his successor to reap the laurels of his victories. He carried with him a great number of books,' which he had gathered together out of the spoils of this war, and with them he erected a great library at Rome, which he made free for the use of all learned men, who in great numbers after this resorted to his house for it, and there they always found a kind and generous entertainment. 4 Pompey, on his first entering on this war, drew into alliance and confederacy with him Phrahates, who had the year before succeeded in the kingdom of Par thia; and also made an offer of peace to Mithridates: but he, reckoning himself as sure of the friendship and assistance of Phrahates, would not hearken to the proposal. But when he heard Pompey had been beforehand with him as to Phrahates, he sent ambassadors to Pompey to treat about it. But Pompey's preliminaries being, that he should forthwith lay down his arms, and deliver up to him all deserters, this had like to have raised a mutiny in his army. For there being in it a great number of deserters, they could not bear the mention of their being delivered up to Pompey, nor the rest of the army to be deprived of their assistance in the war. Whereupon, to quiet this matter, Mithridates was forced to pretend to them, that his ambassadors were sent with no other intention than to spy out the strength and state of the Roman army, and also at the same time to swear to them, that he would never make peace with the Romans, either on these or any other terms whatsoever. And indeed he was now better furnished for the war than he had been for many years before. For the mutiny of Lucullus's soldiers having hindered him from entering on any action of war all the last year, Mithridates took the advantage hereof to recover most of his lost kingdom, and there had gotten together another well-appointed army, for the farther prosecution of the war; and thinking that the wearying out of the Romans by delays, and distressing them in obstructing their supplies of provisions, was the readiest way to vanquish them, he for some time followed this method, wasting the country before them, and refusing to fight. And he had, in part, the success he proposed. For Pompey was hereby so far distressed, that he was forced to remove out of Pontus in Cappadocia into the Lesser Armenia, for the better furnishing of his army with provisions, and other necessaries for their subsistence, and Mithridates followed after him thither for the carrying on there also of the same methods of distressing him. But while he was thus endeavouring it in that country, he was there surprised by Pompey in a night-march," and utterly vanquished, with the loss of the major part of his army, and him. self hardly escaping, was forced to flee northward beyond the springs of the Euphrates, for the seeking of his safety. Whereon Pompey, having ordered the building of a new city in the place where this victory was gained, which, in commemoration of it, he called Nicopolis, i. e. the City of Victory, left there for the inhabiting of it such of his soldiers as were wounded, sick, aged, or otherwise disabled for the fatigues of war; and then marched with the rest into the Greater Armenia against Tigranes, as being a confederate of Mithridates in this war against the Roman people. At this time Tigranes was at war with his son, of the same name. It hath been before mentioned, that he married Cleopatra, the daughter of Mithridates. By her he had three sons, two of which, on light occasions, he had put to death; whereon Tigranes, the third of them, not thinking his life safe within the power of so cruel a father,' fled to Phrahates king of Parthia, whose daughter he had married, who brought him back into Armenia with an army, and laid siege to Artaxata, the capital of the kingdom. But finding the place strong, and well provided with all necessaries long to hold out, he left his son-in-law there with one part of the army to carry on the siege, and returned into Parthia with 1 Plutarchus in Lucullo. Isidor. Origen. lib. 6. c. 3. 2 Dion Cassius, lib. 36. Epitome Livii, lib. 100. 3 Ibid. lib. 36. p. 22. Appian. in Mithridaticis. 4 Plutarchus in Lucullo et Pompeio. Appian. in Mithridaticis. Dion Cassius, lib. 36. 5 Plutarchus in Pompeio. Dion Cassius, lib. 36. Epitome Livii, lib. 100. L. Llorus, lib. 3. c. 5. Appian. in Mithridaticis. Eutropius, lib. 6. Orosius, lib. 6. c. 4. 6 Dion et Appian. ibid. Strabo lib. 12. p. 555. 7 Appian. in Mithridaticis. 2 the other. Whereon Tigranes, the father, falling on his son with all his power, got a thorough victory over him, and drove him out of the country. In this distress, he purposed to betake himself to Mithridates his grandfather; but meeting, in his way to him, the news of his defeat, and that therefore no help was to be had from him,' he fled to the Roman camp, and there, by way of a supplicant, cast himself into the hands of Pompey, who received him very kindly, and was glad of his coming: for, being then on his march into Armenia, he needed one that knew the country to be his guide in it; and therefore, making use of him for this purpose, marched under his guidance directly toward Artaxata. At the news whereof Tigranes being much terrified,' as not being sufficiently provided to resist the power that was coming against him, resolved to cast himself upon the generosity and clemency of the Roman general, and, to make way for it, sent to him the ambassadors of Mithridates. For Mithridates, on his late defeat, sent ambassadors to him to desire refuge in his country, and his