support, was that high degree of power to which Pompey was raised, which they considered as a tyranny already formed. It is for this reason they exhorted each other, in a particular manner, to oppose that decree, and not abandon their expiring liberty. Cæsar and Cicero, who were very powerful at Rome, supported Manilius, or rather Pompey, with all their power. It was upon this occasion, the latter pronounced that fine oration before the people, entitled, "For the law of Manilius." After having demonstrated, in the two first parts of his discourse, the necessity and importance of the war in question, he proves in the third, that Pompey is the only person capable of terminating it successfully. For this purpose he enumerates the qualities necessary to form a general of an army, and shows that Pompey possesses them all in a superior degree. He insists principally upon his probity, humanity, innocence of manners, integrity, disinterestedness, love of the public good: "virtues, by so much the more necessary," says he, “as the Roman name is become infamous and hateful among foreign nations, and our allies, in consequence of the debauchery, avarice, and unheard of oppressions of the generals and magistrates we send among them.* Instead of which, the wise, moderate, and irreproachable conduct of Pompey, will make him be regarded, not only as sent from Rome, but descended from heaven, for the happiness of the people. We begin to believe, that all which is related of the noble disinterestedness of those ancient Romans is real and true; and that it is not without reason, under such magistrates, that nations chose rather to obey the Roman people, than to command others."t Pompey was at that time the idol of the people: wherefore the fear of displeasing the multitude kept those grave senators silent, who had appeared so well inclined and so full of courage. The decree was authorized by the suifrages of all the tribes, and Pompey, though absent, declared absolute master of almost all that Sylla had usurped by arms, and by making a cruel war upon his country. We must not imagine, says a very judicious historian, that either Cæsar or Cicero, who took so much pains to have this law passed, acted from views to the public good. Cæsar, full of ambition and great projects, endeavoured to make his court to the people, whose authority he knew was at that time much greater than that of the senate: he thereby opened himself a way to the same power, and familiarized the Romans to extraordinary and unlimited commissions: in heaping upon the head of Pompey so many favours and distinctions, he flattered himself that he should at length render him odious to the people, who would soon take offence at them. So that in lifting him up, he had no other design than to prepare a precipice for him. Cicero also intended only his own greatness. It was his weakness to desire to lord it in the commonwealth, not indeed by guilt and violence, but by means of persuasion. Besides his having the support of Pompey's credit in view, he was very well pleased with showing the nobility and people, who formed two parties, and in a manner two republics, in the state, that he was capable of making the balance incline to the side he espoused. Consequently it was always his policy to conciliate equally both parties, in declaring sometimes for the one and sometimes for the other. Pompey, who had already terminated the war with the pirates, was still in Cilicia, when he received letters informing him of all the people had decreed in his favour. When his friends who were present congratulated him, and expressed their joy, it is said that he knit his brows, struck his thighs, and cried, as if oppressed by, and sorry for, that new command, "Gods, what endless la Difficile est dictu, Quirites, quanto in odio sumus apud cæteras nationes, propter eorum, quos ad eas hoc anno cum imperio misimus, injurias ac libidines.-Cic. pro Lege. Manil. n. 61. Itaque omnes quidem nunc in his locis Cn. Pompeium, sicut aliquem non ex hac urbe missum, sed de cœlo delapsum, intuentur. Nunc denique incipiunt credere fuisse homines Romanos hac quondam abstinentia quod jam nationibus cæteris incredibile, ac falso memoriæ proditum, videbatur. Nunc imperii nostri splendor illis gentibus lucet; nunc intelligunt, non sine causa majores suos tum, cum hac temperantia magistratus habebamus, servire populo Romano, quam imperare aliis maluisse.-Cic. pro Lege Manil. n. 41. Dion. Cass. 1. xxxvi. p. 20, 21. bours am I devoted to? Would I not have been more happy as a man unknown and inglorious? Shall I never cease to make war, nor ever have my arms off my back? Shall I never escape the envy that persecutes me, nor live in peace in the country with my wife and children?"