Archelaos (general)

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Archelaos (Latin form: Archelaus ) was a general of Mithridates VI. from Pontos .

Role in the First Mithridatic War

Initial phase

Archelaus was a Cappadocian from birth and one of the most important generals of Mithridates in his first great war against the Romans . Together with his brother Neoptolemus he first defeated in the beginning of 88 BC. BC Nicomedes IV of Bithynia, an ally of the Romans, on the Amnias River in Paphlagonia . In the course of the further fighting in Asia Minor his attack on magnesia on Sipylos failed and he was wounded.

Middle of 88 BC BC sent Mithridates VI. Archelaus with a large fleet and a strong army, which allegedly consisted of 120,000 men, to Greece , in order to bring the states there to secede from Rome either by persuasion or violence. Archelaus appeared with his squadron in the Aegean Sea and brought the Cyclades to recognition of Pontic rule. He also conquered the under Roman influence from Athens fallen Delos , where reportedly 20,000 islanders, especially Italians , were killed. Athens, which through the mediation of Athenions with Mithridates VI. allied, Delos got back. The Athenian Aristion brought the temple treasures of Delos under the protection of 2000 soldiers to Athens on behalf of Archelaos and there, with the help of this force, rose to the tyrant . The Achaeans and Lacedaemonians also sided with Archelaus. As a result, Archelaus advanced from Athens to Boeotia , which he won up to Thespiai , whereupon he proceeded to the siege of this city.

In the meantime Metrophanes , another general of Mithridates VI., Had devastated Euboea , Demetrias and Magnesia, which had not wanted to take the side of the Pontic king. Quintus Bruttius Sura , the legate of Gaius Sentius , the Roman governor of Macedonia, expelled Metrophanes and then moved to Boeotia. At Chaironeia it happened in the winter of 88/87 BC. About the fight between Bruttius Sura and Archelaus, supported by Aristion. After a three-day undecided battle, Archelaus received reinforcements from Achaean and Lacedaemonian auxiliaries sent to him. Therefore Bruttius Sura withdrew to Piraeus , but had to evacuate the port when Archelaos followed him there with the fleet.

Siege by Sulla in Piraeus

In the spring of 87 BC Landed by the Senate with the war against Mithridates VI. entrusted proconsul Sulla with five legions in Epirus , collected money and supplies in Aetolia and Thessaly and then marched against Attica. Boiotia submitted to him so that he could pull through this country without resistance. He sent part of his armed forces to the siege of Aristion in Athens, while he himself marched with the main part of his troops against Piraeus, where Archelaus had withdrawn and made the necessary preparations to withstand a siege. Sulla wanted to take Piraeus by assault, but was repulsed with considerable losses. He retreated to Eleusis and Megara and had to make do with extensive arrangements for a full siege of Piraeus.

Sulla had the long walls that connected Athens with Piraeus razed and used their material to build a wall with which he intended to enclose the Piraeus. Furthermore, he tried to shake the walls of Piraeus by all means, built siege engines from the wood of sacred groves and obliged the temple of Delphi and other Greek shrines to send financial means. Archelaus had also strengthened its fortifications, received auxiliary troops from Evia and other islands and even armed the rowers of his fleet. Numerically his army was superior to that of Sulla and when he was still more troops of Mithridates VI. He left Piraeus with part of his troops and set them up in battle order near the defensive walls. After a long battle in which Archelaus lost around 2,000 men, his soldiers fled back to the port city so hastily after another violent Roman attack that he saw himself locked out because those who had retreated had locked the gates in their fear. Archelaus was now pulled over the wall to safety with a rope. Despite this success, Sulla could not storm the Piraeus and wintered in a permanent camp near Eleusis, which he protected by digging a ditch. Hostilities continued in the form of minor skirmishes.

