The Poison King

The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy

By: Adrienne Mayor

Narrated by: Paul Hecht

Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

A National Book Award finalist for this epic work, Adrienne Mayor delivers a gripping account of Mithradates, the ruthless visionary who began to challenge Rome’s power in 120 B.C. Machiavelli praised his military genius. Kings coveted his secret elixir against poison. Poets celebrated his victories, intrigues, and panache. But until now, no one has told the full story of his incredible life.

©2010 Adrienne Mayor (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

Good, but a lot of speculation

This is an interesting biography of Mithridates, but much of what is stated in the book is of a speculative nature and not based on firm evidence. Numerous “scenes” are similar to what would appear in a historical novel. It’s a worthy read to learn more about Mithridates than is typically found in histories of Rome, but keep your critical thinking engaged.

For Ancient History Buffs

If you enjoy ancient history, you might enjoy this well research book about Mithradates. I had a hard time keeping the names of people, tribes, realms etc straight and of course I had never heard of Mithradates before,,, apparently everyone else in the world has :::sigh:::

Anyway, it is still a fascinating story and well worth the listen, but it is NOT for the faint of heart. The cruelty and brutally that was common in that time absolutely takes my breath away and not in a good way

Fascinating history

As a student of Greco-Roman history reference to Mithradates has popped up frequently from a variety of sources. That he was a "bogey man" to the Romans was hauntingly familiar to the USA's preoccupation with Osama Bin Laden. For the same reasons I am sure. Facts, historic events mixed with politics and license. Through war and mayhem on a grand scale civilizations and indeed individuals were in turn enriched and impoverished, or in other words, "made history". One must keep in mind that during these adventures millions of men, women and children were killed, injured and enslaved, and that the boundaries of the known world were increased and defined.

Not since reading "Funeral games" regarding the aftermath of the death of Alexander had I been so uniquely informed of the post Alexandrian politics of the near east. Mithradates life and times were fascinating. The author Adrienne Mayor continually alludes to the myth of Mithradates . The myth goes as follows. An individual of royal (elite) birth, born under an under an eastern star and destined by the gods to be the savior of the east(the light) from the tyranny of Rome (the dark). An old, old story. She did an excellent job of utilizing the historic biographic resources available. One criticism however was her annoying use of repetition of events and perceptions, as if the more times something was repeated the more significant to the total narrative it was meant to be. In fact, Mithradates was a tyrant, bent on conquering all of his Pontic neighbors and subjugating them to his will through any means possible. Mayor oft repeats stories of the fabulous wealth of Mithradates and suggests that his wealth came from the richness of his lands and his wise judgments in their utilization, all the while ignoring the fact that he lived off of the toil of the very people he proposed to be the savior of. Also, in his wars of acquisition and wars of defense against Rome perhaps more than a million of his people died.

As to the verity of the history of the wars, Adrienne Mayor describes the Roman legions as near perfect killing machines. An army that sliced through the myrid polyglot armies of the potentates of the near east like a knife through butter, regardless of the size of their enemy. This smacks of Roman revisionist history, a la Julius Caesar's gallic wars. But then of course, most of Mayors sources for this material were Romans or under Roman influence.

Reader Paul Hecht did a credible job with the material he had to work with. He did not, by tone or inflection, try to lead the listener toward a conclusion or point of view. He kept some of the "acting" out of the narrative that is the downfall of so many other readers. Well done Paul.

All in all, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in history and is a rousing adventure story as well.

There's a lot of good info in here, but

There's a ton of repeated 'Rome is bad and Mithradates is perfect'. I get why it's like that, I just wish that there were a lot less of it. Was Mithradates a real wizard? I can't say for sure, but sources say that yes, without a doubt, Mithradates was a strong, glorious wizard.

Two books

Would you try another book from Adrienne Mayor and/or Paul Hecht?

I got this anticipating a speculative biography on Mithradates, but what I got was two beginning chapters almost entirely about the authors opinion on Rome and the indication that the author groups nearly every differing opinion in one large bucket the author dubs “Western”. I hoped that the book would get better and it did for a while, but towards the end she began to divert the topic to those individuals associated with Mithradates rather than the man himself. I would welcome any additional facts that would help me understand the subject, but I did not feel that I was gaining this understanding- I felt more like the author was writing two books; one about the Mithradates and a separate opinion piece. I read the work through, so I did not feel right returning it.

