ovince Sophene, by which means he obtained command
of the passage of the Euphrates with the great thoroughfare
of traffic between Asia Minor and Armenia. After the death of Sulla
the Armenians even advanced into Cappadocia proper, and carried off
to Armenia the inhabitants of the capital Mazaca (afterwards Caesarea)
and eleven other towns of Greek organization.

Syria under Tigranes

Nor could the kingdom of the Seleucids, already in full course
of dissolution, oppose greater resistance to the new great-king.
Here the south from the Egyptian frontier to Straton's Tower
(Caesarea) was under the rule of the Jewish prince Alexander Jannaeus,
who extended and strengthened his dominion step by step
in conflict with his Syrian, Egyptian, and Arabic neighbours
and with the imperial cities. The larger towns of Syria--Gaza,
Straton's Tower, Ptolemais, Beroea--attempted to maintain themselves
on their own footing, sometimes as free communities, sometimes
under so-called tyrants; the capital, Antioch, in particular,
was virtually independent. Damascus and the valleys of Lebanon
had submitted to the Nabataean prince, Aretas of Petra. Lastly,
in Cilicia the pirates or the Romans bore sway. And for this crown
breaking into a thousand fragments the Seleucid princes continued
perseveringly to quarrel with each other, as though it were their object
to make royalty a jest and an offence to all; nay more,
while this family, doomed like the house of Laius to perpetual discord,
had its own subjects all in revolt, it even raised claims to the throne
of Egypt vacant by the decease of king Alexander II without heirs.
Accordingly king Tigranes set to work there without ceremony.
Eastern Cilicia was easily subdued by him, and the citizens of Soli
and other towns were carried off, just like the Cappadocians,
to Armenia. In like manner the province of Upper Syria,
withthe exception of the bravely-defended town of Seleucia at the mouth
of the Orontes, and the greater part of Phoenicia were reduced
by force; Ptolemais was occupied by the Armenians about 680,
and the Jewish state was already seriously threatened by them. Antioch,
the old capital of the Seleucids, became one of the residences
of the great-king. Already from 671, the year following the peace
between Sulla and Mithradates, Tigranes is designated
in the Syrian annals as the sovereign of the country, and Cilicia
and Syria appear as an Armenian satrapy under Magadates,
the lieu