e in advance the Armenia belonging to
Tigranes. When Mithridates ascertained this he was alarmed and by means
of an embassy immediately arranged a treaty. As for Pompey's command
that he lay down his arms and deliver up the deserters, he had no chance
to deliberate; for the large number of deserters who were in his camp
hearing it and fearing they should be delivered up, and the barbarians
fearing that they should be compelled to fight without them, raised an
uproar. And they would have done some harm to the king, had he not by
pretending falsely that he had sent the envoys not for the truce but to
spy out the Roman troops, with difficulty kept them in check.

[-46-]Pompey, therefore, having decided that he must needs fight, in the
course of his other preparations made an additional enlistment of the
Valerians. When he was now in Galatia, Lucullus met him. The latter
declared the whole conflict over, and said there was no further need of
an expedition and that for this reason also the men sent by the senate
for the administration of the districts had arrived. Failing to persuade
him to retire Lucullus turned to abuse, stigmatizing him as officious, a
lover of war, a lover of office, and so on. Pompey, paying him but
slight attention, forbade every one any longer to obey his commands and
pressed on against Mithridates, being in haste to join issue with him as
quickly as possible.

[-47-] The king for a time kept fleeing, since he was inferior in
numbers: he continually devastated the country before him, gave Pompey a
long chase, and made him feel the want of provisions. But when the Roman
invaded Armenia both for the above reasons and because he wanted to
capture it while abandoned, Mithridates fearing it would be occupied
before his advent also entered the country. He took possession of a
strong hill opposite and there rested with his entire army, hoping to
exhaust the Romans by lack of provisions, while he could get abundance
from many quarters, being in a subject territory. He kept sending down
some of his cavalry into the plain, which was bare, and injured
considerably those who encountered them; after such a movement he would
receive large accessions of deserters.

Pompey was not bold enough to assail them in that position, but he moved
his camp to another spot where the surrounding country was wooded and he
would be troubled less by the cavalry and bowmen of his adversaries, and
there he set an ambuscade where an