Would you ever listen to anything by Adrienne Mayor again?

Probably not

Have you listened to any of Paul Hecht’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I liked the reader, he has a good documentary voice

Was The Poison King worth the listening time?

The book itself could have remained on topic and been much shorter

Eyeopening Vantage Point on Ancient Rome from an Arch Rival

I have read a half dozen bios of Ancient Romans, a number of history books and taken a course on Ancient Rome. This book was written from the perspective of an enemy of Rome and considered Rome to be “…the forces of darkness and deceit”. Mithradates led a long and often charmed Life. I’m so glad I found this book and read it.

I most highly recommend it.

A mythic & complicated life of a charismatic King

A fascinating piece of Persian/Roman/Asia Minor history/biography. Mithradates makes almost every other challenger to the status quo seem inept, uncreative and not really committed. He isn't, however, a warrior king/leader you can completely admire. His methods for removing the Romans from Asia Minor were not even remotely reasonable ('Kill them all and let Zeus sort them out' wasn't tolerable even in 88 BC). However, his life was mythic. He was a brilliant linguist, military commander, scientist, and absolutely machismo to boot. He wasn't interested in playing a minor character on the world stage. He wanted to be a Darius or an Alexander the Great type of leader and for much of his life he was. The Romans were terrified of him. He fought them using terror, direct action (both naval and military), statecraft, and asymmetric warfare. He was rich, charismatic and ruthless.

The shortcoming of this book is one that would probably be the shortcoming of any historical biography of Mithradates: the lack of complete records. So much of Mithradates life is shrouded in rumor, speculation and second and third-hand sources. Those materials that exist are often biased because they were written by Romans. So Mayor is stuck, she can either try to sort out the fact from the fable and sometimes get a little loose with her narrative, or she can write a book that no one but Classical Historians would probably want to read. She chose readability, and the book was VERY readable, but it did come at a cost. The "what ifs and alternate endings and he might haves" get to be a little too much, or at least enough that I couldn't see giving this biography five stars.

Fascinating history with contemporary relavance

Interesting subject matter on a historical figure that has been largely forgotten in modern history teaching. The narrator isn't great but the material is largely excellent.

Too much novel, not enough history

I was really looking forward to this book but it didn't take long to realize this one was falling short of the mark. This would have worked much better as a historical novel rather than a history. There's just too many sentences that begin, "Let us suppose...," "We can imagine...," What follows is speculation..." for a book that is presented as a history. Entire chapters have no basis in fact at all and are merely the imagination of the author. I realize that when it comes to ancient history there are many blanks to fill in but made up ramblings is no way to go.

It doesn't stop there. This is not an objective look at a historical figure. The author compares Mithradates to Alexander. Really? Alexander actually won battles. Mithradates? Not so much. There's always an excuse or betrayal to explain this, never his inability to put a competitive army in the field. When Romans kill everyone in a city after a siege it's butchery yet when Mithradates has 80,000 Romans killed across his empire in a single day we're presented numerous excuses in an attempt to justify his slaughter.

For all its faults I still learned from it. It was nice to have a non-Roman point of view of this period of time, flawed as it was. It was much more enjoyable when it was a history book, less so when it was novel-like speculation.

A wonderful story

What did you love best about The Poison King?

Learning about an outstanding historical figure about whom I knew little. It also made me more aware of how hated the Romans were in the first century B.C. It is eye-opening for those us (mostly French) who only knew Mithridate from Racine's play.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Poison King?

The simultaneous killing of all Romans everywhere in Asia Minor on that day in 88 B.C. (how the Romans must have been hated for such a scheme to succeed!) . The old king battling at the end with his young warrior queen at his side.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes

Any additional comments?

I very much enjoyed the author's informed speculations that stretch the contours of documented history without cutting loose into fiction and romance. The hypothetical version she proposes of Mithradates outwitting the Romans at the end and escaping with his queen to live out their lives free of the twin constraints of office and enslavement makes for a heart-warming epilogue: we can only hope it happened in this way!