In Athens there was now a famine due to insufficient provisions. Archelaus wanted to send the city a delivery of food, guarded by soldiers, but it was intercepted by the Romans, as they had been informed of the Pontic general's plan by traitors in Piraeus. Sulla's night attack on Piraeus was only repulsed with difficulty. A second attempt by Archelaus to stock up Athens also failed because he had again been betrayed to the Romans. Sulla tried to use the poor supply situation of the Athenians and decided to starve the city to surrender. Therefore he built forts to prevent the escape of Athenians. Beginning of 86 BC He undertook another assault on Piraeus with all the siege engines at his disposal, but again failed to achieve a breakthrough. He then decided to blockade the Piraeus in order to wear down its occupation.

When the famine in Athens reached threatening proportions, Sulla stormed on March 1, 86 BC. The city and had its soldiers murdered and plundered. Aristion fled to the Acropolis , but had to surrender in the summer of the same year due to lack of water and food and was executed with his followers. After the fall of Athens, Sulla had again vigorously attacked Piraeus, forced entry and forced Archelaus to retreat to the inaccessible hill Munychia . Archelaus was able to hold its own there for some time.

Late stages of war and mediation of peace

After conquering Piraeus, Sulla went to Boeotia to avoid the supply problems in Attica and to unite with the army of Lucius Hortensius , which had advanced to Thessaly but now threatened by the enemy , which he succeeded in doing. Archelaus followed the request of Taxiles , another general of Mithridates VI., To come to him with his army. He gave up the Munychia and sailed to Chalkis , where he made the connection to Taxiles and took over the supreme command. The result was the battle of Chaironeia , which Archelaus lost in spite of the significant numerical superiority of his troops - allegedly he commanded 120,000 men. He withdrew to Chalkis with only about 10,000 men. Sulla followed him to the Euripus . Since the Roman general lacked a fleet, Archelaus was able to escape, sail unhindered through the Greek waters and undertake raids against the islands and coasts. When he docked near Zakynthos , the Romans who lived there drove him out, so that he returned to Chalkis.

Meanwhile, Mithridates VI sent. a new army of 80,000 men under Dorylaos to Chalkis, which Archelaus received as a welcome reinforcement. Initially, however, he did not dare to attack the Romans. At Orchomenos in Boeotia he found favorable terrain for the development of his cavalry and got involved in another battle , which took place at the end of 86 or beginning of 85 BC. Took place and lasted for two days. The decisive factor was Sulla's personal courage that the Romans had the upper hand on the first day. Archelaus' son Diogenes and 15,000 Pontic soldiers fell. Sulla feared that the enemy might escape to Chalkis that night and made arrangements to deny him the possibility of retreat. The next day Archelaus' camp fell into Sulla's hands. The majority of the Pontic armed forces were killed, they either lost their lives in the battle for the camp or drowned while fleeing in the nearby Kopaïs lake or perished in the adjacent swamps. Archelaus took shelter in a swamp for two days and then sailed to Chalkis by boat. There he collected the remains of the Pontic troops still scattered in Greece.

In Asia Minor Mithridates VI. meanwhile fight against Gaius Flavius ​​Fimbria . When he heard that Archelaus had been defeated at Orchomenos, he ordered his general to begin peace negotiations with Sulla. As a result there was a meeting between Sulla and Archelaus in Aulis or Delion . According to Plutarch, Archelaus demanded that Sulla should renounce the Middle East and receive support for his conflict in Italy. Thereupon Sulla wanted to make him understand the disgraceful part of his proposal by asking Archelaus to replace Mithridates VI. To become Pontic ruler and an ally of the Romans and to hand over his fleet to them. Archelaus expressed his disgust at committing such a betrayal.

On the terms that Mithridates VI. according to Sulla's demands, included the return of all conquests, the delivery of 70 ships, all Roman prisoners and those who were deported from Greek cities to Pontos, the removal of the Pontic garrisons from all fortresses in Greece and the payment of 2000 talents in compensation for war costs, for which the Pontic king was allowed to keep his inherited states. Archelaus agreed the peace preliminaries and withdrew the garrisons from the required places. Then he sent messengers to Mithridates VI so that he could find out about Sulla's conditions, because the king first had to sanction them.