help for the repairing of his loss. But Tigranes not only denied him his help, and all admission in his country, but also seized his ambassadors, and cast them into prison, and did set a price of one hundred talents upon the head of Mithridates himself, should he be any where found within his dominions, pretending for all this that it was by his instigation that his son was in rebellion against him, but the true reason was, to make way for his reconciliation with the Romans: and therefore he delivered these ambassadors unto them, and soon after followed himself, without any precaution taken, and, entering the Roman camp, resigned both himself and kingdom to the pleasure and disposal of Pompey and the Romans; and, in the doing hereof, debased himself to so mean and abject an humiliation, that, as soon as he appeared in the presence of Pompey, he plucked his crown or royal tiara from off his head, and cast himself prostrate on the ground before him. Pompey; hereon much commiserating his case, leaped from his seat, and kindly taking him by the hand, lifted him up, put his crown again upon his head, and placed him on a seat at his right hand, and his son on another at his left; and having appointed the next day for the hearing of his cause, invited him and his son that night to sup with him. But the son refusing to come, out of displeasure to his father, and neglecting to show him any respect, or to take the least notice of him at the interview, he much offended Pompey by his conduct. However, on having heard the cause, he did not wholly neglect his interest. For, after having decreed that King Tigranes should pay the Romans six thousand talents for making war upon them without cause, and yield up to them all his conquests on this side the Euphrates, he ordered that he should still reign in his paternal kingdom of Armenia the Greater, and his son in Gordena and Sophena (two provinces bordering on Armenia) during his father's lifetime, and succeed him in all the rest of his dominions after his death, reserving to the father out of Sophena the treasure which he had there deposited, without which he would not have been able to pay the mulct of six thousand talents imposed on him. Tigranes the father joyfully accepted these terms, being glad even thus to be again admitted to reign. But the son, having entertained expectations that were not answered by this decree, was highly displeased at it, and made an attempt to have fled for the raising of new disturbances: whereon Pompey put a guard upon him, and, on his refusal to permit his father to take away his treasure in Sophena, cast him into prison, and afterward, on his being detected to have solicited the nobility of Armenia to renew the war, and also the Parthians to join in it, Pompey put him among those whom he reserved for his triumph, and after that triumph left him in prison; whereas most of the other captives, after they had borne their part in that show, were released, and again sent home into their own countries. Tigranes the father, after the receipt of his treasure out of Sophena, paid the six thousand talents in which Pompey had mulcted him, and added over and above 1 Plutarch. in Pompeio. Appian. et Dion Cassius, ibid. 2 Plutarch, Appian. ibid. 3 Plutarch. Dion et Appian. ibid. Eutrop. lib. 6. Velleius Paterculus lib. 2. c. 37. 273 a donative to the Roman army, giving every common soldier fifty drachms, each centurion one thousand, and each military tribune ten thousand, whereby he obtained to be declared a friend and an ally of the Roman people. Pompey, having thus composed matters in Armenia,' marched northward after Mithridates. On his coming to the River Cyrus, he was opposed by the Albanians and the Iberians, two potent nations dwelling between the Caspian and the Euxine Seas, and confederates of Mithridates; but, having overcome them in battle, he forced the Albanians to sue for peace, and having granted it to them, wintered among them. An. 65. Aristobulus II. 5.]-Early the next year after, he marched against the Iberians, a warlike nation, which had never yet yielded to any superior, but had always held out against the Medians, Persians, and Macedonians, and submitted to neither of them during all the time that they, in succession one after the other, held the empire of Asia. Pompey, although he found some difficulties in this war, yet soon mastered them, and forced the Iberians to terms of peace. After his having reduced the people of Colchis also to a submission to him, and taken Olthaces their king prisoner (whom he afterward caused to be led before him in his triumph,) he marched back again upon the Albanians, who, while he was engaged with the Iberians and Colchians, had renewed the war; but having overthrown them in battle with a great slaughter, and slain therein Cosis, the brother of Orodes their king,3 who commanded the army, he thereby forced Orodes to purchase the renewal of the last year's peace by large gifts, and also to send his sons to him as hostages for the keeping of it. 6 In the interim, Mithridates, having wintered at Dioscurias, a place upon the Euxine Sea, and there situated in the farthest part of the isthmus which lies between that sea and the Caspian," early the next spring did set out from thence for the country of the Cimmerian Bosphorus, making his way thither through several Scythian nations that lay between, obtaining his passage of some of them by fair means, and of others by force. This kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosphorus' is the same which is now the country