🔺 THE MEDICAL LIBRARY OF PONTUS

“It was he (Mithradates) who first thought, the proper precautions being duly taken, of drinking poison every day; it being his object, by becoming habituated to it, to neutralize its dangerous effects.”

“Among the other gifts of extraordinary genius with which he was endowed, Mithridates displayed a peculiar fondness for enquiries into the medical arts; and gathering items of information from all his subjects, extended, as they were, over a large proportion of the world, it was his habit to make copies of their communications, and to take notes of the results which upon experiment had been produced. These memoranda, which he kept in his private cabinet, fell into the hands of Pompeius, when he took possession of the royal treasures; who at once commissioned his freedman, Lenæus the grammarian, to translate them into the Latin language: the result of which was, that his victory was equally conducive to the benefit of the republic and of mankind at large.”

(Mithridates VI 134-63 BC, King of Pontus, fierce opponent of Rome in the Mithridatic Wars. Known for his ambition and attempts at poison immunity. Ultimately defeated by the Romans).

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder