oman client-state into a Roman province.
A commission of the senate was expected, to settle in concert
with the commander-in-chief the new provincial organization.

Beginning of the Armenian War

But the relations with Armenia were not yet settled.
Thata declaration of war by the Romans against Tigranes
was in itself justified and even demanded, we have already shown.
Lucullus, who looked at the state of affairs from a nearer point of view
and with a higher spirit than the senatorial college in Rome, perceived
clearly the necessity of confining Armenia to the other side
of the Tigris and of re-establishing the lost dominion of Rome over
the Mediterranean. He showed himself in the conduct of Asiatic
affairs no unworthy successor of his instructor and friend Sulla.
A Philhellene above most Romans of his time, he was not insensible
to the obligation which Rome had come under when taking up
the heritage of Alexander--the obligation to be the shield and sword
of the Greeks in the east. Personal motives--the wish to earn laurels
also beyond the Euphrates, irritation at the fact that the great-
king in a letter to him had omitted the title of Imperator--may
doubtless have partly influenced Lucullus; but it is unjust
to assume paltry and selfish motives for actions, which motives
of duty quite suffice to explain. The Roman governing college
at any rate--timid, indolent, ill informed, and above all beset
by perpetual financial embarrassments--could never be expected,
without direct compulsion, to take the initiative in an expedition
so vast and costly. About the year 682 the legitimate representatives
of the Seleucid dynasty, Antiochus called the Asiatic and his brother,
moved by the favourable turn of the Pontic war, had gone to Rome
to procure a Roman intervention in Syria, and at the same
time a recognition of their hereditary claims on Egypt.
If the latter demand might not be granted, there could not, at any rate,
be found a more favourable moment or occasion for beginning the war
which had long been necessary against Tigranes. But the senate,
while it recognized the princes doubtless as the legitimate
kings of Syria, could not make up its mind to decree the armed
intervention. If the favourable opportunity was to be employed,
and Armenia was to be dealt with in earnest, Lucullus had to begin
the war, without any proper orders from the senate, at his own hand
and his own risk; he found himself, just like Sulla, plac