Sulla then moved to the Hellespont . He was accompanied by Archelaos, who was valued and treated with honor by the Roman general. Sulla also gave Archelaus land on Evia and accepted him among the friends and allies of the Roman people. He also had Archelaus nursed when he fell ill in Larissa. Mithridates VI. then forwarded the reply that he essentially accepted Sulla's terms, but did not want to surrender Paphlagonia and its warships. Sulla did not allow any changes to the contract. Archelaus went to the king and brought about a personal meeting between him and the Roman general that took place in 85 BC. Took place in Dardanos . There the final peace was made, in which Mithridates VI. understood to fully fulfill the contract negotiated between Sulla and Archelaus. Essentially, this was the restoration of what was acquired before the outbreak of war.

Next life

Although Mithridates VI. Having received fairly favorable terms of peace, he was not satisfied with them, and accusations were made against Archelaus of the king that he had been on a treacherous agreement with Sulla for a long time. In antiquity, different points of view have been taken on the question of whether Archelaus had betrayed his king. Due to the suspicions, Archelaus fell out of favor and fled to the Romans before the outbreak of the Two Mithridatic War (83 BC). He persuaded the Roman general Lucius Licinius Murena , who was then in Asia Minor to wage war against Mithridates VI. decided not to wait for the king to attack. At the beginning of the Third Mithridatic War he helped Lucullus in 74 BC. Against the Pontic king. Nothing is known about his further life.

literature

Remarks

  1. Strabon , Geographika 12, 562; Appian , Mithridateios 18th
  2. Appian, Mithridateios 21; Pausanias , traveling in Greece 1, 20, 5.
  3. Appian, Mithridateios 28 f .; Plutarch . Sulla 11; Orosius , Historiae adversus paganos 6, 2, 4; among others
  4. ^ So Appian, Mithridateios 29; slightly different Plutarch, Sulla 11.
  5. ^ Appian, Mithridateios 30.
  6. Plutarch, Sulla 12; Appian, Mithridateios 30 and 54; Pausanias, travels in Greece 9, 7, 5; Diodor , Bibliothéke historiké 38, .7.
  7. Appian, Mithridateios 31-33.
  8. Appian, Mithridateios 34-37.
  9. Appian, Mithridateios 38 f .; Plutarch, Sulla 14; Pausanias, travels in Greece 1, 20, 6; among others
  10. Appian, Mithridateios 40; Plutarch, Sulla 14 f.
  11. Plutarch, Sulla 15; Memnon , Perí Hērakleías , fragment 32, 3, in Karl Müller , FHG , vol. 3, p. 542.
  12. Plutarch, Sulla 16-19; Appian, Mithridateios 42-45.
  13. Appian, MIthridateios 45; Plutarch, Sulla 19; Eutropius , Breviarium ab urbe condita 5, 6, 3; Orosius, Historiae adversus paganos 6, 2, 5.
  14. ^ Appian Mithridateios 45.
  15. Appian, Mithridateios 49 f .; Plutarch, Sulla 20 f .; Frontinus , Strategemata 2, 3, 17 and 2, 8, 12; among others
  16. ^ Appian, Mithridateios 54.
  17. Appian, Mithridateios 54; Plutarch, Sulla 22 .; Granius Licinianus p. 33.
  18. Plutarch, Sulla 22.
  19. Appian, Mithridateios 55; Plutarch, Sulla 22; among others
  20. Plutarch, Sulla 23; Strabon, Geographika 12, 558.
  21. Appian, Mithridateios 56-58; Plutarch, Sulla 23 f, Cassius Dio , Roman History , fragment 105.
  22. Plutarch, Sulla 23; among others
  23. Appian, Mithridateios 64; Plutarch, Lucullus 8; Cassius Dio, Roman History 39, 57, 2.
  24. Plutarch, Lucullus 8 ff.