eble government of the oligarchy:
in this point of view it was judicious to forgo the direct possession
of the country of the Nile.

Non-Intervention in Asia Minor and Syria

Less justifiable was the failure of the senate to interfere directly
in the affairs of Asia Minor and Syria. The Roman government did not
indeed recognize the Armenian conqueror as king of Cappadocia
and Syria; but it did nothing to drive him back, although the war,
which under pressure of necessity it began in 676 against the pirates
in Cilicia, naturally suggested its interference more especially
in Syria. In fact, by tolerating the loss of Cappadocia and Syria
without declaring war, the government abandoned not merely
those committed to its protection, but the most important
foundations of its own powerful position. It adopted
a hazardous course, when it sacrificed the outworks of its dominion
in the Greek settlements and kingdoms on the Euphrates
and Tigris; but, when it allowed the Asiatics to establish
themselves on the Mediterranean which was the political
basis of its empire, this was not a proof of love of peace,
but a confession that the oligarchy had been rendered by the Sullan
restoration more oligarchical doubtless, but neither wiser
nor more energetic, and it was for Rome's place as a power
in the world the beginning of the end.

On the other side, too, there was no desire for war. Tigranes
had no reason to wish it, when Rome even without war abandoned
to him all its allies. Mithradates, who was no mere sultan and had
enjoyed opportunity enough, amidst good and bad fortune, of gaining
experience regarding friends and foes, knew very well that in a second
Roman war he would very probably stand quite as much alone
as in the first, and that he could follow no more prudent course
than to keep quiet and to strengthen his kingdom in the interior.
That he was in earnest with his peaceful declarations, he had
sufficiently proved in the conference with Murena.(9) He continued
to avoid everything which would compel the Roman government
to abandon its passive attitude.

Apprehensions of Rome

But as the first Mithradatic war had arisen without any of the partie
properly desiring it, so now there grew out of the opposition
of interests mutual suspicion, and out of this suspicion
mutual preparations for defence; and these, by their very gravity,
ultimately led to an open breach. That distrust of her own readiness
to fight and prepa