MITHRADATES. 



MITHRIDATES VI. 



271 



student of Queen's College, Oxford. His time at the university was 

 idly spent ; and he left it without taking a degree. Perhaps the most 

 important influence exercised on his mind by his academical residence 

 was derived from the Vinerian lectures of Blackstone, which he attended 

 regularly. He studied law for a time in the Middle Temple, but found 

 the study distasteful ; and, having succeeded to the family estate in 

 1761, on bis father's death, he abandoned the profession to his younger 

 brother, who afterwards became Lord Redesdale. In 1766 Mr. Mitford 

 married ; and for seven years afterwards his time was chiefly spent in 

 the retirement of his couutry-seat, where his early predilection for the 

 Greek language and literature grew into a settled passion. In 1769 he 

 became a captain in the South Hampshire militia, of which the historian 

 Gibbon was then major ; and the conversatiou and advice of Gibbon 

 confirmed, if they did not prompt, his resolution to undertake a history 

 of Greece. 



Mr. Mitford's first work, ' An Inquiry into the Principles of Harmony 

 in Languages, and of the Mechanism of Verse, Modern and Ancient,' 

 appeared hi 1774, and was reprinted in 1804. In this early part of his 

 life, too, he published ' A Treatise on the Military Force, and particu- 

 larly the Militia, of this Kingdom.' In 1776 he lost his wife, and was 

 himself seized with a dangerous illness, on his recovery from which 

 he left England to spend the winter at Nice. Before leaving home he 

 had become acquainted with the French scholars Villoisou and De 

 Meusnier : the former introduced him to the Baron de Sainte Croix ; 

 and his intercourse with these young and ardent students matured 

 his own literary ambition. On his return home however, he allowed 

 public duties to claim frequent precedence. He acted as a county 

 magistrate, and in 1778 was appointed Verdurer of the New Forest. 

 He retained his commission in the militia, succeeded to Gibbon's 

 lieutenant-colonelcy in 1779, and in 1805 was appointed to the colonelcy, 

 which he resigned in the course of the next year. From 1785 till 1790 

 he sat in the House of Commons as member for Newport in Cornwall ; 

 from 1796 till 1806 he represented BeeruUton, a nomination borough 

 of his maternal kinsman the Duke of Northumberland ; and from 1812 

 till 1818 he was member for New Romuey. His parliamentary appear- 

 ances were chiefly confined to two or three speeches on the militia 

 law.*. In 1802 he succeeded, through his mother, to the Revely estates 

 iu Yorkshire. But his paternal estate on the borders of the New 

 Forest continued to be his country residence. He died there on the 

 8th of February 1827. 



JIU 'History of Greece' was written and published iu successive 

 portions, the dates of the first edition, in quarto, being the following : 

 vol. i., 1784 (second edition, 1789); voL ii., 1790; vol. iii., 1797; 

 vol. iv., 1808 ; and vol. v., 1818. It closes with the death of Alexander 

 the Great; and the author, enfeebled by ago and partly blind, was 

 unable to execute his intention of coutiuuing it to the subjugation of 

 Greece by the Roman?. In 1815 appeared an octavo edition of the 

 1:3 which had previously been published; and in 1829 there 

 appeared a new edition of the whole work, in eight octavo volumes 

 (since reprinted), with an introduction by his brother, Lord Redesdale, 

 furnishing some particulars of the author's life, but chiefly taken up 

 in vindicating the political opinions expressed in the work. These 

 opinions have exposed Mr. Mitford's 'History' to much animadversion. 

