The History of Rome, Book IV eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 706 pages of information about The History of Rome, Book IV.

The History of Rome, Book IV eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 706 pages of information about The History of Rome, Book IV.

11.  III.  IX.  Rupture between Antiochus and the Romans

12.  Retribution came upon the authors of the arrest and surrender of Aquillius twenty-five years afterwards, when after Mithradates’ death his son Pharnaces handed them over to the Romans.

13.  IV.  VII.  Economic Crisis

14.  We must recollect that after the outbreak of the Social War the legion had at least not more than half the number of men which it had previously, as it was no longer accompanied by Italian contingents.

15.  The chronology of these events is, like all their details, enveloped in an obscurity which investigation is able to dispel, at most, only partially.  That the battle of Chaeronea took place, if not on the same day as the storming of Athens (Pausan, i. 20), at any rate soon afterwards, perhaps in March 668, is tolerably certain.  That the succeeding Thessalian and the second Boeotian campaign took up not merely the remainder of 668 but also the whole of 669, is in itself probable and is rendered still more so by the fact that Sulla’s enterprises in Asia are not sufficient to fill more than a single campaign.  Licinianus also appears to indicate that Sulla returned to Athens for the winter of 668-669 and there took in hand the work of investigation and punishment; after which he relates the battle of Orchomenus.  The crossing of Sulla to Asia has accordingly been placed not in 669, but in 670.

16.  The resolution of the citizens of Ephesus to this effect has recently been found (Waddington, Additions to Lebas, Inscr. iii. 136 a).  They had, according to their own declaration, fallen into the power of Mithradates “the king of Cappadocia,” being frightened by the magnitude of his forces and the suddenness of his attack; but, when opportunity offered, they declared war against him “for the rule (—­egemonia—­) of the Romans and the common weal.”

17.  The statement that Mithradates in the peace stipulated for impunity to the towns which had embraced his side (Memnon, 35) seems, looking to the character of the victor and of the vanquished, far from credible, and it is not given by Appian or by Licinianus.  They neglected to draw up the treaty of peace in writing, and this neglect afterwards left room far various misrepresentations.

18.  Armenian tradition also is acquainted with the first Mithradatic war.  Ardasches king of Armenia—­Moses of Chorene tells us—­was not content with the second rank which rightfully belonged to him in the Persian (Parthian) empire, but compelled the Parthian king Arschagan to cede to him the supreme power, whereupon he had a palace built for himself in Persia and had coins struck there with his own image.  He appointed Arschagan viceroy of Persia and his son Dicran (Tigranes) viceroy of Armenia, and gave his daughter Ardaschama in marriage to the great-prince of the Iberians Mihrdates (Mithradates) who was descended from Mihrdates satrap of Darius

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The History of Rome, Book IV from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.