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Ancient Armies

Pontic (110 - 47 BC)
(DBA #58)

By Anu Arora

They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white't their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
- I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.

- from "Terence, this is stupid stuff", A. E. Housman.

The exact date when Mithridates IV ascended the throne of the eastern Hellenistic kingdom of Pontus is lost to us. Pliny, in his Natural History, points to as early as 112 BC. The elder Italicus, in his epic De Bellum Orientis ("on the Oriental Wars") cites two possible dates: 109 BC or 107 BC. Theophrastus infuriatingly points to the year 108. Whatever the date, we know from Roman letters of the time that around the years of 97 to 93 BC a "...young king of the half-Greek lands north of Cappadocia and Armenia...[was] acting to unite the Scythian and Thracian tribes within his lands to supply him soldiers...and to free the slaves of the city Sinope if they fought for his cause...with such a host [he thought] to take Commagene [from our camp]..." (Gallus, Ars Orien. I. 34; my apologies if I translated erroneously).

After 93 BC the documents we have are mysteriously quiet on Mithridates. We know that during this time he was involved in several small battles, his massive army composed of freed slaves and Asiatics from his eastern provinces drilled to fight in the Macedonian style (but not that well). His largest victory during this period was described somewhat sketchily by Theophrastus as having been fought over a river which the Pontic light troops crossed alone, not wanting to wait for the phalanx. What enemy they were fighting we do not know, though several plausible theories have been put forward; in any event, the unknown enemy suffered greatly at the hands of the Pontic scythed chariots and peltasts and lost some 7,000 (or 17,000?) of their number. Finally, after much silence, word of Mithridates pops up again in 89 BC in a letter to the Rhodians over a shipping trade dispute in the Black Sea. In 88 BC the famous Mithridatic wars begun.

The Pontic king, noting that the Romans were occupied by the Jugurthine, "Social", and Cimbric Wars, invaded Roman Greece during the spring of that year with a slave army of 60,000, muscling his way across Asia Minor (and through Roman buffer states therein) to reach Achaea overland. At the same time the massive Pontic navy was employed to aid another prong of Mithridates plan: the invasion of Rhodes, presumably to finally "settle" the shipping dispute. Unfortunately for Mithridates, the buffer states he pushed around appealed for Roman help and actually got it-the Roman general Sulla had just withdrawn into Greece with five Marian-style legions the previous fall.

Though initially daunted by the size of Mithridates' phalanxes and their silver and gold armor, the Romans acquited themselves well in the first engagement at Chaeronea (87 BC), winning a small victory, and winning another later at Orchomenos (in 85 BC). The Pontic general Archelaus tried his best, but the Pontic phalanxes were too clumsy to do any real good. The scythed chariots, which had won several victories against other foes, failed too; they roused the Romans into laughter and joking applause. Mithridates withdrew to Sinope to redesign his army, saved from destruction since Sulla had other problems.

The Romans did not forget, however, and sent an incredibly large (150 ship!) fleet into the Black Sea to raid Ennium, a large Pontic port in 75 BC. Mithridates, however, defeated them with a force of no more then 70 vessels (he had a much larger navy, and why did not employ them remains a mystery). By brilliant tactics he destroyed another fleet of allied Roman and Rhodian ships 223 strong (by Italicus' account, and Italicus is good with facts) at the mouth of the Bosphorus in 73 BC, the Romans barely escaping due to the heroism of their loyal Rhodian compatriots-whom Cassius would later betray and conquer.

Knowing the Romans would arrive with a land army to take umbrage, Mithridates, according to Theophrastus, made a pact with Tigranes, a neighbouring king, something also noted by Pliny. In due time Tigranes sent him at least 16,000 armored cataphracts with which to supplement his army. Mithridates also disbanded the slave phalanxes, opting to create "imitation legions", 15 of which he had standing by 68 BC. Fearing being assassinated by poison, it is during this period that Mithridates sought to immunize himself to toxins by taking a little poison each day (hence Mr. Housman's poem).

