apr 6, 88 BC - 88 BC - Manius Aquillius was executed by Mithridates by having molten gold poured down his throat

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Aquillius was a loyal follower of Gaius Marius. He served Marius as a legate (104-102 BC) during Marius's campaign against the Cimbri and Teutones in Gaul. In 103 BC, while Marius was in Rome for his election campaign (running for his fourth consulship), Aquillius was left in command of the army in case the migrating Cimbri and Teutones invaded before Marius could return to command the army himself.

In 90 BC, Aquillius was sent as ambassador to Asia Minor to restore Nicomedes IV of Bithynia, who had recently been expelled from his kingdom by Mithridates VI of Pontus. However, after achieving this, Aquillius then encouraged Nicomedes to raid Pontic territory. This prompted a furious backlash from Mithridates in 89 BC, whose counter-attack began the First Mithridatic War.[4]

Aquillius marched with one legion of auxiliaries (4,000-6,000 men), the only troops available in the Asia province, against Mithridates from the west while Quintus Oppius, the governor of Cilicia, invaded with two legions from the south.[5] Aquillius soon found out he was seriously outnumbered; at Lake Tatta he saw 100,000 Pontic infantry waiting for him.[5] Mithridates' forces eventually tracked and defeated Aquillius near Protostachium. Aquillius fled and attempted to make his way back to Italy. He managed to make it to Lesbos, where he was delivered to Mithridates by the inhabitants of Mytilene.[6] After being taken to the mainland, he was then placed on a donkey and paraded back to Pergamon. During the trip, he was forced to confess his supposed crimes against the peoples of Anatolia. Aquillius's father, the elder Manius Aquillius, was a former Roman governor of Pergamon and was hated for the egregious taxes that he imposed. It was generally thought that Manius Aquillius the younger would follow in the footsteps of his father as a tax profiteer and was hated by some of the local peoples.[7]

Aquillius was eventually executed by Mithridates by having molten gold poured down his throat.[7] The method of execution became famous and, according to some unreliable accounts,[8] was repeated by Parthian contemporaries to kill Marcus Licinius Crassus who was at the time the richest man in Rome and a member of the First Triumvirate.[7]

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