opponents before they had yet come into conflict with them. The
barbarians thinking them near would strike the empty air in vain and
when they reached common ground would be wounded in the shadow where
they were not expecting it. Thus numbers of them were killed and the
captives were not fewer than the slain. Many also escaped, among them
Mithridates.

[-50-] The latter's next move was to hasten to Tigranes. On sending
couriers to him, however, he found no friendship awaiting him, because
Tigranes' son had risen against him, and while holding the youth under
guard[9] the father suspected that Mithridates, his grandfather, had
been responsible for the quarrel. For this reason far from receiving him
Tigranes even arrested and threw into prison the men sent ahead by him.
Failing therefore of the hoped-for refuge he turned aside into Colchis,
and thence on foot reached Maeotis and the Bosphorus, using persuasion
with some and force with others. He recovered the territory, too, having
terrified Machares, his son, who had espoused the cause of the Romans
and was then ruling it, to such an extent that he would not even come
into his presence. And him Mithridates caused to be killed through his
associates to whom he promised to grant immunity and money.

In the course of these events Pompey sent men to pursue him: when,
however, he outstripped them by fleeing across the Phasis, the Roman
leader colonized a city in the territory where he had been victorious,
bestowing it upon the wounded and the more elderly of his soldiers. Many
of those living round about voluntarily joined the settlement and later
generations of them are in existence even now, being called Nicopolitans
[10] and paying tribute to the province of Cappadocia.

[-51-] While Pompey was thus engaged, Tigranes, the son of Tigranes,