en able to maintain
discipline and to restrain their eagerness for spoil, hardly a man
would have escaped them, and the king himself would doubtless have
been taken. With difficulty Mithradates escaped along with a few
attendants through the mountains to Comana (not far from Tocat
and the source of the Iris); from which, however, a Roman corps
under Marcus Pompeius soon scared him off and pursued him, till,
attended by not more than 2000 cavalry, he crossed the frontier
of his kingdom at Talaura in Lesser Armenia. In the empire
of the great-king he found a refuge, but nothing more (end of 682).
Tigranes, it is true, ordered royal honours to be shown to his fugitive
father-in-law; but he did not even invite him to his court,
and detained him in the remote border-province to which he had come
in a sort of decorous captivity.

Pontus Becomes Roman
Sieges of the Pontic Cities

The Roman troops overran all Pontus and Lesser Armenia, and as
far as Trapezus the flat country submitted without resistance
to the conqueror. The commanders of the royal treasure-houses also
surrendered after more or less delay, and delivered up their stores
of money. The king ordered that the women of the royal harem--his
sisters, his numerous wives and concubines--as it was not possible
to secure their flight, should all be put to death by one of his
eunuchs at Pharnacea (Kerasunt). The towns alone offered
obstinate resistance. It is true that the few in the interior--
Cabira, Amasia, Eupatoria--were soon in the power of the Romans;
but the larger maritime towns, Amisus and Sinope in Pontus,
Amastris in Paphlagonia, Tius and the Pontic Heraclea in Bithynia,
defended themselves with desperation, partly animated by attachment
to the king and to their free Hellenic constitution which he had
protected, partly overawed by the bands of corsairs whom the king
had called to his aid. Sinope and Heraclea even sent forth vessels
against the Romans; and the squadron of Sinope seized a Roman
flotilla which was bringing corn from the Tauric peninsula
for the army of Lucullus. Heraclea did not succumb till after
a two years' siege, when the Roman fleet had cut off the city
from intercourse with the Greek towns on the Tauric peninsula and treason
had broken out in the ranks of the garrison. When Amisus was reduced
to extremities, the garrison set fire to the town, and under cover
of the flames took to their ships. In Sinope, where the daring
pirate-