A Pontos AAR

[Horst Nordfink]

The Reign of Mithridates Ktistes

In 272BC the King of Pontos, Mithridates I Ktistes, was feeling long in the tooth. He had just turned 70 years old. Many years had passed since he took advantage of those squabbling Greeks and created the Kingdom of Pontos.

Mithridates had managed to fend off all challengers to his throne and was now making the most of his twilight years. What the King most wanted was to see out his last years in peace in his capitol, Amaseia. He had fathered 3 children, and was confident he had established a dynasty that would rule of Pontos for many years to come. His eldest son and heir was Ariobarzanes. Ariobarzanes was not like his father. He was not content with his lot in life, he wanted more, and he knew how to get it. Ariobarzanes wanted Pontos to rival the regional powers of Makedonia, Arche Seleukia and the Ptolemaioi, and revive the Persian Empire from which he was descended. Ariobarzanes felt it his duty to embrace the Hellenes that surrounded the young Kingdom of Pontos, whether they, or his father, liked it or not.

In 272BC Mithridates Ktistes could not wield his kingly powers as he once did, and Ariobarzanes was the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Pontos. Against the wishes of his father, Ariobarzanes and his brother-in-law, Ariarathes Herakleotes, a Hellene from Bithynia, set out to expand the rule of Pontic law.



Ariobarzanes, in a lightening quick campaign that would make him famous in the Hellenistic world as a superior general, and with the use of questionable tactics and Pontic silver, suprised the Hellenes of Sinope, thus earning the ire of Koinon Hellenon.



As Ariobarzanes was defeating the Hellenes in Sinope, his brother-in-law Ariarathes was returning home, under a Pontic banner, and with a purpose. Ariarathes lay his home city, Nikaia, under seige. It was destined only to last a few months. The occupants rallied against their prodigal son and were cut down by Pontic steel. Nikaia fell after a brief but bloody battle. Upon re-entering the city of his birth for the first time since childhood, Ariarathes ordered that no treasure was to be looted and no women was to be touched. This was to be a "hero's return".

Ariobarzanes was not content to stop his conquests yet! He left Sinope in the hands of his younger brother and headed with an army to Trapezous, another Hellenic colony further up the coast. Again Ariobarzanes used treachorous, underhanded tactics to gain entry to the city and catch the Hellenes unaware, and once again a Greek colony fell to Pontic arms. Within the week the Koinon Hellenon had let him know of their anger, but stopped short of declaring all out war.



In the Autumn of 271BC, the King of Pontos, Mithridates I Ktistes passed away in his sleep, the strain of his eldest son placing Pontos at risk of danger with his aggresive expansionism too much to bear.


The known world at the time of Mithridates I Ktistes passing.