sign the province
of Asia to one of the praetors, and the province of Cilicia
along with three newly-raised legions to the consul Quintus
Marcius Rex, and to restrict the general to the command
against Mithradates and Tigranes.

These accusations springing up against the general in Rome
found a dangerous echo in the soldiers' quarters on the Iris
andon the Tigris; and the more so that several officers including
the general's own brother-in-law, Publius Clodius, worked upon
the soldiers with this view. The report beyond doubt designedly
circulated by these, that Lucullus now thought of combining
with the Pontic-Armenian war an expedition against the Parthians,
fed the exasperation of the troops.

Lucullus Advances into Armenia

But while the troublesome temper of the government and of the soldier
thus threatened the victorious general with recall and mutiny,
he himself continued like a desperate gambler to increase
his stake and his risk. He did not indeed march against the Parthians
but when Tigranes showed himself neither ready to make peace
nor disposed, as Lucullus wished, to risk a second pitched
battle, Lucullus resolved to advance from Tigranocerta, through
the difficult mountain-country along the eastern shore of the lake
of Van, into the valley of the eastern Euphrates (or the Arsanias,
now Myrad-Chai), and thence into that of the Araxes, where,
on the northern slope of Ararat, lay Artaxata the capital of Armenia
proper, with the hereditary castle and the harem of the king.
He hoped, by threatening the king's hereditary residence,
to compel him to fight either on the way or at any rate before
Artaxata. It was inevitably necessary to leave behind a division
at Tigranocerta; and, as the marching army could not possibly be
further reduced, no course was left but to weaken the position
in Pontus and to summon troops thence to Tigranocerta. The main
difficulty, however, was the shortness of the Armenian summer,
so inconvenient for military enterprises. On the tableland
of Armenia, which lies 5000 feet and more above the level of the sea,
the corn at Erzeroum only germinates in the beginning of June,
and the winter sets in with the harvest in September; Artaxata
had to be reached and the campaign had to be ended in four
months at the utmost.

At midsummer, 686, Lucullus set out from Tigranocerta,
and, marching doubtless through the pass of Bitlis and farther
to the westward along the lake of Van--arrived