Full Disclosure: I am not a historian by education and do my research independently so if I am citing outdated sources or concepts someone please correct me. I am also typing this up from my phone and will do a more thorough sweep for errors and expand on some sections later.

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Here are the sources I am drawing on:

• Appian, Roman History / The Mithridatic Wars

• Justin, Philippic History and Origins of the Entire World and All of its Lands

• Strabo, Geographica

• Plutarch, Parallel Lives: Life of Sertorius, Life of Sulla, Life of Lucullus

• McGing, B.C., The Foreign Policy of Mithridates VI Eupator, king of Pontus

• Reinach, T., Mithridate Eupator, roi de Pont

• Mayor, A., The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy

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The Mithridatic Wars as a whole are honestly criminally ignored in the general political narrative of the late Roman Republic. I am heavily entrenched in research on this timeframe and it is phenomenal how little focus it gets even by many historians. It reminds me of how Hannibal's Itailian Campaign after Cannae and before Metaurus is brushed over.

Let's frame the event with some background info. King Attalus III "The Mad King" has died and a questionable statement in his will has allowed Rome to inherit his kingdom on his death. Many suspect the will to be a forgery, including Aristonicus, the proclaimed illegitimate brother of the Mad King. Aristonicus leads a rebellion that Adrienne Mayor describes as a cultural war against the Roman grip of provincal control. War wracks much of the Asia Minor peninsula which ropes in Mithridates V (referred to by his cognomen Euergetes from here on out) to the Roman side as a "friend of Rome." Aristonicus establishes a city named "Heliopolis" with the name of the city containing allusions to Zoroastrianism and the god Mithra. Aristonicus defeats an army sent against him and a one, Manlius Aquillius, is sent to put down the rebellion. He infamously does so by poisoning the water supply at Heliopolis, where Aristonicus is holed up. The two important points from this rebellion for our narrative are the following: Aquillius is reprimanded for this in Rome but this event serves as a huge talking point for Mithridates VI's (referred to by his cognomen Eupator from here on out) propaganda later on and, for his assistance in the war, Euergetes is granted some of Pergamon's old territory.

At the risk of this post turning into a book we'll skip forward here to Eupator's ascension. While he was in exile, his mother, Laodice, had let Rome nibble away at the Pontic borders thereby ceding the territory Euergetes gained from his aid in the Aristonicus Rebellion. Euergetes had married off his daughter (also named Laodice) to Ariarathes VI of Cappadocia in an attempt to turn Cappadocia into a puppet kingdom of Pontus. Eupator found that Ariarathes VI wasn't being as compliant as he would like and had the king assassinated. Contention between Bithynia's Nicomedes III and Eupator led to a series of puppet kings installed by each of them and escalating political tensions. This political bickering was terminated when both appealed to Rome for their respective rulers and Rome told the Cappadocians themselves to install a ruler. Meanwhile, Nicomedes III had died and his son Nicomedes IV took over Bithynia. He was in debt to Roman creditors and was spurred by the son of Manius Aquillius, also named Manius Aquillius and referred to as Aquillius from here on out, to raid Pontic territory for plunder to repay his debts. Eupator appealed to Rome for them to tighten the leash on Bithynia so they would cease their hostilities or at least let him defend his territories but Rome wouldn't hear it. This culminated in the decisive battle at the river Amnias in 89 BC, which is what the (Roman) contemporaries argue to be the event that acted as the declaration of war from Pontus, to kick off the First Mithridatic War. The battle was a sweeping victory for Pontus and Eupator began preparing for the full Roman retribution.

