9.
[22]
Perhaps now it will be asked, how, when all this has been already done, there can be any
great war left behind. I will explain this, O Romans; for this does not seem an unreasonable
question. At first Mithridates fled from his kingdom, as Medea is formerly said to have fled
from the same region of Pontus; for they say that
she, in her flight, strewed about the limbs of her brother in those places along which her
father was likely to pursue her, in order that the collection of them, dispersed as they were,
and the grief which would afflict his father, might delay the rapidity of his pursuit.
Mithridates, flying in the same manner, left in Pontus the whole of the vast quantity of gold and silver, and of beautiful
things which he had inherited from his ancestors, and which he himself had collected and
brought into his own kingdom, having obtained them by plunder in the former war from all
Asia. While our men were diligently occupied in
collecting all this, the king himself escaped out of their hands.
[23]
And so grief retarded the father of Medea in his pursuit, but delight
delayed our men. In this alarm and flight of his, Tigranes, the king of Armenia, received him, encouraged him while despairing of his
fortunes, gave him new spirit in his depression, and recruited with new strength his powerless
condition. And after Lucius Lucullus arrived in his kingdom, very many tribes were excited to
hostilities against our general. For those nations which the Roman people never had thought
either of attacking in war or tampering with, had been inspired with fear. There was, besides,
a general opinion which had taken deep root, and had spread over all the barbarian tribes in
those districts, that our army had been led into those countries with the object of plundering
a very wealthy and most religiously worshipped temple. And so, many powerful nations were
roused against us by a fresh dread and alarm. But our army although it had taken a city of
Tigranes's kingdom, and had fought some successful battles, still was out of spirits at its
immense distance from Rome, and its separation from
its friends.
[24]
At present I will not say more; for the result
of these feelings of theirs was, that they were more anxious for a speedy return home than for
any further advance into the enemies' country. But Mithridates had by this time strengthened
his army by reinforcements of those men belonging to his own dominions who had assembled
together, and by large promiscuous forces belonging to many other kings and tribes. And we see
that this is almost invariably the case, that kings when in misfortune easily induce many to
pity and assist them, especially such as are either kings themselves, or who live under kingly
power, because to them the name of king appears something great and sacred.
[25]
And accordingly he, when conquered, was able to accomplish what, when he was
in the full enjoyment of his powers, he never dared even to wish for. For when he had returned
to his kingdom, he was not content (though that had happened to him beyond all his hopes) with
again setting his foot on that land after he had been expelled from it; but he even
volunteered an attack on your army, flushed as it was with glory and victory. Allow me, in
this place, O Romans, (just as poets do who write of Roman affairs,) to pass over our
disaster, which was so great that it came to Lucius Lucullus's ears, not by means of a
messenger despatched from the scene of action, but through the report of common conversation.
[26]
At the very time of this misfortune,—of this
most terrible disaster in the whole war, Lucius Lucullus, who might have been able, to a great
extent, to remedy the calamity, being compelled by your orders, because you thought, according
to the old principle of your ancestors, that limits ought to be put to length of command,
discharged a part of his soldiers who had served their appointed time, and delivered over part
to Glabrio. I pass over many things designedly; but you yourselves can easily conjecture how
important you ought to consider that war which most powerful kings are uniting
in,—which disturbed nations are renewing,—which nations, whose strength is
unimpaired, are undertaking, and which anew general of yours has to encounter after a veteran
army has been defeated.
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