Asiatic Vespers

Meaning

Proper Noun

• An incident in 88 BCE, in which a coordinated massacre of Roman citizens in various towns in Anatolia was undertaken at the behest of King Mithridates VI of Pontus, which served as casus belli for Rome to instigate the First Mithridatic War.

Origin

• Alternative version of a calque of French Vèpres éphésiennes, coined 1890 by historian Théodore Reinach by analogy with Sicilian Vespers. Ephesus was one of the towns where the massacre occurred.