27.
[58]
That year was a year of many cruel, of many shameful, of many turbulent
proceedings, but I know not whether I ought not deservedly to call this the
nearest in iniquity to that crime which their wickedness committed against
me. Our ancestors determined that that celebrated Antiochus called the
Great, after he had been subdued in a long and arduous struggle by land and
seas, should be king over the districts within Mount Taurus. They gave
Asia, of which they deprived
him, to Attalus, that he should be king over that district. With Tigranes,
king of the Armenians, we waged a serious war of very long duration; he
having, I may almost say, challenged us, by inflicting wanton injuries on
our allies. He was not truly a vigorous enemy on his own power and on his
own account, but he also defended with all his resources and protected in
his territory, that most active enemy of this empire, Mithridates, after he
had been driven from Pontus; and
after he had been defeated by Lucullus that most excellent man and most
consummate general, he still remained in his former mind, and kept up a
hostile feeling against us with the remainder of his army. And yet this man
did Cnaeus Pompeius—after he had seen him in his camp as a
suppliant and in an abject condition—raise up and placed on his
head again the royal crown which he himself had taken off, and, having
imposed certain conditions on him, ordered to continue king.
And he thought it no less glorious for himself and for this empire, that the
king should be known to he restored by him, than if he had kept him in
bonds.
[59]
Therefore, Tigranes—who
was himself an enemy of the Roman people, and who received our most active
enemy in his territories, who struggled against us, who fought pitched
battles with us, and who compelled us to combat almost for our very
existence and supremacy—is a king to this day, and has obtained by
his entreaties the name of a friend and ally, which he had previously
forfeited by his hostile and warlike conduct.
That unhappy king of Cyprus—who was always our ally, always our friend,
concerning whom no single unfavourable suspicion was ever reported to the
senate or to our commanders in those parts—has now, as they say,
while alive and beholding the light, been seized and sold with all his means
of support, and all his royal apparel. Here is a good reason for other kings
thinking their own fortunes stable, when by this example, handed down to
recollection from that fatal year, they see that one tribune and six hundred
journeymen have power to despoil them of all their fortunes, and strip them
of their whole kingdom!
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