Mithridates of Armenia

Mithridates of Armenia was a Pharnavazid prince of the Kingdom of Iberia who served as a King of Armenia under the protection of the Roman Empire.

Biography Mithridates was installed by Roman emperor Tiberius, who invaded Armenia in AD 35. When the Parthian prince Orodes, son of Artabanus II of Parthia, attempted to dispossess Mithridates of his newly acquired kingdom, Mithridates led a large Armenian and Iberian army and defeated the Parthians in a pitched battle.

Around AD 37, the new emperor Caligula had Mithridates arrested, but Claudius restored him to the Armenian throne in AD 42. Subsequently, Mithridates' relations with his brother Pharasmanes I deteriorated to the point where the Iberian king instructed his son, Rhadamistus, to invade Armenia.

Betrayed by his Roman commanders, Mithridates surrendered in the Siege of Garni. Roman historian Cassius Dio reports a likely apocryphal confrontation of Mithridates and Claudius in Rome.

In 51 AD, Mithridates was murdered by Rhadamistus, who usurped the crown and married his cousin Zenobia, Mithridates' daughter.