FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69  
70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   >>   >|  
tenant of the great-king. The age of the kings of Nineveh, ofthe Salmanezers and Sennacheribs, seemed to be renewed; again oriental despotism pressed heavily on the trading population of the Syrian coast, as it did formerly on Tyre and Sidon; again great states of the interior threw themselves on the provinces along the Mediterranean; again Asiatic hosts, said to number half a million combatants, appeared on the Cilician and Syrian coasts. As Salmanezer and Nebuchadnezzar had formerly carried the Jews to Babylon, so now from all the frontier provinces of the new kingdom--from Corduene, Adiabene, Assyria, Cilicia, Cappadocia-- the inhabitants, especially the Greek or half-Greek citizens of the towns, were compelled to settle with their whole goods and chattels (under penalty of the confiscation of everything that they left behind) in the new capital, one of those gigantic cities proclaiming rather the nothingness of the people than the greatness of the rulers, which sprang up in the countries of the Euphrates on every change in the supreme sovereignty at the fiat of the new grand sultan. The new "city of Tigranes," Tigrano-certa, founded on the borders of Armenia and Mesopotamia, and destined as the capital of the territories newly acquired for Armenia, became a city like Nineveh and Babylon, with walls fifty yards high, and the appendages of palace, garden, and park that were appropriate to sultanism. In other respects, too, the new great-king proved faithful to his part. As amidst the perpetual childhood of the east the childlike conceptions of kings with real crowns on their heads have never disappeared, Tigranes, when he showed himselfin public, appeared in the state and the costume of a successor of Darius and Xerxes, with the purple caftan, the half-white half-purple tunic, the long plaited trousers, the high turban, and the royal diadem--attended moreover and served in slavish fashion, wherever he went or stood, by four "kings." Mithradates King Mithradates acted with greater moderation. He refrained from aggressions in Asia Minor, and contented himself with-- what no treaty forbade--placing his dominion along the Black Sea ona firmer basis, and gradually bringing into more definite dependence the regions which separated the Bosporan kingdom, now ruled under his supremacy by his son Machares, from that of Pontus. But he too applied every effort to render his fleet and army efficient, and especially to a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69  
70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Tigranes

 

provinces

 

Mithradates

 

appeared

 

purple

 

kingdom

 

capital

 

Nineveh

 
Armenia
 

Syrian


Babylon

 

Xerxes

 

Darius

 
plaited
 

caftan

 
turban
 
trousers
 
faithful
 

amidst

 
perpetual

childhood

 

proved

 

respects

 

sultanism

 

childlike

 

conceptions

 

himselfin

 

showed

 

public

 
costume

disappeared
 
crowns
 
diadem
 

successor

 

definite

 

dependence

 
regions
 
separated
 
bringing
 

firmer


gradually
 

Bosporan

 

render

 

effort

 

efficient

 

applied

 

supremacy

 

Machares

 

Pontus

 

dominion