most
trusted officers Diodes, Phoenix, and even the most notable of the Roman
emigrants had passed over to the enemy; so now, when his star
grew pale and the old, infirm, embittered sultan was accessible
to no one else save his eunuchs, desertion followed still more rapidly
on desertion. Castor, the commandant of the fortress Phanagoria
(on the Asiatic coast opposite Kertch), first raised the standard
of revolt; he proclaimed the freedom of the town and delivered
the sons of Mithradates that were in the fortress into the hands
of the Romans. While the insurrection spread among the Bosporan towns,
and Chersonesus (not far from Sebastopol), Theudosia (Kaffa),
and others joined the Phanagorites, the king allowed his suspicion
and his cruelty to have free course. On the information of despicable
eunuchs his most confidential adherents were nailed to the cross;
the king's own sons were the least sure of their lives. The son
who was his father's favourite and was probably destined by him
as his successor, Pharnaces, took his resolution and headed
the insurgents. The servants whom Mithradates sent to arrest him,
and the troops despatched against him, passed over to his side;
the corps of Italian deserters, perhaps the most efficient among
the divisions of Mithradates' army, and for that very reason the least
inclined to share in the romantic--and for the deserters peculiarly
hazardous--expedition against Italy, declared itself en masse
for the prince; the other divisions of the army and the fleet followed
the example thus set.

Death of Mithadates

After the country and the army had abandoned the king, the capital
Panticapaeum at length opened its gates to the insurgents
and delivered over to them the old king enclosed in his palace.
From the high wall of his castle the latter besought his son at least
to grant him life and not imbrue his hands in his father's blood;
but the request came ill from the lips of a man whose own hands
were stained with the blood of his mother and with the recently-shed
blood of his innocent son Xiphares; and in heartless severity
and inhumanity Pharnaces even outstripped his father. Seeing therefore
he had now to die, the sultan resolved at least to die as he had
lived; his wives, his concubines and his daughters, including
the youthful brides of the kings of Egypt and Cyprus, had all to suffer
the bitterness of death and drain the poisoned cup, before he too
took it, and then, when the d