in Rome as a hostage, having been sent there during
his father's lifetime as a security for his fidelity. Demetrius, with
some reason, regarded his claim to the Syrian throne as better than that
of his cousin, the son of the younger brother, and being in the full
vigor of early youth, he determined to assert his pretensions in Syria,
and to make a bold stroke for the crown. Having failed to obtain the
Senate's consent to his quitting Italy, he took his departure secretly,
crossed the Mediterranean in a Carthaginian vessel, and, landing in
Asia, succeeded within a few months in establishing himself as Syrian
monarch.

From this review it sufficiently appears that the condition of things,
both in Syria and Bactria, was favorable to any aspirations which
the power that lay between them might entertain after dominion and
self-aggrandizement. The Syrian and Bactrian kings, at the time of
Mithridates's accession, were, both of them, men of talent and energy;
but the Syrian monarch was soon involved in difficulties at home, while
the Bactrian had his attention attracted to prospects of advantage in a
remote quarter, Mithridates might, perhaps, have attacked the territory
of either with an equal chance of victory; and as his predecessor had
set him the example of successful warfare on his western frontier, we
might have expected his first efforts to have been in this direction,
against the dependencies of Syria. But circumstances which we cannot
exactly trace determined his choice differently. While Eucratidas was
entangled in his Indian wars, Mithridates invaded the Bactrian territory
where it adjoined Parthia, and added to his Empire, after a short
struggle, two provinces, called respectively Turiua and that of
Aspionus. It is conjectured that these provinces lay towards the north
and the north-west, the one being that of the Turanians proper, and the
other that of the Aspasiacae, who dwelt between the Jaxartes and
the Oxus. But there is scarcely sufficient ground for forming even a
conjecture on the subject, since speculation has nothing but the names
themselves to rest upon.

Successful in this quarter, Mithridates, a few years later, having
waited until the Syrian throne was occupied by the boy Eupator, and the
two claimants of the regency, Lysias and Philip, were contending in arms
for the supreme power, made suddenly an expedition towards the west,
falling upon Media, which, though claimed by the Syrian kings as a
prov