of the Crim Tartars, and was then a province of the empire of Mithridates. He had placed one of his sons, called Machares, there to reign. But this young prince having been hard pressed upon by the Romans, while they lay at the siege of Sinope, and had then, by their fleet, the mastery of the Euxine Sea (which lay between that city and the kingdom of Machares,) he made peace with them, and had ever since maintained the terms of it: by which having much angered his father, he dreaded his approach; and therefore, while he was on the way," he sent ambassadors to him to make his peace with him, urging for his excuse, that what he did was by the necessity of his affairs driving him to it, and not by choice. But, finding that his father was implacable, he endeavoured to make his escape by sea; but, being intercepted by such ships as Mithridates had sent out for this purpose, he slew himself, to avoid falling into his hands. Pompey, having finished this war in the north, and finding it impracticable to pursue Mithridates any farther that way, led back his army again into the southern parts, and," in his way thither, having subdued Darius king of Media, and Antiochus king of Commagena, he came into Syria," and having by Scaurus reduced Cole-Syria and Damascus," and by Gabinius all the rest of those parts as far as the Tigris," he made himself master of all the Syrian empire. Whereon Antiochus Asiaticus," the son of Antiochus Eusebes, the remaining heir of the 1 Epitome Livii, lib. 101. Plutarch. in Pompeio. Dion Cassius, lib. 36. Appian. in Mithridaticis. 2 Plutarch. ibid. Dion Cassius, lib. 37. p. 29. 3 So Florus, Eutropius, and Orosius, call him, but the name given by others is Orases. 4 Appian. in Mithridaticis. 5 See Strabo, lib. 11. p. 498. 6 Appian. in Mithridaticis. Epitome Livii, lib. 101. 7 Strabo, lib. 11. Dion Cassius, lib. 36. p. 25. Strabo, lib. 11. p. 496. 8 Memnon, c. 56. Appian. ibid. 11 Appian. in Mithridaticis. 12 Appian. ibid. 14 Dion Cassius, lib. 37. p. 31. 9 Epit. Liv. lib. 98. Plutarch. in Lucullo. Appian. et Memnon, ibid. 15 Appian. in Mithridaticis. Justin. lib. 40. c. 2. Porphyrius in Græcis Eusebianus Scaligeri. Xiphilinus ex Dione. VOL. II.-35 Seleucian family, who, by the permission of Lucullus, had now for four years reigned in some part of that country, after Tigranes had been forced to withdraw his forces from it, applied to him to desire to be re-established in the kingdom of his forefathers. But Pompey, refusing to hearken to him, stripped him of all his dominions, and reduced them into the form of a Roman province. And thus, at the same time, when Tigranes was permitted to reign in Armenia, who had much damaged the Roman interest by a long war, Antiochus was stripped of all, who never did them any hurt, or ever deserved any ill from them. The reasons given for it were, that the Romans had taken this country by conquest from Tigranes, and therefore were not to loose the fruits of their victory; and that Antiochus was a weak prince, of no courage or capacity to protect that country; and that therefore the putting of it into his hands would be to betray it to the ravages and depredations of the Jews and Arabs, which Pompey could not consent to. And therefore Antiochus,' being thus deprived of his crown, was reduced to a private condition of life. And here ended the empire of the Seleucidæ in Asia, after it had there lasted two hundred and fifty-eight years. 2 6 While these things were doing by the Romans, there happened great disturbances and revolutions in Egypt and Judea. For, in Egypt, the Alexandrians, being weary of Alexander, their king, rose in a mutiny against him, and drove him out of their kingdom, and called Ptolemy Auletes to the crown.' He was the bastard son of Ptolemy Lathyrus: for Lathyrus had no male issue by his wife that survived him; but he had several by his concubines: one of which was, that Ptolemy who had the kingdom of Cyprus after his father's death, and there reigned till injuriously deprived of it by the Romans, as will hereafter be related. Another was this Auletes; he was also called Dionysius Neos, or the New Bacchus; both which names he had from infamous causes: for he had much used himself to play on the pipe, and valued himself so much upon his skill herein, that he would expose himself to contend for victory in the public shows; hence he had the name of Auletes, that is, the Piper: and he would often imitate the effeminacies of the Bacchanals; and in the same manner as they dance their measures in a female dress; and hence it was that he was called Dionysius Neos, or the New Bacchus. He is reckoned to have as much exceeded all that reigned before him of his race in the effeminacy of his manners, as his grandfather Physcon did in the wickedness of them. Alexander, on his expulsion, fled to - Pompey, to pray his assistance for his restoration, and offered him great gifts, and promised him more, to induce him hereto. But Pompey refused to meddle with this matter, as being without the limits of his commission. Whereon Alexander retired to Tyre," there to wait a more favourable juncture, and soon after died in that city. It is here to be remarked, that Ptolemy the astronomer, in his chronological canon, names not Alexander at all among the kings of Egypt, but begins the reign of Auletes from the death of Lathyrus, although it appears," both from Cicero and Suetonius, that Alexander reigned fifteen years between. Perchance, as Ptolemy, king of Cyprus, had that island immediately on his father's death, so likewise Auletes had, at the same time, some other part of the Egyptian empire for his share of it; and for this reason Ptolemy the astronomer makes him the immediate successor of Lathyrus, though he had not the whole kingdom of Egypt till fifteen years after. 