*" This is generally the language of the ambitious, even of those who are most excessively actuated by that passion. But, however successful they may be in imposing upon themselves, it seldom happens that they deceive others, and the public is far from mistaking them. The friends of Pompey, and even those who were most intimate with him, could not support his dissimulation at this time; for there was not one of them who did not know that his natural ambition and passion for command, still more inflamed by his difference with Lucullus, made him find a more exalted and sensible satisfaction in the new charge conferred upon him and his actions soon shook off the mask, and explained his real sentiments. The first step which he took upon arriving in the provinces of his government, was to forbid any obedience whatever to the orders of Lucullus. In his march, he altered every thing his predecessor had decreed. He discharged some from the penalties which Lucullus had laid upon them; deprived others of the rewards he had given them; in short, his sole view in every thing was to let the partizans of Lucullus see that they adhered to a man who had neither authority nor power. Strabo's uncle by the mother's side, highly discontented with Mithridates for having put to death several of his relations, to avenge himself for that cruelty, had gone over to Lucullus, and had given up fifteen places in Cappadocia to him. Lucullus loaded him with honours, and promised to reward him further as his great services deserved. Pompey, far from having any regard for such just and reasonable engagements, which his predecessor had entered into solely from the view of the public good, effected a universal opposition to them, and looked upon all those as his enemies who had contracted any friendship with Lucullus.† It is not uncommon for a successor to endeavour to lessen the value of his predecessor's actions, in order to arrogate all honour to himself; but certainly no one ever carried that conduct to such an excess as Pompey did at this time. His great qualities and innumerable conquests are exceedingly extolled; but so base and odious a jealousy ought to sully, or rather totally eclipse, the glory of them. Such was the manner in which Pompey thought fit to begin. Lucullus made bitter complaints of him. Their common friends, in order to a reconciliation, concerted an interview between them. It passed at first with all possible politeness, and with reciprocal marks of esteem and friendship; but these were only compliments, and a language that extended no farther than the lips, which cost the great nothing. The heart soon explained itself. The conversation growing warm by degrees, they proceeded to injurious terms: Pompey upbraided Lucullus with avarice, and Lucullus reproached Pompey with ambition, in which they spoke the truth of each other. They parted more incensed, and greater enemies than before. Lucullus set out for Rome, whither he carried a great quantity of books, which he had collected in his conquests. He put them into a library, which was open to all the learned and curious, whom it drew about him in great numibers. They were received at his house with all possible politeness and generosity. The honour of a triumph was granted to Lucullus; but not without being long contested. It was he who first brought cherries to Rome, which till then had been unknown in Europe. They were called cerasus, from a city of that name in Cappadocia.‡ Pompey began by engaging Phraates king of the Parthians in the Roman interest. He has been spoken of already, and is the same who was surnamed the god. He concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with him. He offered peace also to Mithridates; but that prince believing himself sure of the * A. M. 3938. Ant. J. C. 66. Plut. in Pomp. p. 634-636. Dion. Cass. 1. xxxvi. p. 22-25. Appian P. 238. † Strab. 1. xii. p. 557, 558. Plin. l. xv. c. 25. amity and aid of Phraates, would not so much as hear it mentioned. When he was informed that Pompey had prevented him, he sent to treat with him: but Pompey having demanded, by way of preliminary, that he should lay down his arms, and give up all deserters, those proposals were very near occasioning a mutiny in the army of Mithridates. As there were many deserters in it, they could not suffer any thing to be said upon delivering them up to Pompey; nor would the rest of the army consent to see themselves weakened by the loss of their comrades. Mithridates was obliged to tell them, that he had sent his ambassadors only to inspect into the condition of the Roman army; and to swear, that he would not make peace with the Romans either on those, or on any other conditions. Pompey, having distributed his fleet in different stations, to guard the whole sea between Phoenicia and the Bosphorus, marched by land against Mithridates, who had still thirty thousand foot, and two or three thousand horse, but did not dare, however, to come to a battle. That prince was encamped very strongly upon a mountain, where he could not be forced: but he abandoned it on Pompey's approach, for want of water. Pompey immediately took possession of it, and conjecturing, from the nature of the plants and other signs, that there were numerous springs within it, he ordered wells to be dug; and in an instant the camp had water in abundance. Pompey could not sufficiently wonder how Mithridates, for want of attention and curiosity, had been so long ignorant of so important and necessary a resource. Soon after, he followed him, encamped near him, and shut him up within good walls, which he carried quite round his camp. They were nearly eight leagues in circumference, and were fortified with good towers, at proper distances from each other. Mithridates, either out of fear or negligence, suffered him to finist his works. He reduced him, in consequence, to such a want of provisions, that his troops were obliged to subsist upon the carriage beasts in their camp. The horses only were spared. After having sustained this kind of siege for almos fifty days, Mithridates