MITHRIDATES 



3867 



MOBERLY 



MITHRIDATES 

 From a coin. 



MITHRIDATES , mith ri da' teez ( 135-63 

 B.C.), king of Ppntus, on the shore of the Black 

 Sea in Asia Minor, who proclaimed himself 

 Asia's deliverer from the yoke of the Romans. 

 He ascended the throne at the age of thirteen, 

 and became a man 

 of remarkable 

 genius and energy. 

 Through him the 

 fires of insurrec- 

 tion were kindled 

 as far westward as 

 Greece. To secure 

 his power in Asia 

 he ordered that 

 on a certain day 

 every Italian 

 should be put to 

 death, and the slaughter was variously esti- 

 mated at from 80,000 to 150,000. After this bar- 

 barous act he sent an army into Greece, but 

 after waging two wars was forced to make peace 

 with Sulla, the Roman dictator. The third, 

 and greatest, Mithridatic war broke out after 

 the death of Sulla. Pompey became dictator, 

 made an alliance with the king of Parthia and 

 forced Mithridates into battle and drove him 

 beyond the Caucasus Mountains. In spite of 

 the loss of his kingdom the spirit of Mithrida- 

 tes was unbroken, and he began to plan an in- 

 vasion of Italy, but his son Pharnaces rebelled 

 against him and he died by poison, at his own 

 hand. 



Mithridates was a friend of culture and the 

 arts, and it is said he spoke more than twenty 

 languages. He kept historians and poets at his 

 court and gave prizes to the best singers. His 

 death removed one of Rome's greatest enemies, 

 his name being always pronounced by the Ro- 

 mans with respect and dread. 



MOABITES, mo'abites, the name of a tribe 

 of warlike people in Biblical times who lived in 

 the territory at the southeastern end of the 

 Dead Sea, in a district now known as Kerak. 

 They were descended from Moab, a son of Lot, 

 and were closely connected with the Hebrews, 

 the two peoples having had very similar lan- 

 guages and closely interwoven histories. After 

 opposing the Israelites, they were subjugated 

 by Saul and David, came under the rule of 

 Assyria and were later conquered by Nebuchad- 

 nezzar. When their country was finally over- 

 run by desert Arabs, culture and civilization 

 came to a standstill, and even now their land 

 is not entirely safe for travelers, because of the 

 lawlessness of the inhabitants. 



THE MOABITE STONE 



MOABITE STONE, an ancient black stone, 

 about three feet eight inches high and two feet 

 three inches wide, bearing an inscription in 

 Hebrew-Phoenician characters. It is the oldest 

 known of this form of writing, and was discov- 

 ered in 1868 by 

 F. A. Klein, a 

 missionary at Di- 

 ban, in Moab. An 

 effort to purchase 

 it by the French 

 consul, Clermont- 

 Ganneau, at Con- 

 stantinople, led to 

 difficulty among 

 the Arab tribes of 

 the district, and 

 the stone was un- 

 fortunately bro- 

 ken, but the frag- 

 ments were col- 

 lected and a 

 translation made 

 of the thirty-f our- 

 line inscription, 

 which dates from 

 about 900 B. c. It records the deeds of Mesha, 

 the Moabite king, and of his wars with Omri, 

 king of Israel, and of his son Ahab. The re- 

 mainder of the inscription refers to Mesha's 

 building operations.. The Moabite stone has 

 great value as one of the oldest inscriptions in 

 the North Semitic alphabet. It has been re- 

 stored as far as possible and is now in the 

 Louvre in Paris. 



MOBERLY, mo'berli, Mo., a shipping point 

 of local importance, is situated a little north- 

 east of the geographical center of the state, in 

 Randolph County, seventy miles southwest of 

 Hannibal, 129 miles northeast of Kansas City 

 and 148 miles northwest of Saint Louis. Rail- 

 way service is provided by the Missouri, Kan- 

 sas & Texas and the Wabash railroads. The 

 first settlement was made in 1866; it was in- 

 corporated as a town and became the county 

 seat in 1868. In 1873 it secured a special char- 

 ter, which was surrendered in 1889 for city sta- 

 tus. In 1910 the population was 10,923 ; in 1916 

 it was 12,752 (Federal estimate). The area is 

 four square miles. 



The district in which Moberly is located is 

 rich in deposits of coal and fire clay, and bricks 

 are the chief manufactured products. There is 

 an extensive trade in live stock, dairy and farm 

 produce, lumber, hides, wool and tobacco. Here 

 are located the division headquarters and ex- 



