Greeks, and there was a
story to this effect, that though the king tempted her with an offer
of fifteen thousand gold pieces, she held out until a marriage
contract was made, and he sent her a diadem[375] with the title of
queen. Now Monime hitherto was very unhappy, and bewailed that beauty
which had given her a master instead of a husband, and a set of
barbarians to watch over her instead of marriage and a family; and she
lamented that she was removed from her native country, enjoying her
anticipated happiness only in imagination, while she was deprived of
all those real pleasures which she might have had at home. When
Bacchides arrived, and told the women to die in such manner as they
might judge easiest and least painful, Monime pulled the diadem from
her head, and, fastening it round her neck, hung herself. As the
diadem soon broke, "Cursed rag!" she exclaimed, "you won't even do me
this service;" and, spitting on it, she tossed it from her, and
presented her throat to Bacchides. Berenike took a cup of poison, and
gave a part of it to her mother, who was present, at her own request.
Together they drank it up; and the strength of the poison was
sufficient for the weaker of the two, but it did not carry off
Berenike, who had not drunk enough, and, as she was long in dying, she
was strangled with the assistance of Bacchides. Of the two unmarried
sisters of Mithridates it is said, that one of them, after uttering
many imprecations on her brother and much abuse, drank up the poison.
Statira did not utter a word of complaint, or anything unworthy of her
noble birth; but she commended her brother for that he had not
neglected them at a time when his own life was in danger, and had
provided that they should die free and be secure against insult. All
this gave pain to Lucullus, who was naturally of a mild and humane
temper.

XIX. Lucullus advanced as far as Talaura,[376] whence four days before
Mithridates had fled into Armenia to Tigranes. From Talaura Lucullus
took a different direction, and after subduing the Chaldaei and
Tibareni, and taking possession of the Less Armenia, and reducing
forts and cities, he sent Appius to Tigranes to demand Mithridates;
but he went himself to Amisus, which was still holding out against the
siege. This was owing to Kallimachus the commander, who by his skill
in mechanical contrivances, and his ingenuity in devising every
resource which is available in a siege, gave the Romans great
ann