escaped by night, with all the best troops of his army having first ordered all the useless and sick persons to be killed. Pompey immediately pursued him, came up with him near the Euphrates, encamped near him; and apprehending that, in order to escape, he would make haste to pass the river, he quitted his intrenchments, and advanced against him by night, in order of battle. His design was only to surround the enemy, to prevent their flying, and to attack them at daybreak the next morning: but all his old officers made such entreaties and remonstrances to him, that they determined him to fight without waiting till day; for the night was not very dark, the moon giving light enough for distinguishing objects, and knowing one another. Pompey could not refuse himself to the ardour of his troops, and led them on against the enemy. The barbarians were afraid to stand the attack. and fled immediately in the utmost consternation. The Romans made a great slaughter of them, killed above ten thousand men, and took their whole camp. Mithridates, with eight hundred horse, in the beginning of the battle, opened himself a way, sword in hand, through the Roman army, and went off: but those eight hundred horse soon quitted their ranks and dispersed, and left him with only three followers, among whom was Hypsicratia, one of his wives, a woman of masculine courage and warlike boldness; which occasioned her being called Hyspicrates, by changing the termination of her name from the feminine to the masculine.* She was mounted that day upon a Persian horse, and wore the habit of a soldier of that nation. She continued to attend the king, without giving way to the fatigues of his long journeys, or being weary of serving him, though she took care of his horse herself, till they arrived at a fortress where the king's treasures and most precious effects lay. There, after having distributed the most magnificent of his robes to such as were assembled about him, he made a present to each of his friends of a mortal poison, that none of them might fall alive into the hands of their enemies, but by their own consent. Ultra feminam ferox. -Tacit. That unhappy fugitive saw no other hopes for him, but from his son-in-law Tigranes. He sent his ambassadors to demand his permission to take refuge in his dominions, and aid for the re-establishment of his entirely ruined affairs. Tigranes was at that time at war with his son.* He caused those ambassadors to be seized, and thrown into prison, and set a price upon his father-in-law's head, promising a hundred talents to any person who should seize or kill him, under pretence that it was Mithridates who made his son take up arms against him, but in reality to make his court to the Romans, as we soon shall see. Pompey, after the victory he had gained, marched into Armenia Major against Tigranes. He found him at war with his son of his own name. We have observed that the king of Armenia had espoused Cleopatra, the daughter of Mithridates. He had three sons by her, two of whom he had put to death without reason. The third, to escape the cruelty of so unnatural a father, had fled to Phraates, king of Parthia, whose daughter he had married. His father-in-law carried him back to Armenia at the head of an army, where they besieged Artaxata. But finding the place very strong, and provided with every thing necessary for a good defence, Phraates left him part of the army for carrying on the siege, and returned with the rest into his own dominions. Tigranes, the father, soon after fell upon the son with all his troops, beat his army, and drove. him out of the country. That young prince, after this misfortune, had designed to withdraw to his grandfather Mithridates; but on the way was informed of his defeat, and having lost all hopes of obtaining aid from him, he resolved to throw himself into the arms of the Romans. Accordingly he entered their camp, and went to Pompey to implore his protection. Pompey gave him a very good reception, and was glad of his coming for as he was to carry the war into Armenia, he had occasion for such a guide. He therefore caused that prince to conduct him directly to Artaxata. Tigranes, terrified at this news, and sensible that he was not in a condition to oppose so powerful an army, resolved to have recourse to the generosity and clemency of the Roman general. He put the ambassadors sent to him by Mithridates into his hands, and followed them directly himself. Without taking any precaution, he entered the Roman camp, and went to submit his person and crown to the discretion of Pompey and the Romans. He said that of all the Romans, and of all mankind, Pompey was the only person in whose faith he could confide: that in whatever manner he might decide his fate, he should be satisfied that he was not ashamed to be conquered by a man whom none could conquer: and that it was no dishonour to submit to him whom fortune had made superior to all others.