From: Torsten
Message: 66339
Date: 2010-07-17
> No, but we are discussing whether Mithridates would have seenAnd absence of evidence etc.
> feasible a campaign through potentially hostile (loose sense)
> 'Scythians'.
>
> *****GK: We don't know from Appian whether Mithradates realized that
> his plan for dynastic alliances with the Scythians and Sarmatians of
> the steppes etc.. (along the Italian route of #102) had been
> sabotaged before he died. In any case, I would agree that until
> everything fell apart for him and he decided to call it a life, he
> was determined to push on with the plan. Appian #110 suggests that
> one after another, all of Mithradates' army contingents wound up
> supporting Pharnaces' rebellion. We know of no unit which opposed
> this.******
> > No one has written of any problems, so there aren't any? Word ofOr on whoever supported him clandestinely from Rome.
> > advice: don't apply for a job in the spy business; that kind of
> > carelessness in risk assessment can cause disasters.
> >
> > GK: You mean in the novel writing business. I'm not planning
> > to. The fact remains that in real history the "plan to invade
> > Italy" hinged on Mithradates.
> > With his demise there was no one to carry on.Whoever might have supported him in Rome would still be there
> (Of course a novelist can "remedy" that easily (:=)).Be my guest.
> If you revert to dogmatically stating that the Pontic state wasYou are dodging the evidence of the irredentism of the Dandarians.
> undivided and whole because you say so, I can argue against that, of > course.
>
> *****GK: There is nothing dogmatic about accepting the common
> consensus of all those who have studied the nature and history of
> the Bosporan State. (We're talking about the Bosporan kingdom BTW
> not about the "Pontic state"). It was a unified system, made up of
> Greek city states and non-Greek territorial units ruled by kings and
> chiefs (with the King of Bosporus as "king of kings" for these
> "barbarian" units since ca.438 if not earlier).*****
> ****GK: The Kingdom of Pontus was distinct from the Kingdom of the
> Bosporus. Mithridates was King of both units (from 110 BCE). He
> occasionally delegated Bosporus to sons.****
> > Mithradates handed it over to Machares, and then took it away from
> > him, and then lost it to Pharnaces. The only "activity" of the
> > constituent parts was that of moving from one king to another.
> > There is no record of any irredentism in any of the Maeotian
> > tribes. So your ad hominems are irrelevant I'm afraid.*****
>
> http://tinyurl.com/35c59s4
> 'They had their own kings, or dúnastai'
> 'The Dandaridae of Tacitus are subjects, apparently not very loyal,
> of another Mithridates of Bosporus'
>
> ****GK: This "other Mithradates" was a rival candidate for the
> Bosporan Kingdom as a whole.****
> > > The Bosporan Kingdom was under Pontic kings 108 - 16 BCEAnother non sequitur. I don't know what your sentimental attachment to the supposed unity of the Bosporan Kingdom is, but apparently it's impermeable.
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kings_of_Cimmerian_Bosporus
> > > Olthacus was a prince of the Dandarii, and the Bosporan kingdom
> > > was in civil war, so of course they would have their own policy
> > > at that time.
> > >
> > > GK: The only "policy" they would have was that of choosing
> > > which of the pretenders to the Bosporan throne they were ready
> > > to support. They weren't independent states as to foreign
> > > policy.
> >
>
> > > > GK: The plan to invade Italy died with Mithradates.
> > >
> > > You don't know that.
> > >
> > > GK: It was his plan. There is no record of anyone else having
> > > such a plan. And the Dandarii, subjects of Bosporus, did not
> > > have an independent foreign policy. There is no evidence that
> > > the Romans or anyone else wished to dismember the Bosporan
> > > Kingdom at any time.
>
> Or was it the Pontic kingdom?
>
> *****GK: No.****
>
> There was no evidence anybody wanted to dismember the Soviet union, when it suddenly happened. And absence of evidence... etc. Why the fanatical repetition of this mantra?
>
> *****GK: I see you know even less about the constitution and history of the U.S.S.R. than you do about the Bosporan Kingdom.*****
>You persist in calling it 'Odinist' which proves that your non-acceptance of that idea is ideologically, not factually motivated.
> Alright. A less flippant answer: what is it in the idea that
> Crassus' money had bought the equipment found in Germanic graves
> that is unacceptable to 'proper historians or archaeologists'?
>
> *****GK: Give me a proper description of these graves' inventory (as
> well as accurate dates) and then we'll see. Perhaps "Crassus' Money"
> could be disentangled from the unacceptable identification of
> Olthacus and Ariovistus, and from the unacceptable notion of some
> "Scytho/Dardanian" army invading Przeworsk (which is simply your
> reheated Odinist claptrap).*****
> > > > GK: The steppe nomads weren't drawn into the plan.I am consciously distorting your 'No, he isn't' statement? I didn't know you could do that.
> > >
> > > As a group, yes. But what happened with various contingents
> > > after Mithridates' suicide, we don't know.
