Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
rather the Cilicians of the king's side who held it; who thereupon
killed a number of the Sinopians, and set the city on fire, and by
night endeavored to escape. Which when Lucullus perceived, he
entered the city, and killed eight thousand of them who were still
left behind; but restored to the inhabitants what was their own,
and took special care for the welfare of the city. To which he was
chiefly prompted by this vision. One seemed to come to him in his
sleep, and say, "Go on a little further, Lucullus, for Autolycus is
coming to see thee." When he arose, he could not imagine what the
vision meant. The same day he took the city, and as he was
pursuing the Cilicians, who were flying by sea, he saw a statue
lying on the shore, which the Cilicians carried so far, but had not
time to carry aboard. It was one of the masterpieces of Sthenis.
And one told him, that it was the statue of Autolycus, the founder
of the city. This Autolycus is reported to have been son to
Deimachus, and one of those who, under Hercules, went on the
expedition out of Thessaly against the Amazons; from whence in his
return with Demoleon and Phlogius, he lost his vessel on a point of
the Chersonesus, called Pedalium. He himself, with his companions
and their weapons, being saved, came to Sinope, and dispossessed
the Syrians there. The Syrians held it, descended from Syrus, as
is the story, the son of Apollo, and Sinope the daughter of Asopus.
Which as soon as Lucullus heard, he remembered the admonition of
Sylla, whose advice it is in his Memoirs, to treat nothing as so
certain and so worthy of reliance as an intimation given in dreams.
When it was now told him that Mithridates and Tigranes were just
ready to transport their forces into Lycaonia and Cilicia, with the
object of entering Asia before him, he wondered much why the
Armenian, supposing him to entertain any real intention to fight
with the Romans, did not assist Mithridates in his flourishing
condition, and join forces when he was fit for service, instead of
suffering him to be vanquished and broken in pieces, and now at
last beginning the war, when his hopes were grown cold, and
throwing himself down headlong with them, who were irrecoverably
fallen already. But when Machares, the son of Mithridates, and
governor of Bosporus, sent him a crown valued at a thousand pieces
of gold, and desired to be enrolled as a friend and confederate of
the Romans, he fairly reputed that war at an end, and left
Sornatius, his deputy, with six thousand soldiers, to take care of
Pontus. He himself with twelve thousand foot, and a little less
than three thousand horse, went forth to the second war, advancing,
it seemed very plain, with too great and ill-advised speed, into
the midst of warlike nations, and many thousands upon thousands of
horse, into an unknown extent of country, every way enclosed with
deep rivers and mountains, never free from snow; which made the
soldiers, already far from orderly, follow him with great
unwillingness and opposition. For the same reason, also, the
popular leaders at home publicly inveighed and declaimed against
him, as one that raised up war after war, not so much for the
interest of the republic, as that he himself, being still in
commission, might not lay down arms, but go on enriching himself by
the public dangers. These men, in the end, effected their purpose.
But Lucullus by long journeys came to the Euphrates, where, finding
the waters high and rough from the winter, he was much troubled for
fear of delay and difficulty while he should procure boats and make
a bridge of them. But in the evening the flood beginning to
retire, and decreasing all through the night, the next day they saw
the river far down within his banks, so much so that the
inhabitants, discovering the little islands in the river, and the
water stagnating among them, a thing which had rarely happened
before, made obeisance to Lucullus, before whom the very river was
humble and submissive, and yielded an easy and swift passage.
Making use of the opportunity, he carried over his army, and met
with a lucky sign at landing. Holy heifers are pastured on purpose
for Diana Persia, whom, of all the gods, the barbarians beyond
Euphrates chiefly adore. They use these heifers only for her
sacrifices. At other times they wander up and down undisturbed,
with the mark of the goddess, a torch, branded on them; and it is
no such light or easy thing, when occasion requires, to seize one
of them. But one of these, when the army had passed the Euphrates,
coming to a rock consecrated to the goddess, stood upon it, and
then laying down her neck, like others that are forced down with a
rope, offered herself to Lucullus for sacrifice. Besides which, he
offered also a bull to Euphrates, for his safe passage. That day
he tarried there, but on the next, and those that followed, he
traveled through Sophene, using no manner of violence to the people
who came to him and willingly received his army. And when the
soldiers were desirous to plunder a castle that seemed to be well
stored within, "That is the castle," said he, "that we must storm,"
showing them Taurus, at a distance; "the rest is reserved for those
who conquer there." Wherefore hastening his march, and passing the
Tigris, he came over into Armenia
The first messenger that gave notice of Lucullus's coming was so
far from pleasing Tigranes, that he had his head cut off for his
pains; and no man daring to bring further information, without any
intelligence at all, Tigranes sat while war was already blazing
around him, giving ear only to those who flattered him, by saying
that Lucullus would show himself a great commander, if he ventured
to wait for Tigranes at Ephesus, and did not at once fly out of
Asia, at the mere sight of the many thousands that were come
against him. He is a man of a strong body that can carry off a
great quantity of wine, and of a powerful constitution of mind that
can sustain felicity. Mithrobarzanes, one of his chief favorites,
first dared to tell him the truth, but had no more thanks for his
freedom of speech, than to be immediately sent out against Lucullus
with three thousand horse, and a great number of foot, with
peremptory commands to bring him alive, and trample down his army.
