Il potere che divora sé stesso: alcune considerazioni sulla caduta di Mitridate VI Eupatore

The main causes of the fall of Mithridates VI (132-63 BC), under both a political-military and a biographical perspective, lay largely in the absolutistic nature of his power. This work aims to show how the disastrous exit of the Mithridatic Wars (the third conflict in particular) and its effects on the Eupator’s kingship are not to be exclusively imputed to Roman military power, but also to the king’s absolutistic praxis in the use of a virtual unlimited power. In this perspective, Mithridates’ actions ended up to consume both material and human resources of the Pontic basileia, often sacrificing his allies and relatives and forcing them at last to act against him. The final exit of the monarch’s autocratic behaviour was the rapid fall of his empire and the dramatic end of his own life.