 lie is determinedly anti-democratic ; and this turn of thinking affects 

 seriously the fairness of the estimate which he forms both of characters 

 and of events. His partisanship is especially palpable iu his account 

 of the war between the Greeks and Philip of MaceJon. Philip is with 

 him a perfect king, hero, and statesman. Demosthenes is a dishonest 

 and malignant demagogue, and the Athenians are a horde of treacherous 

 miscreants. Yet the author's research and perspicacity have thrown 

 light upon this as well as upon other parts of Grecian history. He 

 has elucidated with remarkable success the state of political parties in 

 some of the severest struggles of Greek politics ; and he has suggested 

 new and more accurate views of many particular events. He has been 

 led to these results mainly by his critical way of estimating the ancitnt 

 authorities, and by his systematic endeavour to gain his knowledge 

 from contemporary sources. Accordingly his history will probably 

 retain a certain value with the classical student, notwithstanding the 

 !) jve noticed, and in spite also of its deficiency both in philoso- 

 phical reflection and iu animation of narrative. For the general 

 reader and historic student it has been superseded by the very superior 

 works of Grote and Thirlwall. In style Mitford's work is exceedingly 

 faulty; and the few corrections made in the last edition have removed 

 only tht) least of the technical faults, the perverse affectation of the 

 orthography. A treatise on the religions of Ancient Greece and Rome, 

 which he published late in life, in a small octavo volume, was regarded 

 by him as a supplement to his 'History,' and would probably have 

 formed a part of it bad he been able to complete his original design. 



MITHRADA'TES, or MITHRIDA'TES, a common name among 



the Hcdes and Persians, which appears to have been formed from 



' Mitrn,' or ' Mitlira,' the Persian name for the sun, and the root da, 



signifying 'to give," which occurs in moi-t of the Indo-Germauic 



languages. The name however was written in several ways. In 



(.tus (i. 110) we find MiTpaS&rris ; in Xenophon ('Anab.,' vii. 8, 



Mify>i8<nj ; in the Septnaj-int (Ezra i. 8, iv. 7), MiflpaSarTjs ; and 



in Tacitus ('Ann.,' xii., c. 10), ' Mehtrdates.' On the Greek coins it is 



written Mithradates. 



Ultra, < r Mithra, is said by some writers to lave been one of the 

 EIOO. DIV. YOU IT. 



most powerful good spirits created by Ormuz. The mysteries of llithra, 

 were celebrated with much pomp and splendour on the revival of the 

 Persian religion under the Sassanida:; but we do not read of the 

 worship of the sun under this name in the earlier Greek writers. 

 (Hyde, 'Hist. rel. vet. Pere.,' c. 4, p. ]09.) The word is evidently the 

 same as ' mitra,' one of the names for the sun iu Sanskrit ; and it also 

 appears iu many other ancient Persian names. (Pott's ' Etymologische 

 Forschungen,' i, p. xlvii., &c. ; Rosen, in 'Journal of Education,' ix., 

 pp. 334, 335.) 



The most celebrated race of princes of the name of Mithridates 

 were the kings of Pontus, who were descended from Artabazes, one of 

 the seven Persian chiefs who overthrew the Magi, B.C. 521. (Floras, 

 iii. 5; Diod., xix. 40; Polyb., v. 43.) The following is a list of these 

 kings : 



MITHRIDA'TES I. was the son of Ariobarzanes, but little is 

 known of him. Ho was dead before Ariobarzanes II. made himself 

 master of the countries over which he had held rule, B.C. 363. (Ariatot, 

 ' De Rep.,' v. 10.) 



MITHRIDA'TES II. succeeded Ariobarzanes II., B.C. 337. He took 

 an active part in the various wars which were carried on by the suc- 

 cessors of Alexander the Great; aud being an active and enterprising 

 prince, he greatly extended his paternal dominions, whence he is 

 frequently surnamed the founder (KT/O-TTJS) of the kingdom of Poutus. 

 He also ruled over Cappadocia and Phrygia. He was put to death 

 by Antigonus, B.C. 302, at Cius, in Mysia, at the age of eighty-four, 

 according to Lucian ('Macrob.,' c. 13), because ha was suspected of 

 favouring the interests of Cassander. 



MITHRIDA'TES III., son of the preceding, ruled from B.C. 302 to 

 B.C. 266, and considerably extended the possessions he had inherited. 

 He was succeeded by his son Ariobarzanes III. 



