63 BC
88 BC
A01=Adrienne Mayor
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Ancient history
Antiochus III the Great
Appian
Archaeology
Ariobarzanes
Assassination
Author_Adrienne Mayor
automatic-update
Barbarian
Bastarnae
Bithynia
Bituitus
Bosphorus
Bosporan Kingdom
Cassius Dio
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=BGH
Category=DNBH
Category=HBLA
Category=NHC
Category=NHD
Cavalry
Cilicia
Colchis
COP=United States
Courtesy
Cyrus the Great
Darius III
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
Dionysus
Ephesus
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Eunuch
Galatia
Gauls
Greeks
Hellenistic period
Hermaeus
Herodotus
Hoplite
Hypsicratea
Illustration
Infantry
Italians
Jews
Jugurtha
Language_English
Mithra
Mithridate
Mithridates VI of Pontus
Near East
Nicomedes
PA=Available
Paphlagonia
Parthia
Phanagoria
Phrygia
Pontus (region)
Priam
Price_€10 to €20
PS=Active
Rhodes
Roman army
Roman Empire
Roman legion
Roman Senate
Sarmatians
Satrap
Scythia
Scythians
Silver coin
Slave rebellion
Slavery
softlaunch
Strabo
Sulla
Supporter
Tax
Terrorism
Tetradrachm
The Persians
Tigranes
Tigranes the Great
Warfare
Product details
- ISBN 9780691150260
- Weight: 680g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 27 Mar 2011
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Machiavelli praised his military genius. European royalty sought out his secret elixir against poison. His life inspired Mozart's first opera, while for centuries poets and playwrights recited bloody, romantic tales of his victories, defeats, intrigues, concubines, and mysterious death. But until now no modern historian has recounted the full story of Mithradates, the ruthless king and visionary rebel who challenged the power of Rome in the first century BC. In this richly illustrated book--the first biography of Mithradates in fifty years--Adrienne Mayor combines a storyteller's gifts with the most recent archaeological and scientific discoveries to tell the tale of Mithradates as it has never been told before. The Poison King describes a life brimming with spectacle and excitement. Claiming Alexander the Great and Darius of Persia as ancestors, Mithradates inherited a wealthy Black Sea kingdom at age fourteen after his mother poisoned his father. He fled into exile and returned in triumph to become a ruler of superb intelligence and fierce ambition.
Hailed as a savior by his followers and feared as a second Hannibal by his enemies, he envisioned a grand Eastern empire to rival Rome. After massacring eighty thousand Roman citizens in 88 BC, he seized Greece and modern-day Turkey. Fighting some of the most spectacular battles in ancient history, he dragged Rome into a long round of wars and threatened to invade Italy itself. His uncanny ability to elude capture and surge back after devastating losses unnerved the Romans, while his mastery of poisons allowed him to foil assassination attempts and eliminate rivals. The Poison King is a gripping account of one of Rome's most relentless but least understood foes.
Adrienne Mayor is the author of "Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World" (Overlook) and "The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times" (Princeton). She is a research scholar in classics and history of science at Stanford University.
