The Battle of Vrisia was a battle of the First Mithridatic War which was fought between the armies of the Roman Republic and Pontus in Thessaly, Greece in 88 BC. The Roman general Sulla and his Legio I Macedonica repelled an attack by the Pontic army of Mithridates VI Eupator's son Arcathias, nearly annihilating the Pontic force and enabling Sulla to capture Pharsalus shortly after.
Background[]
By 88 BC, the armies of Mithridates VI Eupator of Pontus had pushed the Roman Republic out of Asia, conquered southern Thrace and Macedonia, and secured the allegiance of the rebellious Greek cities. The Roman consul Sulla, who was at odds with Gaius Marius' dominant faction in Rome, was forced to face the Pontic threat by himself: he commanded Legio I Macedonica in Apollonia, while Pompeius Strabo commanded Legio III Antiqua in Dyrrachium (on the border with the Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace) and Lucullus commanded Legio II Illyrica in Salona (on the border with the Breuci). Sulla immediately set out to reconquer Greece from the Mithridatic armies, whose general Arcathias commanded an army at Pharsalus, and Mithridates commanded an army in Athens. Sulla marched from Illyria into Thessaly, encamping his army southwest of Pharsalus near the present-day village of Vrisia. His scouts located Arcathias' army in Pharsalus, and Sulla decided to await an attack from the Pontians to deprive them of the benefit of fighting in a town. Arcathias, confident in his ability to defeat Sulla's 1,720-strong army with the 2,640-strong combined forces of his army and Ekurzakir's Pharsalus garrison, marched out of Pharsalus to attack the Romans that summer.
Battle[]
The Roman army positioned itself in a valley between two prominent hills, with a cohort of legionary cavalry under Tiberius Pisentius Luccius being sent to hold the hill on the Roman right flank. However, as Luccius' cavalry took up position on the hill, it was charged by a force of Pontic cavalry, and the Roman cavalrymen were quickly overwhelmed and Luccius was killed. The Pontic army's sudden attack surprised the Romans, but their better-armored and better-trained legionaries easily fought off attacks by the Pontic hillmen who were thrown against them. The Romans retained control of the hill on their right flank and soon turned back the main Pontic assault, and the Pontic army soon dispersed, forcing Roman units to frequently redeploy to face new threats from different sides. The Romans proceeded to hunt down the individual Pontic units, and Ekurzakir's reinforcements, who remained idle throughout the battle, were showered with javelins by the Roman velites, massacring them. The Roman cavalry pursued the fleeing Pontic soldiers, inflicting heavy losses and capturing 246 of them. The Romans enslaved the Pontic captives, and the Romans pressed on and captured Pharsalus, scoring their first success against Mithridates.