Helmet and spear

by Alfred John Church

After a somewhat uneasy peace of ten years war broke out again. Each side was suspicious of the other. Mithradates had steadily employed himself in increasing his dominions in every direction where he did not come into actual collision with Rome. Rome, on the other hand, had a way of receiving legacies of kingdoms, very much to the annoyance of those who conceived themselves to have a better title to the inheritance. In 75 B.C., for instance, she took possession of Bithynia, which Mithradates had always coveted, in accordance with the will of Nicomedes III. The King naturally took offence at this proceeding, and as he saw at the same time a prospect of taking his great enemy at a disadvantage, he declared war. He hoped that Sertorius in Spain would make a diversion in his favour, and he also looked for help from the pirates who swarmed in the Mediterranean.

These expectations were but partially fulfilled. Sertorius was very near the end of his career, and could be practically ignored. Mithradates won a few successes here and there, but he had a very able soldier, Lucullus, to contend with. After a few months' fighting he had to fly from his kingdom and take refuge with his son-in-law, Tigranes, King of Armenia.

Lucullus now ventured on a very bold course of action. He sent envoys to Tigranes demanding the surrender of Mithradates. This was, of course, refused, as indeed Lucullus expected and even intended that it should be. The Roman general then crossed the Euphrates and marched on Tigranocerta. This was a new city, and was the creation as it bore the name of Tigranes. He had peopled it with inhabitants, taken, after the fashion of Eastern kings, from conquered or simply subject tribes, and had supplied it with all the conveniences and ornaments of Greek civilisation. Its walls, the historian tells us, were seventy feet high, and must have been of huge circuit, if there were parks and lakes within them. Lucullus laid siege to the city, though he could hardly have had sufficient force to invest it. It was not long before Tigranes moved to its relief. At first, indeed, he had simply refused to believe that the Romans could have made so audacious an advance, and with a savagery, in curious contrast with his veneer of civilisation, ordered the messenger who brought the unwelcome news to be crucified. When he learnt the truth, he raised a huge army—250,000 infantry and 50,000 cavalry are the numbers given us by historians—and marched to attack Lucullus.

Mithradates was with his son-in-law, and strongly advised him not to risk a battle. "Use your cavalry to cut off his supplies," was his advice, for the old King knew what Roman soldiers were when they were led by such a general as Lucullus. Tigranes laughed to scorn this prudent counsel. He could not conceive that the handful of men which were all that the Romans had to oppose to him, could possibly stand up against an army which was nearly twenty times as numerous. For Lucullus had divided his small force, leaving a part to carry on the siege of the city while he went to meet Tigranes with the remainder.[38]

The battle that followed was one of the most remarkable in history, worthy to be ranked with Marathon, for, indeed, the odds were at least as great as any of which we have a record. Unfortunately for the fame of Lucullus there was no one to tell the story as it ought to have been told. The strategy of Lucullus was that employed times out of number with success by the leader of a regular army acting against an undisciplined host—he outflanked his opponents. What we can understand from the accounts, not easily reconcilable, is that a front attack was made, or rather threatened, by the Roman cavalry. It advanced, and then retreated, in seeming panic, and the Asiatics pursued in headlong haste. Meanwhile the outflanking movement had been made unseen by the infantry. Attacking the rear of the army, they sent the camp-followers flying in wild confusion; these broke the lines of the infantry; the infantry in turn threw the horsemen into confusion. The panic once set up, the huge, unmanageable numbers of the Asiatic host did nothing but aggravate it. The pursuit was fierce and pitiless. Lucullus threatened the severest penalties against any soldier who should turn aside for a moment to encumber himself with spoil. For fifteen miles the road was strewed with costly chains and bracelets which no one picked up. The pursuit over, the men were allowed to appropriate all the treasures they could find. Five Romans, and five only, are said to have been slain. The enemy's dead were counted by tens of thousands.

This great victory had not, it is true, the permanent result which might have been expected. This failure was due to the weakness of the Government at home and the jealousy of parties. Lucullus was hampered by want of means, and had to share his authority with incompetent colleagues. It was not long before both Tigranes and Mithradates recovered all that they had lost.