> > >
> > > > Appian is clear on this.
> > >
> > > No, he isn't.
> > >
> > > GK: You're consciously distorting my statement.
> > > What I said is that Appian is clear on the fact that the steppeNo, he is clear on that they didn't buy the plan. As a negation of my 'But what happened with various contingents after Mithridates' suicide, we don't know' it doesn't work. It constitutes a change of subject.
> > > nomads weren't drawn into the plan.
> > > As to your words : "what happened withBut that is not obvious at all, and you know that. Try something empirical next time, and I might accept it. What kind of mind thinks he can persuade his opponent to drop a proposal by flatly stating that it is 'obviously' not true?
> > > various contingents after Mithridates' suicide, we don't know",
> > > we can only draw (unless we are novelists when anything goes)
> > > the obvious conclusion all other scholars have: that
> > > Mithridates' Italian invasion plan died with him.
> > > "The various contingents"Don't forget that with nomadic societies those contingents are the people themselves; they don't cease to exist as a fighting force just because one plan is dropped.
> > > were a part and parcel of that plan. When he died, the princesSo it's axiomatic, not empirical. Well, that's probably as good a description of the problem as any.
> > > of the Bosporan kingdom recognized Pharnaces. End of story.
>
> Of course not. Kings have standing armies, and the Dandarians had
> kings.
>
> *****GK: But these kings were not endowed with the right to conduct
> their own foreign policy. They were subject to the Bosporan King,
> even though they possessed much autonomy in their lands. This is
> axiomatic for any student of the Bosporan Kingdom.*****
> They did in Mithridates Eupator's time and in the time of 'theHave kings and
> other Mithridates, Tacittus Annals 12, 15-16:
> 'Meanwhile, Mithridates of Bosporus, a wanderer since the loss of
> his throne, learned that the Roman commander Didius had departed
> with the main body of his army, leaving the young and simple Cotys
> in his novel kingdom, with a few cohorts under the Roman knight,
> Julius Aquila. Scornful of both, he proceeded to raise the tribes
> and attract deserters: finally, mustering an army, he ejected the
> king of the Dandaridae, and seized his dominions. When this had
> become known and his invasion of Bosporus was expected from day to
> day, Aquila and Cotys diffident of their own strength, as the
> Siracene prince Zorsines had resumed hostilities followed his
> example, and sought outside support by sending envoys to the
> powerful Aorsian prince, Eunones. An alliance presented little
> difficulty, when they could exhibit the power of Rome ranged against
> the rebel Mithridates. It was arranged, therefore, that Eunones
> should be responsible for the cavalry fighting, the Romans
> undertaking the siege of all towns.
>
> They then advanced with combined forces, the front and rear held by
> the Aorsi, the centre by the cohorts and by Bosporan troops armed on
> our model. In this order they inflicted a reverse on the enemy and
> reached Soza, a town of Dandarica evacuated by Mithridates, which,
> in view of the doubtful sympathies of the population, it was thought
> advisable to secure by leaving a garrison. They next advanced on the
> Siraci, and, crossing the stream of the Panda, invested Uspe, a city
> built on a height and fortified with walls and moats the drawback
> being that, as the walls were not of stone but of wickerwork hurdles
> with soil between, they were too weak to sustain an attack, while
> our siege towers, with their greater elevation, threw the garrison
> into disorder by discharges of firebrands and spears. In fact, if
> the struggle had not been interrupted by night, the beginning and
> end of the attack would have fallen within the limits of one day.'
>
> No reason to believe some other 'subject peoples' didn't.
>
> *****GK: Didn't what? Support one pretender against another?*****
> 'Bosporan troops armed on our model'?http://tinyurl.com/35kmodb
> http://www.5000seafoodrecipes.com/hd/index.php?t=Dandaridae
> DANDARI - DANDARI.
> Plin. qui DANDARIDAE Tac. Ann. l. 12. c. 15.
> Circa Caucasum habitare videntur. regionem eorum Dandaricam vocat,
> Tacit. ibid.
> BTW, who is is Brotier
> http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/15017/125.html
> 'Brotier says that some vestiges of the nation, and its name, still
> exist at a place called Dandars.'
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosporan_kingdomThe kingdom of Bosporus had ceased to exist in 108 BCE when Mithridates conquered it, and never regained its independence. Cf.
> > 'After the death of Mithridates (63 BC), this Pharnaces (63 BC -
> > 47 BC) made his submission to Pompey, then tried to regain his
> > dominion during the civil war, but was defeated by Caesar at Zela
> > and later killed by a former governor of his.'
> >
> > GK: Note that his "dominion" refers to the Kingdom of Pontus
> > and its Asia Minor dependencies, not the Bosporan Kingdom. Cf.
> > e.g.
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Zela
> Yes I noticed. And everybody in his overseas province of the former
> kingdom of Bosporus was fine with that?
>
> ****GK: I don't understand your question. What "former kingdom of
> Bosporus"*****