Some of Lucullus's men were then pitching their camp, and the rest
were coming up to them, when the scouts gave notice that the enemy
was approaching, whereupon he was in fear lest they should fall
upon him, while his men were divided and unarranged; which made him
stay to pitch the camp himself, and send out Sextilius, the legate,
with sixteen hundred horse, and about as many heavy and light arms,
with orders to advance towards the enemy, and wait until
intelligence came to him that the camp was finished. Sextilius
designed to have kept this order; but Mithrobarzanes coming
furiously upon him, he was forced to fight. In the engagement,
Mithrobarzanes himself was slain, fighting, and all his men, except
a few who ran away, were destroyed. After this Tigranes left
Tigranocerta, a great city built by himself, and retired to Taurus,
and called all his forces about him.
But Lucullus, giving him no time to rendezvous, sent out Murena to
harass and cut off those who marched to Tigranes, and Sextilius,
also, to disperse a great company of Arabians then on the way to
the king. Sextilius fell upon the Arabians in their camp, and
destroyed most of them, and also Murena, in his pursuit after
Tigranes through a craggy and narrow pass, opportunely fell upon
him. Upon which Tigranes, abandoning all his baggage, fled; many
of the Armenians were killed, and more taken. After this success,
Lucullus went to Tigranocerta, and sitting down before the city,
besieged it. In it were many Greeks carried away out of Cilicia,
and many barbarians in like circumstances with the Greeks,
Adiabenians, Assyrians, Gordyenians, and Cappadocians, whose native
cities he had destroyed, and forced away the inhabitants to settle
here. It was a rich and beautiful city; every common man, and
every man of rank, in imitation of the king, studied to enlarge and
adorn it. This made Lucullus more vigorously press the siege, in
the belief that Tigranes would not patiently endure it, but even
against his own judgment would come down in anger to force him
away; in which he was not mistaken. Mithridates earnestly
dissuaded him from it, sending messengers and letters to him not to
engage, but rather with his horse to try and cut off the supplies.
Taxiles, also, who came from Mithridates, and who stayed with his
army, very much entreated the king to forbear, and to avoid the
Roman arms, things it was not safe to meddle with. To this he
hearkened at first, but when the Armenians and Gordyenians in a
full body, and the whole forces of Medes and Adiabenians, under
their respective kings, joined him; when many Arabians came up from
the sea beyond Babylon; and from the Caspian sea, the Albanians and
the Iberians their neighbors, and not a few of the free people,
without kings, living about the Araxes, by entreaty and hire also
came together to him; and all the king's feasts and councils rang
of nothing but expectations, boastings, and barbaric threatenings,
Taxiles went in danger of his life, for giving counsel against
fighting, and it was imputed to envy in Mithridates thus to
discourage him from so glorious an enterprise. Therefore Tigranes
would by no means tarry for him, for fear he should share in the
glory, but marched on with all his army, lamenting to his friends,
as it is said, that he should fight with Lucullus alone, and not
with all the Roman generals together. Neither was his boldness to
be accounted wholly frantic or unreasonable, when he had so many
nations and kings attending him, and so many tens of thousands of
well-armed foot and horse about him. He had twenty thousand
archers and slingers, fifty-five thousand horse, of which seventeen
thousand were in complete armor, as Lucullus wrote to the senate, a
hundred and fifty thousand heavy-armed men, drawn up partly into
cohorts, partly into phalanxes, besides various divisions of men
appointed to make roads and lay bridges, to drain off waters and
cut wood, and to perform other necessary services, to the number of
thirty-five thousand, who, being quartered behind the army, added
to its strength, and made it the more formidable to behold.
As soon as he had passed Taurus, and appeared with his forces, and
saw the Romans beleaguering Tigranocerta, the barbarous people
within with shoutings and acclamations received the sight, and
threatening the Romans from the wall, pointed to the Armenians. In
a council of war, some advised Lucullus to leave the siege, and
march up to Tigranes, others that it would not be safe to leave the
siege, and so many enemies behind. He answered that neither side
by itself was right, but together both gave sound advice; and
accordingly he divided his army, and left Murena with six thousand
foot in charge of the siege, and himself went out with twenty-four
cohorts, in which were no more than ten thousand men at arms, and
with all the horse, and about a thousand slingers and archers; and
sitting down by the river in a large plain, he appeared, indeed,
very inconsiderable to Tigranes, and a fit subject for the
flattering wits about him. Some of whom jeered, others cast lots
for the spoil, and every one of the kings and commanders came and
desired to undertake the engagement alone, and that he would be
pleased to sit still and behold. Tigranes himself, wishing to be
witty and pleasant upon the occasion, made use of the well-known
saying, that they were too many for ambassadors, and too few for
soldiers. Thus they continued sneering and scoffing. As soon as