The Roman Republic languished between civil wars, revolts, rebellions, conspiracies… But Rome continued to maintain its conquering desires. In the first century BC, the Senate had its eyes set on Anatolia, where it encountered one of the most cunning and ferocious enemies in its entire history.
Mithridates VI was the king of Pontus -a Hellenistic state located in the northeast of the Anatolian peninsula, on the Black Sea coast- between 120 B.C. and 63 BC. Pliny the Elder writes in his Naturalis Historia that this monarch ruled “twenty-two nations, administered their laws in all their languages ​​and could speak each of them without using an interpreter.”
The first two phases of the conflict ended with the dishonorable withdrawal of the legions. The disorder caused by the brief dictatorships of Cayo Mario and Sila, in addition to the revolt of Sartorio (which spread throughout Hispania), did not help the Senate. The Third Mithridatic War, however, was different.
The consul Lucius Licinius Lucullus managed to gather a series of veteran legions that had hardened in Asia Minor and launched first against Armenia, an ally of Pontus, in 74 BC. The Roman soldiers proved to be far superior to the troops of Mithridates, equipped with outdated weapons.
Lucullus’ initial success did not lead to a quick victory. In Rome there were those who began to get impatient and it was decided to replace the consul and put in his place Gnaeus Pompey the Great, who had just emerged victorious in Hispania and murdered in cold blood the last contingent of slaves led by Spartacus.
With the new command, which managed to quell the protests among the legionaries due to the harsh conditions to which they were subjected, victory seemed to finally be on the side of Rome. And yet, in 65 BC Pompeo’s soldiers suffered a harsh and unexpected defeat.
In one of the most brutal and well-planned ambushes of all time, an entire Roman military column was slaughtered by the Pontic army. Mithridates’ troops managed to poison the legionnaires with a type of hallucinogenic honey produced by bees that live along the Black Sea coast, according to American researcher Matthew D. Turner in an article published in the journal Cureus.
Known as “mad honey,” this bitter fluid temporarily causes a severe disturbance and made it easy to kill the unfortunate Roman soldiers who tasted it. Bees produce it when they feed on the nectar of azaleas and rhododendrons. That slimy, yellowish, very sweet honey contains high concentrations of a class of neurotoxins called grayanotoxins.
Mithridates VI is said to have become obsessed with poisons after his father was killed with a deadly toxin. Known for intelligence and his fascination with pharmacology, the former ruler successfully developed a tolerance to various deadly poisons by regularly consuming sub-lethal doses, a practice known to this day as Mithridatism.
Some historical sources note that the Pontic militia attacked invading forces with poisoned arrows in open battle, with “wasps and wild beasts” released from their siege tunnels, and even developed a chemical weapon known as maltha, “burning naphtha from the pools of local oil”.
The historian Strabo further wrote that the Heptacomitae (a tribe allied with Mithridates) placed bowls of ‘mad honey’ on the path along which the legionaries advanced “and when the soldiers drank the mixture and lost consciousness, they attacked them and easily fell.” got rid of them.”
In small doses, this product is capable of incapacitating due to acute poisoning, triggering dizziness, excessive perspiration, nausea, vomiting, hallucinations, and loss of coordination. Large amounts of this substance can also cause serious heart complications. Although it is rarely fatal.
“The ambush required an impressive degree of timing and careful planning. If the Heptacomitae had prepared the honey in too dense a concentration, the Roman soldiers would likely have developed symptoms within minutes, thus minimizing the number of men ingesting the honey,” Turner explains.
Brewing the substance with a more dilute dose of grayanotoxins would have ensured that more invaders would take the concoction, but at the same time would have made it more difficult for an ambush force to lurk undetected. “Even with careful planning, the fact that the Romans did not detect the ruse seems remarkably stupid,” says the researcher.
Unfortunately for Mithridates, this unconventional tactic met with temporary success, failing to turn the tide of the war that ended in the destruction of the Pontic Kingdom. Ironically, some scholars of the time claimed that after his final defeat by Rome, the king attempted suicide with poison, but “a long life of self-administered antidotes rendered him incapable of fulfilling his purpose.” In the end, it was his bodyguard who had to finish the job.
