Eduard Meyer

“ Tigranes now had become “king of kings” and the mightiest monarch of Asia. So he built a new royal city, Tigranocerta, on the borders of Armenia and Mesopotamia, between Mt Masius and the Tigris, where he accumulated all his wealth and to which he transplanted the inhabitants of twelve Greek towns of Cappadocia, Cilicia and Syria (Plut. Luc. 21, 26; Appian, Mithr. 67; Strabo xi. 522, 532, 539; Plin. vi. 26 seq.; for the situation, which is much disputed, cf. Tac. Ann. xiv. 24, xv. 5, ed. Furneaux) . He also transplanted many Arabic tribes into Mesopotamia (Plut. Luc. 21; Plin. vi. 142) . ”

“ But the Romans could not tolerate encroachment upon their sphere of power, and in 69 Lucullus invaded Armenia. Tigranes was beaten at Tigranocerta on the 6th of October 69, and again near Artaxata in September 68. ”

“ Charac. 6) , and the districts of Nineveh and Arbela; the kings of Atropatene, Gordyene (the country of the Carduchi, now Bohtan) , Adiabene (the former Assyria) and Osroene (Edessa) became his vassals, who attended him like slaves wherever he went; northern Mesopotamia also was torn from the Parthian Empire (Strabo xi. 532, 747; Plut. Luc. 32) . In 83 he invaded Syria, defeated the last successors of Seleucus and occupied Cilicia, of which the eastern parts still belonged to the Seleucids (Justin xl. 1; Appian, Syr. 48; Plut. Luc. 14, 21) . ”