In 64 BC the Romans came in the form of 7 primarch ("original", not "quintus") legions from the German front commanded by the canny tactician Lucullus. Lucullus immediately convinced Tigranes to attack the Parthians and thus isolated Pontus while inflicting harm upon dreaded Parthia. He then sought out Mithridates' forces on the plains before Sinope. Though Mithridates' new infantry applied itself surprisingly well, his army was surrounded. Mithridates himself just managed to escape with a mere 800 followers, including one tough concubine who dressed herself as a lancer. He retreated to Ennium in 63 BC to contemplate a counter-offensive, but found that his son Pharnaces had assumed control and became overly-depressed. This is where his immunitity to poisons ironically played against him; he took three censers of the toxins, but unlike the Numidian queen Sophonisba could not kill himself in this manner. He ordered a guard (or the faithful concubine, in Italicus' account) to stab him.

Pharnaces managed to ward off the Romans for the entire duration of his reign, but achieved no territorial gains. He did, however, finally inflict the total defeat that Mithridates had sought for so long. In 61 BC, on the plains before Ennium, Pharnaces deployed under cover of night his reformed army of 15,000 infantry trained as phalangites in the old style coupled with 30,000 mock legionaries, 10,000 Galatian mercenaries and some 500 scythed chariots plus assorted light horse.

In the morning nine Roman legions awoke to find their enemy already entrenched; when the Romans drew up battle-lines Pharnaces ordered a cavalry charge. The light horsemen kicked up dust infront of the first Roman line and fired a small influx of missiles. The Romans naturally drew up into "tortoise" formation-which proved their undoing. Behind the veil of the dust cloud, Pharnaces had ordered his scythed chariots and Galatian mercenaries to charge; the horsemen suddenly moved to the flanks of the Roman line to pin down their meager cavalry and, by the time the Romans spotted the chariots and Galatians, it was too late open ranks. The scythed chariots, guaranteed to hit, finally proved themselves to the Romans by creating holes in the line which the Galatian warbands following them could exploit. The second and third Roman lines suffered horribly, and the first was completely swept away. When the Roman charge was ordered, they found themselves face-to-face with well-placed phalanxes with mobile imitation legions to support and cover their shieldless flanks. The result was roughly 38,000 Roman dead and 6,000-8,000 taken prisoner compared to some 8,000 Pontic casualties. A defeat more humilating than Carrhae and Adrianople and echoing Cannae, the battle of the Ennium is conveniently forgotten about by Pliny.

For the remainder of his days as a general, Pharnaces utilized the same deployment: three lines of infantry, the flanks of the first line entrenched, with cavalry on the far side of either of the flank trenches.

Army Composition

Variant Army Lists

The reformed Mithridatic army (after 85 BC) should have more blades than 2. In 64 BC Mithridates used some [15 legions x 6,000 per = ] 90,000 swordsmen! We know he even went beyond the regular 6,000 limit for at least four of his legions. Thankfully, the DBA 2.0 army list sports 5 of these units. Still, something along the range of 6 or 7 would be more appropriate.

Pharnaces campaign of 61-57 BC made use of an army that fell back upon the gimmicks of Mithridates' original force. In particular Pharnaces cut out some of the imitation legions to make way for the phalanxes once again, cut down the amount of cavalry used and utterly removed light troops from his army, wanting only to wage a defensive war. Thus, a list for this force, scaled down from the historical figures we have might look something like this:

Tactics

Having only played this army thrice, I cannot say for sure. Most of what I say comes out of common sense.

The Pontic seems pretty balanced, with a good cavalry force and a good rough terrain group (an aux. and a ps). As it is in 1.0, the army's main weakness actually is in its infantry. Four pike elements are good, but they present a line two elements wide. You can opt for the blades, but then you still get a line of heavy infantry two elements wide and end up with more crappy auxilia (yeah you heard right...they suck, face it). Thus, to win against a Roman army you'll need to contact your infantry on the flank of the Roman line to avoid becoming totally enveloped.

Thankfully the cavalry contingent can always seem to garner victory, at least when I used the army. Against all mounted armies (Scythians and Parthians and such) it can actually be beneficial to lengthen your pike line into one four elements long and one deep. The resulting combat factor of +4 is good enough against cavalry, camelry, elephantry and light horse. Against knights, however, it is best to deepen the phalanx. The scythed chariot will always go to pieces on you, but can sometimes pull some amazing stuff off. Remember, against blades and doubled warband it still has a 2% greater chance than they do. Woo-hoo! YEAH!

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Thanks to Anu Aurora for providing this essay. Comments, questions or suggested additions are welcome and should be sent to Chris Brantley, brant@erols.com.

Last Updated: Nov. 6, 2000