8 The disturbances which were at this time in Judea, and the revolution which happened thereon, had their original from the ambition and aspiring spirit of Antipater, the father of Herod. Of his original I have before spoken. He having had his education in the court of Alexander Jannæus, and Alexandra his queen, 1 Some confound this Antiochus with Antiochus Commagenus, and hold, that Commagena was given him by Pompey, when stripped of all the rest. But the testimony of history is contrary to this conjecture. 2 Suetonius in Julio Cæsare, c. 11. Trogus in Prologo 39. 3 Trogus, ibid. 4 Pausanias in Atticis; ibi enim dicit eum, Berenicem solam, cum obiisset, prolem legitimam sibi supersti tem reliquisse. 5 Trogus in Prologo 40. 6 Strabo, lib. 17. p. 796. 8 Strabo, lib. 17. p. 796. 7 Lucian. de non temere Credendo Calumniæ. 9 Appian. in Mithridaticis. 10 Cicero in Oratione Secunda contra Rullum. 11 Videas Notas (g) et (p.) who reigned after him, there wrought himself into the good liking of Hyrcanus,' the eldest of their sons, hoping to rise by his favour when he should come to the crown after his mother. But, when Hyrcanus was deposed, and Aristobulus made king in his place, these measures which he had taken for his advancement were all broken; and his engagements in them having rendered him so obnoxious to Aristobulus, as to exclude him all prospect of favour from him, he set himself, with all the craft which he was signally endowed with, to repair the fortunes of Hyrcanus, and restore him again to his crown: in order whereto, he treated with Aretas king of Arabia Petræa, and engaged him to help Hyrcanus with an army for the accomplishing of this design, and had, by clandestine applications, drawn in great numbers of the Jews for the promoting of the same purpose. But his greatest difficulty was to excite Hyrcanus himself to the undertaking: for, being a quiet indolent man, who loved ease more than any thing else, he had no ambition for reigning, and therefore had no inclination to stir a foot for the obtaining of it. But at length being made believe that his life was in danger, and that he had nothing to choose between reigning and dying, if he stayed in Judea, he was roused up by this argument to flee for his safety, and put himself into the hands of Aretas, who, according to his agreement with Antipater, brought him back into Judea with an army of fifty thousand men,* and, having there joined the Jews of Hyrcanus's party, gave battle to Aristobulus, and gaining an absolute victory over him, pursued him to Jerusalem, and, entering it without opposition, drove him, with all his party, to take refuge in the mountain of the temple, and there besieged him, where all the priests stood by him; but the generality of the people declared for Hyrcanus. This happened in the time of their passover; whereon Aristobulus, wanting lambs and beasts for the sacrifices of that solemnity, agreed with the Jews that were among the besiegers to furnish him with them for a sum contracted. But, when they had the money let down to them over the wall, they refused to deliver the sacrifices, and thereby impiously and sacrilegiously robbed God of that part of his worship which was then to have been performed to him. And at the same time they added another very heinous wickedness to this guilt: for there being then at Jerusalem one Onias, a man of great reputation for the sanctity of his life, who had been thought by his prayers to have obtained rain from heaven in a time of drought, they brought him forth into the army; and, concluding his curses would be as prevalent as his prayers, pressed him to curse Aristobulus, and all that were with him. He long resisted to hearken to them; but at length, finding no rest from their importunities, he lifted up his hands toward heaven, as standing in the midst of them, and prayed thus: "O Lord God, Rector of the universe, since those that are with us are thy people, and they that are besieged in the temple are thy priests, I pray that thou wouldst hear the prayers of neither of them against the other." Hereon, they that brought him thither were so enraged against the good man, that they fell upon him with stones, and stoned him to death. But this was soon revenged upon them. For Scaurus being by this time come to Damascus with a Roman army, Aristobulus sent thither to him, and, by the promise of four hundred talents, engaged him on his side. Hyrcanus offered him the like sum: but Scaurus, looking on Aristobulus as the more solvent of the two, and for other reasons taking the better liking to him, chose to embrace his cause before the other's; and Gabinius, by a present of three hundred talents more out of Aristobulus's purse, was induced to do the same. And therefore they both sent to Aretas to withdraw, threatening him with the Roman arms in case of refusal. Whereon, Aretas raising the siege, and marching off toward his own country, Aristobulus got together all the forces he could, and pursued after him, and, having overtaken him at a place called Papyrion, overthrew him in battle with a great slaughter, in which perished many of the Jews of Hyrcanus's party, and among them Cæphalion, the brother of Antipater. 1 Joseph. Antiq. lib. 14. c. 2. et de Bello Judaico, lib. 1. c. 5. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. |