Editing Mithridatic Wars (section)

===Livy===
The surviving history<ref>"History" here means the work of the classical historians, men who set as their targets a general history of events, rather than science, philosophy or creative literature. Some historians wrote contemporaneously with the events, but their work has not survived. Fragments of others survive. This section is for more extensive survivals.</ref> closest to the Mithridatic Wars is the ''[[Ab Urbe Condita Libri (Livy)|History of Rome]]'' by [[Livy]] (59 BC – CE&nbsp;17), which consisted of 142 books written between 27 and 9&nbsp;BC, dated by internal events: he mentions Augustus, who did not receive the title until 27 BC, and the last event mentioned is the death of Drusus, 9&nbsp;BC. Livy was a close friend of Augustus, to whom he read his work by parts, which means that he had access to records and writings at Rome. He worked mainly in retreat at Naples. Livy was born a few years after the last Mithridatic War, and grew up in the Late Republic. His location at [[Padua]] kept him out of the Civil Wars. He went to the big city perhaps to work on his project. Its nature sparked the interest of the emperor immediately (he had eyes and ears everywhere), who made it a point to be Octavian, not Augustus, to the circle of his friends (he often found duty tedious and debilitating). Livy was thus only one generation away from the Mithridatic Wars writing in the most favorable environment under the best of circumstances.<ref>An extensive introduction to Livy and his work is given in {{cite book | author=Livy | author-link=Livy | title=Livy in fourteen volumes | editor-first=E. H. | editor-last=Warmington | translator-first=B. O. | translator-last=Foster | series=The Loeb Classical Library | chapter=Introduction | volume=I | location=Cambridge, Massachusetts; London | publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]; William Heinemann Ltd. | year=1967}}</ref>

Only 35 of the 142 books survived. Livy used no titles or period names. He or someone close to him wrote summaries, or ''Periochae'', of the contents of each book. Books 1–140 have them. Their survival, no doubt, can be attributed to their use as a "little Livy", as the whole work proved to be far too long for any copyist. The events of the Mithridatic Wars survive only in the Periochae.

The term "Mithridatic War" appears only once in Livy, in Periocha 100. The Third Mithridatic War was going so badly that the Senators of both parties combined to get the [[Lex Manilia]] passed by the [[Tribal Assembly]] removing command of the east from Lucullus and others and giving it instead to [[Pompey]]. The words of the Periocha are ''C. Manilius tribunus plebis magna indignatione nobilitatis legem tulit, ut Pompeio Mithridaticum bellum mandaretur'', "Gaius Manilius, Tribune of the People, carried the law despite the great indignation of the nobility that the Mithridatic War be mandated to Pompey". The "nobility" are the Senate, who usually had the privilege of mandates. There is a possible pun on "great", as Pompey had received the title of "The Great" in the service of Sulla, the original recipient of the mandate. Sulla was deceased; Lucullus held the mandate in his place. This is an intervention by the tribune in the legal business of the Senate. Now it was the indignation that was great.

The "Mithridatic War" is not just a descriptive term of the historians; it is the name of a mandate. As such it began with the declaration of war by the Senate in 88&nbsp;BC after the [[Asiatic Vespers]] (modern term), the ''[[casus belli]]''.  Mandates were assigned to the consuls, who, as the name implies, must perform them on penalty for refusal or failure of death. Similarly, only the Senate could declare the termination of a mandate, which is why Livy does not speak of three Mithridatic Wars. Sulla reached an agreement with Mithridates but it was never accepted by the Senate. Interim peace was never anything more than a gentleman's agreement. Tiring of this political game the ad hoc peace party bypassed the Senate, not only preempting the mandate but also giving to Pompey the power himself to declare it at an end. It ended automatically, however, with the death of Mithridates in 63&nbsp;BC, the mission being complete.