggest that perhaps Mayor, who is a noted authority in the field of ancient poisons, was first drawn to Mithridates because he, too, was a very great expert in such matters. However, Mayor goes far beyond such specialised interests and presents us with a richly detailed narrative of the king and his doings in which she constantly strives to put before us Mithridates’ view of events. There are, of course, gaps in our knowledge of Mithridates due to the state of our sources and Mayor attempts to fill them by imaginative reconstructions. Not so much a case of how things really were as how they might have been. This is not a course which will commend itself to all. For instance, however splendid the evocation of the landscape in pp.73-95 we may legitimately enquire if Mithridates’ ‘exile’ from court was as Mayor describes it. Again we may wonder if there is any profit in describing what Sulla’s fingers may have looked like (p.212). Moreover, I think we may attribute to that empathy we noted earlier the rather wistful attempt (pp.362-365) to suggest what might have happened at the end of the Third Mithridatic War if the King, instead of committing suicide, simply rode off into the sunset. Indeed I would add that I found far more fascinating than this speculation the few pages (pp.373-376) Mayor devotes to considering if Mithridates had a personality disorder. Leaving aside now the problems posed by imaginative reconstruction it should be noted that there are a few instances of error or, at least, of questionable statements. Herodotus does not say the Persians learned from the Greeks to accept homosexuality, rather they learned of pederasty from them (p.89). Sulla and his army were not in Rome in the 90s B.C. when Marius met Mithridates (p.132). Marius was not a consul in 88 B.C. (p.165). I doubt if the Asiatic Vespers can be seen as a gesture of solidarity with the Social War rebels (p.174). Sulla did not destroy Athens (p.203). It is at least questionable whether the siege of Cyzicus began in 73 B.C. (p.270). In both the original (1992) and the revised version (forthcoming) of my biography of Lucullus I have argued in detail for 74 B.C. The writer was Sidonius not Sidonis Apollonaris (p.262). But such reservations as I might have should not be seen as taking from what Mayor has undoubtedly achieved. She herself (p.11) says, ‘Mithridates’ incredible saga is a rollicking good story’ and she has narrated it with verve, panache and scholarly skill. Adrienne Mayor. Adrienne Mayor is a folklorist and historian of ancient science who investigates natural knowledge contained in pre-scientific myths and oral traditions. Her research looks at ancient "folk science" precursors, alternatives, and parallels to modern scientific methods. She is Berggruen Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, 2018-2019. Mayor's latest book, Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology investigates how the Greeks imagined automatons, replicants, and Artificial Intelligence in myths and later designed self-moving devices and robots. Mayor's 2014 book, The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World , analyzes the historical and archaeological evidence underlying myths and tales of warlike women (2014, winner of the Sarasvati Prize for Women in Mythology). Mayor's two books on pre-Darwinian fossil traditions in classical antiquity and in Native America have opened up a new field within geomythology, and her book on the origins of biological weapons uncovered the ancient roots of biochemical warfare. The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy won top honors (Gold Medal) for Biography, Independent Publishers' Book Award 2010, and was a 2009 National Book Award Finalist. It is the first biography in a century of the world's first experimental toxicologist, the brilliant rebel leader of a Black Sea empire who challenged Roman imperialism in the first century BC. Mayor is also a research scholar in the Classics Department; her work is featured on NPR and BBC, the History Channel, the New York Times, Smithsonian, and National Geographic and her books have been translated into French, Chinese, Russian, Turkish, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Hungarian, Polish, and Greek. Mayor's fossil legend research is featured in the National Geographic children's book The Griffin and the Dinosaur (by M. Aronson, 2014). She was a regular contributor to the award-winning history of science website Wonders and Marvels (2011-17). A recent Stanford Report article on her work is featured here. Books. The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World. Princeton University Press, 2014. Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World . Overlook Press, 2003. rev ed 2008, new introduction.