Mithridates VI of Pontus

About Mithridates VI of Pontus

Mithridates VI of Pontus, reigning from the late 2nd to early 1st century BCE, was a formidable politician and the most persistent enemy of the Roman Republic for decades. He is credited in the Pantheon project with a Historical Popularity Index (HPI) rank of #764, largely due to his extensive military campaigns, strategic use of poisoning techniques (mithridatism), and prolonged conflicts against powerful Roman generals like Sulla and Pompey the Great. His reign represented a significant, though ultimately unsuccessful, challenge to Roman dominance in Asia Minor.

Despite his historical gravitas, Mithridates currently suffers a notable attention gap, receiving only 48K annualized Wikipedia views in 2025. This level of interest results in an attention gap factor of -7x, meaning his historical importance is significantly underrepresented in modern online attention compared to his HPI rank. For contrast, Golda Meir, another politician with a slightly lower importance rank (#885), currently garners over 1.0M views, highlighting a massive disparity in digital traffic for figures within the same general occupation category.

Further analysis shows a slight cooling of interest, as his 2025 momentum, comparing Q1 to Q3 activity, dropped by -8%, alongside a year-over-year view change of -10.9%, suggesting his digital visibility is currently in gradual decline.