MITHRIDA'TES IV., the son and successor of Ariobarzanes III., 

 was left a minor i)y his father. His accession to the throne is placed 

 by Clinton in B.C. 240, but it probably took place several years earlier. 

 He attacked Sinope, which waa taken by his successor Pharuaces, and 

 carried on war against Eumeues II. He was in close alliance with tho 

 Rhodians, and joined with some other princes of Asia Minor in making 

 valuable presents to that people, to repair their losses after nu earth- 

 quake. (Polyb., v. 89, 90.) He married the sistar of Seleucus 

 Calliuicus, by which alliance he obtained Phrygia. His own daughter 

 was married to Autiochus the Great. His death is placed by Clinton 

 inB.c. 190. 



MITHRIDA'TES V., surnamed Evergetes, waa the son of Phar- 

 naces I. and grandson of Mithridates IV. He reigned from about 

 B.C. 156 to 120. He was an ally of the Romans, aud assisted them in 

 the third Punic war with a considerable fleet. He was assassinated at 

 Sinope by some of his attendants who had entered into a conspiracy 

 against him. 



MITHRIDA'TES VI., B.C. 120, surnamed Eupator, and called tho 

 Great, was one of the most formidable enemies that the Romans ever 

 encountered. He was only eleven years old at the death of his father 

 Mithridates V. whom he succeeded ; and during his minority his life 

 was frequently iu danger from the numerous conspiracies agaiust him. 

 He is said to have been in the babit of taking an antidote discovered 

 by himself, which was sufficient to counteract the effect of the 

 most violent poisons. (Plin. ' Hist. Nat.' xxiii. 77 ; xxv. 3. ; xxix. S.) 

 Mithridates possessed a strong mind and a vigorous body ; he excelled 

 in all athletic sports, and was distinguished in his early years by his 

 bodily strength and his daring spirit. He had also paid great atten- 

 tion to the study of philosophy aud polite literature; and, according 

 to Pliny, was able to converse in twenty-two different languages 

 (' Hist. Nat.' xx. 3). 



As soon as Mithridates was old enough to take tho government into 

 his own hands, he attacked the Colchi and the other barbarous nations 

 who dwelt on the eastern shores of the Black Sea, whom he reduced 

 to subjection. The next acquisition which he mado was Paphlagouia, 

 which was said to have been left to the kings of Pontus by Pylccmenes 

 II., king of Paphlagonia, who died about B.c. 121. Part of Papblagouia, 

 he gave to Nicomedes II., king of Bithyuia, who was, next to Mithri- 

 dates, the most powerful monarch in Asia Minor. Nicomedes however 

 was jealous of tlio increasing power of Mithridates ; and on the death 

 of Ariarathea VII., king of Paphlagonia, who had married a sister of 

 Mithridates, Nicomedes married his widow, and seized the kingdom of 

 Capuadocia, to the exclusion of the sou of Ariaruthes. Mithridates im- 

 mediately took up arms in favour of his nephew, defeated Nicomedes, 

 aud placed Ids nephew on the throne under the title of Ariarathes VIII. 

 In a few months afterwards he Wi murdered, at a private conference, 

 by his uncle, who placed a sou of his own on the vacant throne, and 

 dtfealed successively the brother of tho late king, and a pretender to 

 tho throne, whom Nicomedes represented as a sou of Ariarathes. 



Unable to cope with his formidable enemy, Nicomudes applied to 

 Rome ; and the Romans, who had long been anxious to weaken the 

 power of Mithridates, declared both Cappadocia and Paphlagonia to 

 ae free states, but allowed the Cappadocians, at their own request, to 

 elect Ariobarzanes as their king. Mithridates however did not tamely 

 submit to the loss of his dominions. Ha entered into alliance with 

 Tigranes, king of Armenia, to whom he gave his daughter in marriage ; 

 and with his assistance he expelled Ariobarzaues from his kingdom, 

 nd also deprived Kicomedes III., who had lately succeeded his father, 



