The hero of this book - the Pontic king Mithridates VI Eupator - was called the most dangerous enemy of the Romans since the time of Hannibal. The king of the dwarf Black Sea country challenged the huge Roman state and found many supporters in the Hellenistic world. He was opened the gates of Pergamum and Athens, Panticapaeum and Naples Scythian. His alliance was sought by the commander Sertorius, who was deposited from Rome in Spain, and the leader of the slave uprising Spartacus in Italy. Mithridates again and again went on the offensive, dreamed of a campaign against Rome and was defeated only after a forty-year war, due to the huge inequality of forces. When the Romans learned of his death, they, according to Plutarch, rejoiced as if "tens of thousands of enemies had died in the person of Mithridates." A small regal on the edge of the ecumene, he became famous along with his great contemporaries Sulla, Caesar, Pompey and Cleopatra. However, a popular biography of Mithridates has not yet been written. The book of the historian and writer Stanislav Chernyavsky fills this gap.