10
POMPEY SENT AGAINST MITHRIDATES.
where they had the means of living and could be watched,
and partly to the deserted places of Peloponnesus, such as
Dyine in Achaia, where they could be more easily looked after
and kept in cheek. This was a great benefit to the civilised
world, for which Pompey deserved the everlasting gratitude6
of all the nations round the Mediterranean.
After this war Pompey stood higher in public opinion than
ever, and this popularity induced the Eomans to invest him
with the supreme command in the war against Mithridates.
The Eomans had never any reason to regret this step; but
they made his position easier than that of LucuIIus had been,
for they increased his army with considerable reinforcements.
Mithridates lost in a single battle all that he had gained,
without the Eomans acquiring any great reputation by their
victory. Idc fled into Colchis, and thence along the Caucasus
to the Bosporus Cimmerius. Pompey followed him through
Erzcroum, and advanced as far as Georgia and the country of
Tiflis, through countries, for an accurate knowledge of which
we are indebted to the late Eussian war. The princes of
those countries paid homage to Eome. Machares, one of the
sons of Mithridates, who held the kingdom of Bosporus as a
fief of his father, and had concluded a separate peace with the
Romans, now put an end to his life from fear of his father,
who was approaching. For in times of misfortune, when
Mithridatcs gave vent to his grief with oriental fury, his
own domestics, and even his children, who were extremely
numerous, used to tremble, to hate him, and to wish for his
destruction. The retreat of Mithridates was undertaken partly
to enable him to pursue and punish his personal enemies, and
partly as the commencement of a gigantic enterprise. FIe
had still immense treasures concealed; and his intention was to
rouse the Bastarnac1 and other nations on the Danube, and to
lead them into Italy.7 When his soldiers heard of this υlan, a
rebellion broke out in his army at Panticapaeum81 as they
knew that none of his undertakings had yet succeeded, and no
advantageous results could be anticipated from such a bold
expedition, in which he, as well as his army, would undoubt-
edly have perished. Pharnaces1 his own son, was at the head
of the rebellion. Mithridates had so often shewn his fearful
6 Appian, De Bell. Mithiid. 94—97; Plutarch, Pomp. 26.
7 Appian, I. c. 101, foil. 8 Dion Cass.xxxvii. 12.
POMPEY BRINGS THE WAR TO A CLOSE.
11
oriental character, that his son could not feel safe until his
father was dead. The insurrection assumed the awful cha-
racter of all Asiatic rebellions, so that Mithridates, who had
every moment to fear being murdered by his son, put an end
to his life by poison. Pharnaces now made peace with Pom-
pey, and did not scruple to deliver up to the conqueror the
body of his own father ; but Pompey behaved humanely, and
had it buried with regal magnificence.9 Pharnaces remained
in possession of the Bosporus and the adjoining country of the
Kubanians, and retained them until the time of Caesar, when
he ventured to meddle with the civil war of the Romans10,
and ruined himself by the attempt.
Pompey followed up his victory, and now directed his arms
against Tigrancs, who was glad enough to obtain a disgraceful
peace : he had to pay a heavy sum of money, and to surrender
all his possessions, with the exception of Armenia Proper,
being even obliged to give up a part of Armenia to his rebel-
lious son, though he soon afterwards recovered it. Syria was
ceded altogether, and was made a Roman province. Pompey
advanced as far as the frontiers of Egypt, meeting with no
opposition from the Syrian or Phoenician towns, of which he
took possession. One of his generals even penetrated into the
country of the Nabataean Arabs, where homage was paid to
him by the Arab king, Harct. In the contest between the
two brothers, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, princes of the Jews,
Pompey declared himself in favour of the former. Aristobulus
was made prisoner, and afterwards adorned the triumphal
procession of Pompey. Jerusalem fell into the hands of the
Romans by capitulation ; but the temple held out for three
months, and when it was taken Pompey allowed his soldiers
to plunder, but not to destroy anything.11 The death of
Mithridatcs falls in the year of Cicero’s consulship; the con-
quest of Syria belongs to the year following, and the triumph
of Pompey took place cither at the end of the year 690, or at
the beginning of 691.
The conduct of Pompey after the termination of the war,
was praiseworthy. He disbanded his whole army, although he
might have acted as Sulla did, and assumed the tyrannis; but
9 Appian, I. c. 113; Dion Cass, xxxvii. 14.
10 Se Inserere arτnis Homanis, as Tacitus expresses it.—N.
n Dion Cass.xxxvii. 15 and 16; Plutareli, Pomp. 39 and 45.