deferred the prosecution of his plans
of conquest on the Mediterranean on account of the embroilment
with the Romans. He was just projecting an inroad into Roman Asia
from Cilicia and Lycaonia, and was considering whether the Romans
would at once evacuate Asia or would previously give him battle,
possibly at Ephesus, when the news was brought to him of the advance
of Lucullus, which threatened to cut off his communications
with Artaxata. He ordered the messenger to be hanged,
but the disagreeable reality remained unaltered; so he left
the new capital and resorted to the interior of Armenia, in order
there to raise a force--which had not yet been done--against the Romans.
Meanwhile Mithrobarzanes with the troops actually at his disposal
and in concert with the neighbouring Bedouin tribes, who were called out
in all haste, was to give employment to the Romans. But the corps
of Mithrobarzanes was dispersed by the Roman vanguard, and the Arabs
by a detachment under Sextilius; Lucullus gained the road leading
from Tigranocerta to Artaxata, and, while on the right bank
of the Tigrisa Roman detachment pursued the great-king
retreating northwards, Lucullus himself crossed to the left
and marched forward to Tigranocerta.

Siege and Battle of Tigranocerta

The exhaustless showers of arrows which the garrison poured upon
the Roman army, and the setting fire to the besieging machines
by means of naphtha, initiated the Romans into the new dangers
of Iranian warfare; and the brave commandant Mancaeus maintained
the city, till at length the great royal army of relief had assembled
from all parts of the vast empire and the adjoining countries
that were open to Armenian recruiting officers, and had advanced
through the north-eastern passes to the relief of the capital.
The leader Taxiles, experienced in the wars of Mithradates,
advised Tigranes to avoid a battle, and to surround and starve out
the small Roman army by means of his cavalry. But when the king saw
the Roman general, who had determined to give battle without raising
the siege, move out with not much more than 10,000 men against a force
twenty times superior, and boldly cross the river which separated
the two armies; when he surveyed on the one side this little band,
"too many for an embassy, too few for an army," and on the other
side his own immense host, in which the peoples from the Black Sea
and the Caspian met with those of the Mediterranean and of
the Persian G