† : When he arrived on horseback near the intrenchments of the camp, two of Pompey's lictors came out to meet him, and ordered him to dismount and enter on foot, telling him that no stranger had ever been known to enter a Roman camp on horseback. Tigranes obeyed, ungirt his sword, and gave it to the lictors; and after, when he approached Pompey, taking off his diadem, he would have laid it at his feet, and prostrated himself on the earth to embrace his knees; but Pompey ran to prevent him, and taking him by the hand led him into his tent, made him sit on the right, and his son, the young Tigranes, on the left side of him. He then deferred hearing what he had to say till the next day, and invited the father and son to sup with him that evening. The son refused to be there with his father; and as he had not showed him the least mark of respect during the interview, and had treated him with the same indifference as if he had been a stranger, Pompey was very much offended at that behaviour. He did not, however, entirely neglect his interests in determining upon the affair of Tigranes. After having condemned Tigranes to pay the Romans six thousand talents for the charges of the war he had made against them without cause, * Plut. in Pomp. p. 636, 637. Appian. p. 242. Dion. Cass. 1. xxxvi. p. 25, 26. Mox ipse supplex et præsens se regnumque ditioni ejus permisit, præfatus: neminem alium neque Romanum neque ullius gentis virum futurum fuisse, cujus se fidei commissurus foret, quam Cn. Pompeium. Proinde omnem sibi vel adversam vel secundam, cujus auctor ille esset, fortunam tolerabilem futuram. Non esset turpe ab eo vinci quem vincere esset nefas: neque ei inhoneste aliquem submitti quem fortuna super omnes extulisset.-Vel. Paterc. 1. ii. c. 37. and to relinquish to them all his conquests on that side of the Euphrates, he decreed that he should reign in his ancient kingdom, Armenia Major, and that his son should have Gordiana and Sophena, two provinces upon the borders of Armenia, during his father's life, and all the rest of his dominions after his death; reserving, however, to the father, the treasures he had in Sophena, without which it had been impossible for him to have paid the Romans the sums which Pompey required of him. The father was well pleased with these conditions, which still left him a crown. But the son, who had entertained chimerical hopes, could not relish a decree which deprived him of what had been promised him. He was even so much discontented with it, that he wanted to escape, in order to have excited new troubles. Pompey, who suspected his design, ordered him to be always kept in view; and upon his absolutely refusing to consent that his father should withdraw his treasures from Sophena, he caused him to be put in prison. Afterwards, having discovered that he solicited the Armenian nobility to take up arms, and endeavoured to engage the Parthians to do the same, he put him among those he reserved for his triumph. Some time after, Phraates, king of the Parthians, sent to Pompey, to claim that young prince as his son-in-law, and to represent to him that he ought to make the Euphrates the boundary of his conquests. Pompey made answer, that the younger Tigranes was more related to his father than his father-in-law; and that as to his conquests, he should give them such bounds as reason and justice required, but without being prescribed in them by any one. When Tigranes had been suffered to possess himself of his treasures in Sophena, he paid the six thousand talents, and besides that, gave every private soldier fifty drachmas, a thousand to a centurion, and ten thousand to each tribune; and by that liberality obtained the title of friend and ally of the Roman people. This had been pardonable, had he not added to it, abject behaviour, and submissions, unworthy of a king. Pompey gave all Cappadocia to Ariobarzanes, and added to it Sophena and Gordiana, which he had designed for young Tigranes. After having regulated every thing in Armenia, Pompey marched northward in pursuit of Mithridates. Upon the banks of the Cyrus he found the Albanians and Iberians, two powerful nations, situated between the Caspian and Euxine seas, who endeavoured to stop him; but he beat them, and obliged the Albanians to demand peace. He granted it, and passed the winter in their country.† The next year he took the field very early against the Iberians. This was a very warlike nation, and had never been conquered. It had always retained its liberty, during the time that the Medes, Persians and Macedonians, had alternately possessed the empire of Asia. Pompey found means to subdue this people, though not without very considerable difficulties, and obliged them to demand peace. The king of the Iberians sent him a bed, a table, and a throne, all of massy gold; desiring him to accept those presents as earnests of his amity. Pompey put them into the hands of the quæstors, for the public treasury. He also subjected the people of Colchis, and made their king Olthaces prisoner, whom he afterwards led in triumph. From thence he returned into Albania, to chastise that nation for having taken up arms again, while he was engaged with the Iberians and people of Colchis. The army of the Albanians was commanded by Cosis, the brother of king Orodes. That prince, as soon as the two armies came to blows, confined himself to Pompey, and spurring furiously up to him, darted his javelin at him; but Pompey received him so vigorously with his spear, that he thrust him through the body, and laid him dead at his horse's feet. The Albanians were overthrown, and a great slaughter was made of them. This victory obliged king Orodes to purchase a second peace on the same terms as those he had entered into the * Called Cyrnus also, by some authors. † Plut. in Pomp. p. 637. Dion. Cass. lxxxvi. p. 28-33. Appian. p. 242, 245. |