Of the petty chiefs
Mithridates was the first to persuade Pharasmanes to aid his enterprise by
stratagem and force, and agents of corruption were found who tempted the
servants of Arsaces into crime by a quantity of gold. At the same instant
the Iberians burst into
Armenia with a huge host,
and captured the city of
Artaxata. Artabanus, on
hearing this, made his son Orodes the instrument of vengeance. He gave him
the Parthian army and despatched men to hire
auxiliaries. Pharasmanes, on the other hand, allied himself
with the Albanians, and procured aid from the Sarmatæ, whose highest
chiefs took bribes from both sides, after the fashion of their countrymen,
and engaged themselves in conflicting interests. But the Iberians, who were
masters of the various positions, suddenly poured the Sarmatæ into
Armenia by the
Caspian route.
Meanwhile those who were coming up to the support of the Parthians were
easily kept back, all other approaches having been closed by the enemy
except one, between the sea and the mountains on the Albanian frontier,
which summer rendered difficult, as there the shallows are flooded by the
force of the Etesian gales. The south wind in winter rolls back the waves,
and when the sea is driven back upon itself, the shallows along the coast
are exposed.
