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Thus Pharnaces was cut off from his kingdom and Cæsar bestowed it upon Mithridates of Pergamus, who had rendered him very important help in Egypt. But the people of Bosporus now had rulers of their own and a prætor was sent by the Senate yearly to govern Pontus and Bithynia. Although Cæsar was offended with the other rulers who held their possessions as gifts from Pompey, since they had aided Pompey against him, nevertheless he confirmed their titles, except the priesthood of Comana which he took from Archelaus and gave to Lycomedes. Not long after, all these countries, and those which Gaius Cæsar or Mark Antony had given to others, were made Roman provinces by Augustus Cæsar, after he had taken Egypt, as the Romans needed only the slightest pretext in each case. Thus, since their dominion had been advanced in consequence of the Mithridatic war, from Spain and the Pillars of Hercules to the Euxine sea, and the sands which border Egypt, and the river Euphrates, it was fitting that this victory should be called the great one, and that Pompey, who commanded the army, should be styled the Great.1 As they held Africa also as far as Cyrene (for Apion, the king of that country, a bastard of the house of the Lagidæ, left Cyrene itself to the Romans in his will), Egypt alone was lacking to their grasp of the whole Mediterranean.
COIN OF MITHRIDATES EUPATOR (Duruy)
1 This is an anachronism. The title of Great was bestowed upon Pompey by Sulla, in consequence of Pompey's victory over the Marian faction in Africa, in the year 81 B.C. (Plutarch, Life of Pompey, 13).
Appian. The Foreign Wars. Horace White. New York. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 1899.
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