Using existing Greek and Persian traditions, Mithradates presented himself as a savior of the Helleno-Persian world against an encroaching threat from the West: Rome. The Helleno-Persian King achieved this by embodying “messianic” traditions that existed within both cultures: the Eastern savior-king and the Greek divine-redeemer.
Young Mithradates as Hercules freeing Prometheus, marble sculpture group, Pergamon. Berlin, Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, NY.
For the Perso-Anatolians, he was cast as a political messiah sent by God to punish the wicked. Mithradates’ star-signaling birth was said to fulfil Persian prophecies of a coming savior from the East, as did his name, “Mithras-sent.”