Meanwhile in Rome, the Republic is reeling from the devestating Social Wars that end in 90 BC (which historians - McGing is the big one - argue is one of the reasons Eupator felt emboldened to seek conflict with Rome) and are still recovering militarily from the disastrous first battles of the Cimbrian War which sowed the seeds for the civil war between Sulla and Marius. Sulla's tremendous, albeit brutal, success in the Jugurthine Wars (which Eupator would also use as propaganda later) was causing him to eclipse Marius' waning star and tensions were heating up between the two. It is really undersold by historians, in my opinion, that this 30 to 40 year timeframe between the loss at Arausio in 105 and the end of the Sertorian War was a time that was very precarious for Rome. I know counterfactuals are sometimes frowned upon by historians but had the Cimbrian, Social, First Mithridatic, and Sertorian Wars, as well as the various civil war flare-ups, playing out any differently or had key figures like Marian, Sulla, Sertorius, Pompey, Flaccus, or Lucullus (the latter two more influential in the Mithridatic Wars) met an abrupt end earlier in their career it is very likely that the territorial ambitions for Rome outside of the Italian Peninsula could have been completely stymied and most of their gains - chiefly from the Hannibalic War and the Macedonian Wars - ceded back to more native residents. The Social War especially nearly spelled disaster for Rome had (more of) the Italians decided they wanted to seek retribution against Rome for their harsh treatment during the early Republic. I tell you all of this not to imagine "What if..." but, rather, to explain what possessed the leader of - what many people think as - an itty-bitty backwater Seleucid leftover to challenge the premiere power in the Mediterranean.

One final bit of background info we should cover is the Roman reputation in Anatolia at the time. With their control of their Pergamon territories, the Roman praetors (and one or two consuls) had been criticized by the native Anatolians for taxing them dry. The native Greek Anatolians were chaffing with their dealings with the Italian immigrants and merchants which the Anatolians came to associate with the greedy tax policies of the governing bureaucrats. Without getting too much into religious ideology of the area, there was also a very big abrasion between the Zoroastrian/Zoroastrian-Greco hybrid believers and the Roman (and Greek) practices of slavery.

Justin, drawing from a contemporary source lost to us, puts a speech in the mouth of Eupator that highlights much of the propaganda I mentioned earlier for a casus belli. He cites Rome's treatment of Aristonicus when the Attalids had been so loyal to Rome in the past as well as their treatment of Jugurtha when Massanissa had been so pivotal for Rome in the Hannibalic War as demonstrative of their treatment to those called "friends of Rome." He describes the land given to Euergetes as rightfully his own as well as well as some land given as dowry from a Seleucid marriage some time ago. He also highlights the rapacious nature of Romans, in money and territory. All this to say that Eupator wanted to make clear that coexistence with Rome was not possible.

The chronology is debated but the sources are clear that the battle at the river Amnias and the Cappadocian campaign took place before the Asiatic Vespers, also called the Ephesian Vespers by Reinach with Ephesus being a key city in the massacre. Pontus is on the offensive in 89 or 88 BC and they sweep into Cappadocia and Pergamon's old territories almost uncontested and this sets the stage for the massacre.

How was this genocide conducted?

I am hesitant to promote a Great Man perspective in general as it never captures the full portrait but the sources are very limited regarding the machinations of this event. Strabo tells us that the massacre was the brain-child of an adviser to Eupator, named Metrodorus. We don't know specifically how the towns were contacted but Eupator's spy network was very vast so it's easy to assume coded or low-profile correspondence with the heads of these cities was sent out to coordinate the targets and the time frame. We get varying horrific descriptions of citizens taking to the streets to chase down Latin speakers or Greek speakers with a Latin dialect. Some towns assembled militias for killing the Italians. At least one town had conflicting morals about it and hired mercenaries - more akin to bandits - to kill the Italians and their sympathizers. Latins took refuge at temples for protection but the Anatolians ignored any fears of wrath from the Gods and slew Latins at the feet of the statues of their patron deities. As Mayor describes it, it was something of a logistical miracle for all these secret orders to be disseminated to dozens, if not hundreds, of people with not only no word getting to the Italians (in most cases) but also for the coordination to be so exact on such a massive scale. Needless to say this wasn't something fabricated on a whim or an anti-Latin fervor that naturally swept through the peninsula. Appian tells us that debts from Roman debtors were cancelled and the possessions of the slain Latins and their sympathizers were divided between Eupator himself and the towns. The victims' corpses were thrown outside the city boundaries unceremoniously and left to rot. Anyone who attempted to bury the remains was to suffer the same fate.

Will continue answer in next post