But this was but a temporary falling back of the Roman power. The people, profoundly dissatisfied with the policy that had made such brilliant victories unproductive, put the supreme power into the hands of a man whom it could trust. In 67 B.C. Pompey cleared the Mediterranean of the pirates, and two years later he brought to an end the long struggle with Mithradates. Tigranes had made his submission to Rome, and, while surrendering all his conquests, had been permitted to retain his hereditary kingdom of Armenia. Mithradates was driven to take refuge in a remote region at the eastern end of the Black Sea. He had conceived, it is said, a bold scheme of raising the tribes to the north of that sea and falling upon Italy as the Gauls and as Hannibal had fallen upon it. But he had not the means of carrying out so large a project. His subjects, wearied of perpetual exactions, rebelled, led by one of his sons, and he saw that nothing remained but death. His wives and his daughters were compelled or possibly offered to drink poison. He drank it himself, but—so runs the story—had so fortified himself with antidotes, that the drug did not affect him. He then commanded a Celtic mercenary to render him the last service by a stroke of his sword. By his death the Roman dominion was practically established as far as the Euphrates. That it was not to be extended beyond it was practically proved by the events which I have now to relate.

Five years after the fall of Mithradates there was formed at Rome what is commonly called the First Triumvirate.[39]

Of the three men who composed it Pompey had gained a great reputation as a soldier, Cæsar had acquired almost equal distinction by his victory in Gaul, while Crassus, though he had served with credit on more than one occasion, was distinctly inferior in this respect to his colleagues. He felt that such an inferiority would tell greatly against him when the spoils came to be divided. It was to the East that he looked for the opportunity that he desired. There had been trouble in the region beyond the Euphrates for some time, and Rome, accused of having failed to keep her treaty arrangement, was, of course, mixed up in it. In 55 B.C., the year when Cæsar's command in Gaul had been renewed for a second period of five years, Crassus was elected Consul, his colleague being Pompey. The province allotted to him after his year of office was Syria, and he left Rome before the year was out to take up his command. He did not meet with anything like universal approval. The decree which gave him the province of Syria made no mention of Parthia, but everyone knew that Parthia was to be attacked, and there was a strong party that, either from prudence or from a sense of right, was strongly opposed to what was manifestly a war of aggression. One of the Tribunes of the People attempted to stop his departure from Rome, actually bidding his attendant detain him by force. This attempt failing, he took his stand at the gate by which Crassus was to depart, and on a hastily constructed altar performed some mysterious rite by which he devoted, under strange and awful curses, the head of Crassus to destruction. But Crassus persevered; arrived at Brundisium he would not wait for favourable weather, but at once crossed the sea, not without suffering a considerable loss in ships. The rest of his journey he performed by land. When passing through Galatia he was entertained by the prince of that country, Deiotarus, then a very old man. Deiotarus was busy building a city, and Crassus jestingly marvelled that at such an age he should engage in such an undertaking. "And you," replied the old man, "who are on your way to Parthia, are not quite in your youth." Crassus was sixty, and looked, we are told, considerably older.

His first operations, after his arrival, were fairly successful, but he did not make a favourable impression. The Euphrates he crossed without opposition, and he received the submission of some important towns in Mesopotamia. He was considered, on the other hand, to have been wanting in dignity when he allowed his soldiers to salute him on the field as Imperator after the capture of a third-rate fortress—for this was a compliment that was appropriate only to real achievements. And in his proceedings generally he seemed to look to the collection of wealth rather than to military glory. The tokens of ill-fortune to come were, of course, not wanting. Crassus had been joined by his son, who had been serving as one of Cæsar's lieutenants in Gaul, and both paid a visit to a famous temple at Hierapolis. As they were leaving it the son caught his foot and fell, and the elder man stumbled over him. The enemy were in no submissive mood. Envoys from the Parthian king declared that if Crassus was executing the will of the Roman people the Parthians would avenge the insult to the utmost, but that if he was only seeking his own private ends they would pardon an old man's folly and restore unharmed the garrisons who were virtually their prisoners. Crassus replied that he would give them an answer at Seleucia, their capital. "Seleucia!" cried the leader of the embassy, holding up the palm of his hand. "Hair will grow on this before you see Seleucia." The army soon became seriously discouraged. The Parthians were evidently a more formidable enemy than they had yet encountered, very different from the unwarlike races of Western Asia. The reports of the soothsayers were of the gloomiest kind, and omens of coming disasters were frequent. The spot selected for a camp was twice struck by lightning; when the rations were distributed the articles first given out were lentils and salt, the two chief articles in the meals served for the spirits of the dead. Worst of all, the eagle-standard of the legion that was the first to advance was seen to turn away from the enemy's country.