ts, and his son should be King of
Sophene. Tigranes assented to these terms, and being overjoyed by the
Romans saluting him as king, he promised to give every soldier half a
mina of silver,[263] to a centurion ten minae, and to a tribune a
talent. But his son took this ill, and on being invited to supper he
said that he was not in want of Pompeius to show such honour as this,
for he would find another Roman.[264] In consequence of this he was
put in chains and kept for the triumph. No long time after Phraates
the Parthian sent to demand the young man, as his son-in-law, and to
propose that the Euphrates should be the boundary of the two powers.
Pompeius replied that Tigranes belonged to his father rather than to
his father-in-law, and that as to a boundary he should determine that
on the principles of justice.

XXXIV. Leaving Afranius in care of Armenia, Pompeius advanced through
the nations that dwell about the Caucasus,[265] as of necessity he
must do, in pursuit of Mithridates. The greatest of these nations are
Albani and Iberians, of whom the Iberians extend to the Moschic
mountains and the Pontus, and the Albani extend to the east and the
Caspian Sea. The Albani at first allowed a free passage to Pompeius at
his request; but as winter overtook the Romans in the country and they
were occupied with the festival of the Saturnalia,[266] mustering to
the number of forty thousand they attacked the Romans, after crossing
the Cyrnus[267] river, which rising in the Iberian mountains and
receiving the Araxes which comes down from Armenia, empties itself by
twelve mouths into the Caspian. Others say that the Araxes does not
join this stream, but that it has a separate outlet, though near to
the other, into the same sea. Pompeius, though he could have opposed
the enemy while they were crossing the river, let them cross quietly,
and then he attacked and put them to flight and destroyed a great
number. As the King begged for pardon, and sent ambassadors, Pompeius
excused him for the wrong that he had done, and making a treaty with
him, advanced against the Iberians, who were as numerous as the Albani
and more warlike, and had a strong wish to please Mithridates and to
repel Pompeius. For the Iberians had never submitted either to the
Medes or the Persians,[268] and they had escaped the dominion of the
Macedonians also, inasmuch as Alexander soon quitted Hyrkania. However
Pompeius routed the Iberians also in a great battle, in wh