victory. He had assembled an army of 120,000 foot-soldiers, armed and
disciplined in the Roman manner, and 16,000 horse, besides a hundred
scythed chariots. His fleet, also, was so far superior to any that the
Romans could oppose to him as to give him the almost undisputed command
of the sea. These preparations, however, appear to have delayed him so
long that the season was far advanced before he was able to take the
field, and both the Roman Consuls, L. Licinius Lucullus and M. Aurelius
Cotta, had arrived in Asia. Neither of them, however, was able to oppose
his first irruption. He traversed almost the whole of Bithynia without
encountering any resistance; and when at length Cotta ventured to give
him battle under the walls of Chalcedon, his army and fleet were totally
defeated. Mithridates now proceeded to lay siege to Cyzicus both by sea
and land. But Lucullus, who had advanced from Phrygia to the relief of
Cotta, and followed Mithridates to Cyzicus, took possession of an
advantageous position near the camp of the king, where he almost
entirely cut him off from receiving supplies by land, while the storms
of the winter prevented him from depending on those by sea. Hence it was
not long before famine began to make itself felt in the camp of
Mithridates, and all his assaults upon the city having been foiled by
the courage and resolution of the besieged, he was at length compelled
(early in the year B.C. 73) to abandon the enterprise and raise the
siege. In his retreat he was repeatedly attacked by the Roman general,
and suffered very heavy loss at the passage of the AEsepus and Granicus.
By the close of the year the great army with which he had commenced the
war was annihilated, and he was not only compelled to retire within his
own dominions, but was without the means of opposing the advance of
Lucullus into the heart of Pontus itself. But he now again set to work
with indefatigable activity to raise a fresh army; and while he left the
whole of the sea-coast of Pontus open to the invaders, he established
himself in the interior at Cabira. Here he was again defeated by
Lucullus; and despairing of opposing the farther progress of the Romans,
he fled into Armenia to claim the protection and assistance of his
son-in-law Tigranes.

[Illustration: Coin of Tigranes.]

Tigranes was at this moment the most powerful monarch of Asia, but he
appears to have been unwilling to engage openly in war with Rome; and on
this account,