g from Armenia to Iberia. Artoces, surprised
by the enemy before he was aware of it, hastily burnt the bridge over
the Kur and retreated negotiating into the interior. Pompeius occupied
the fortresses and followed the Iberians to the other bank
of the Kur; by which he hoped to induce them to immediate submission.
But Artoces retired farther and farther into the interior,
and, when at length he halted on the river Pelorus, he did so
not to surrender but to fight. The Iberian archers however withstood
not for a moment the onset of the Roman legions, and, when Artoces
saw the Pelorus also crossed by the Romans, he submitted
at length to the conditions which the victor proposed, and sent
his children as hostages.

Pompeius Proceeds to Colchis

Pompeius now, agreeably to the plan which he had formerly projected,
marched through the Sarapana pass from the region of the Kur
to that of the Phasis and thence down that river to the Black Sea,
where on the Colchian coast the fleet under Servilius already
awaited him. But it was for an uncertain idea, and an aim almost
unsubstantial, that the army and fleet were thus brought
to the richly fabled shores of Colchis. The laborious march just
completed through unknown and mostly hostile nations was nothing
when compared with what still awaited them, and if they should
really succeed in conducting the force from the mouth of the Phasis
to the Crimea, through warlike and poor barbarian tribes,
on inhospitable and unknown waters, along a coast where
at certain places the mountains sink perpendicularly into the sea
and it would have been absolutely necessary to embark in the ships--
if such a march should be successfully accomplished, which was perhaps
more difficult than the campaigns of Alexander and Hannibal--
what was gained by it even at the best, corresponding at all to its toils
and dangers? The war doubtless was not ended, so long as the old
king was still among the living; but who could guarantee that they
would really succeed in catching the royal game for the sake of which
this unparalleled chase was to be instituted? Was it not better
even at the risk of Mithradates once more throwing the torch
of war into Asia Minor, to desist from a pursuit which promised
so little gain and so many dangers? Doubtless numerous voices
in the army, and still more numerous voices in the capital,
urged the general to continue the pursuit incessantly and at any price;
but they were the vo