Qualla: Siege of Rhodes (88 BC) https://qualla.com/siege-of-rhodes-88-bc en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:30 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/7/v/siege-of-rhodes-88-bc-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Siege of Rhodes (88 BC) https://qualla.com/siege-of-rhodes-88-bc Siege of Rhodes (88 BC): Introduction https://qualla.com/siege-of-rhodes-88-bc/ Photo credit Photograph: NASA, Public domain. Mithridates VI of Pontus had a way of making generals nervous. He spoke twenty-two languages, had spent his youth in the wilderness training himself to resist poison, and by 88 BC he had swept Rome out of Asia Minor in a single bloody summer. Roman governors fled before him; Greek cities opened their gates; the islands of the Aegean fell one after another to his fleet. Then he sailed for Rhodes, an old maritime republic with a population a tenth the size of his army, and the campaign that had run on terror for a year ran into something the Pontic king had not bargained for: a navy that fought back.

Read more: Siege of Rhodes (88 BC) on Qualla

Image: Photograph: NASA | Public domain

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/7/v/siege-of-rhodes-88-bc-wp/sw7v-siege-of-rhodes-88-bc-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Siege of Rhodes (88 BC): The Roman Refuge https://qualla.com/siege-of-rhodes-88-bc/ Photo credit MarkusMark, CC BY-SA 3.0. The First Mithridatic War had begun with what the Greeks called the Asian Vespers, a coordinated massacre of Romans and Italians across Asia Minor that may have killed eighty thousand civilians in a single day. The Roman governor Lucius Cassius escaped the slaughter and fled to R...

Read more: Siege of Rhodes (88 BC) on Qualla

Image: MarkusMark | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/7/v/siege-of-rhodes-88-bc-wp/sw7v-siege-of-rhodes-88-bc-the-roman-refuge.mp3 0:06 2 full Siege of Rhodes (88 BC): The Sambuca That Failed https://qualla.com/siege-of-rhodes-88-bc/ Photo credit McKarri 09:47, 17. Jan. 2012 (CET), CC BY-SA 3.0 de. Mithridates's chief engineer had built him something rare: a sambuca-style assault tower mounted across two warships, with bridges that could be dropped onto a city wall directly from the sea. The device had been invented more than a century earlier by Heracleides of Tarentum for...

Read more: Siege of Rhodes (88 BC) on Qualla

Image: McKarri 09:47, 17. Jan. 2012 (CET) | CC BY-SA 3.0 de

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/7/v/siege-of-rhodes-88-bc-wp/sw7v-siege-of-rhodes-88-bc-the-sambuca-that-failed.mp3 0:06 3 full Siege of Rhodes (88 BC): Lightning Strikes https://qualla.com/siege-of-rhodes-88-bc/ Photo credit Photograph: NASA, Public domain. The Rhodian admiral Demagoras was a careful man. His fleet was outnumbered perhaps three to one, and he had no intention of meeting the Pontic line in open water. He used what he had: the speed of Rhodian biremes, knowledge of the harbour approaches, and the willingness to wait. ...

Read more: Siege of Rhodes (88 BC) on Qualla

Image: Photograph: NASA | Public domain

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/7/v/siege-of-rhodes-88-bc-wp/sw7v-siege-of-rhodes-88-bc-lightning-strikes.mp3 0:06 4 full Siege of Rhodes (88 BC): The First Crack in the Empire https://qualla.com/siege-of-rhodes-88-bc/ Photo credit Photograph: NASA, Public domain. Mithridates broke off the siege without a decisive battle on land. He had not lost catastrophically, but he had not taken the island, and Rhodes had shown what every later Roman commander would exploit: the king's coalition was wider than it was deep. Greek cities that had thrown...

Read more: Siege of Rhodes (88 BC) on Qualla

Image: Photograph: NASA | Public domain

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/7/v/siege-of-rhodes-88-bc-wp/sw7v-siege-of-rhodes-88-bc-the-first-crack-in-the-empire.mp3 0:06 5 full Siege of Rhodes (88 BC): What an Island Defends https://qualla.com/siege-of-rhodes-88-bc/ Photo credit Photograph: NASA, Public domain. Rhodes had been besieged before, and would be again, and would lose eventually. In 305 BC it had outlasted Demetrius the Besieger; in 1522 it would fall to Suleiman the Magnificent after six terrible months. The 88 BC siege sits between those two famous catastrophes as a quieter ...

Read more: Siege of Rhodes (88 BC) on Qualla

Image: Photograph: NASA | Public domain

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/7/v/siege-of-rhodes-88-bc-wp/sw7v-siege-of-rhodes-88-bc-what-an-island-defends.mp3 0:06 6 full