By their ceaseless recriminations not only are social intimacies usually destroyed, but also everlasting enmities are produced. M. Tullius Cicero. De Amicitia. Laelius on friendship

By their ceaseless recriminations not only are social intimacies usually destroyed, but also everlasting enmities are produced. M. Tullius Cicero. De Amicitia. Laelius on friendship. Section 35.

Note: The young ambitious Mithridates VI of Pontus entertained ambitions of making his state the dominant power in the Black Sea and Anatolia. He contrived to partition Paphlagonia and Galatia with King Nicomedes III of Bithynia. Yet it soon became clear to Mithridates that Nicomedes was steering his country into an anti-Pontic alliance with the expanding Roman Republic. When Mithridates fell out with Nicomedes over control of Cappadocia, and defeated him in a series of battles, the latter was constrained to openly enlist the assistance of Rome. The Romans twice interfered in the conflict on behalf of Nicomedes (95–92 BC), leaving Mithridates, should he wish to continue the expansion of his kingdom, with little choice other than to engage in a future Roman-Pontic war.

Image: Grave relief depicting a large horse wrapped in a panther skin being calmed by an Ethiopian slave, thought to be possibly Mithridates funerary monument at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. Some believe it dates to the Late 4th century BCE (too early for Mithridates VI) or possibly a copy from the 1st century BCE. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Sharon Mollerus.