Pompey Quake

English from Yardley (1994)

Book 40.2.1
from Yardley (1994:252-253)

BOOK 40

1 [1] The mutual hatred of the brothers, and then of sons who inherited their parents' antagonisms, left the kings and the kingdom of Syria exhausted by implacable conflict. The people accordingly sought assistance from abroad and began to look around for foreign kings to succeed to their throne.¹ [2] Some were in favour of inviting Mithridates of Pontus, others Ptolemy from Egypt; but they were also aware that Mithridates was embroiled in a war with Rome, while Ptolemy had always been Syria's enemy. [3] Thus they unanimously settled on Tigranes, king of Armenia, who, apart from his own domestic strength, had the additional advantage of being an ally of the Parthians and a relative of Mithridates. [4] Tigranes was therefore summoned to take over the throne of Syria, which he occupied peacefully for eighteen years, during which time he was obliged neither to open hostilities against anyone nor defend himself against an aggressor.

2 [1] However, if Syria was secure against its enemies, it nonetheless fell prey to an earthquake in which 170,000 people and many of its cities perished. The soothsayers declared this to be an omen portending a change of regime. [2] And, in fact, Tigranes was defeated by Lucullus; and Antiochus, son of Cyzicenus, was summoned by the same Lucullus to the throne of Syria. [3] But what Lucullus had given, Pompey later took away. When Antiochus made a request for the throne, Pompey replied that he would not install him as king even if Syria wanted him, and he certainly would not if she were opposed to him, because, during the eighteen years that Tigranes was king of Syria, Antiochus had lurked in a corner of Cilicia. It was only now that Tigranes had been defeated by the Romans that Antiochus came seeking the rewards that the efforts of others had won. [4] He had not, said Pompey, taken away from Antiochus a throne that was his; nor would he give him a kingdom that he had ceded to Tigranes and which he could not defend, for fear that Antiochus would render it once more susceptible to the marauding of Jews and Arabs. [5] Accordingly, Pompey reduced Syria to a province and, little by little, the East, through the quarrels of its kings, who were all of the same blood, became the territory of Rome.

Footnotes

1. See Book 39 n. 1. The brothers are Grypos and Cyzicenus (39.iff.); no fewer than six claimants followed their deaths in 96 and 95 until Tigranes (Bickerman 160). Tigranes II was king of Armenia c.95-55, ruler of the Syrian kingdom 83-69; then Lucullus replaced him with Antiochus XIII Asiaticus (MRR 2.133). He experienced varying fortunes until Pompey removed him in 64 (MRR 2.163f.). For Mithridates see above Book 38. The Egyptian monarch was still (until 81) Ptolemy IX Soter II. See Appian Syr. 48f.

Epitome of Trogus by Justinus