Tigranes the Great

“ He marched an army into Armenia in the interest of the young prince, overran the open country, and advanced on Artaxata, the capital. Tigranes, the king, fled at his approach, and betook himself to the neighboring mountains. Artaxata was invested; but as the siege promised to be long, the Parthian monarch after a time withdrew, leaving the pretender with as many troops as he thought necessary to press the siege to a successful issue. ”

“ Under the Parthian domination in Asia, Gordyene was a tributary kingdom. In the early part of the last century B. C. it was conquered by Tigranes, king of Armenia, who chose a site within it for building his vast new capital, Tigranocerta, to populate which twelve Greek cities were stripped of inhabitants. It was included among the conquests of Trajan for the Romans, but relinquished by Hadrian. G. Rawlinson, Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 10, and after. See, also, CARDUCHI, THE. GORGES, Sir Ferdinando, and the colonization of Maine. See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1621-1631, and 1635 ”

“ Penetrating into Armenia by the road formerly followed by Lucullus, Corbulo, with three legions, and probably the usual proportion of allies—an army of about 80,000 men—advanced against the combined Armenians and Parthians under Tiridates and Volagases, freely offering battle, and at the same time taking vengeance, as he proceeded, on the Armenian nobles who had been especially active in opposing Tigranes, the late Roman puppet-king. ”

“ Lucullus, seeing certain soldiers of the Medes, who formed the van of Tigranes' army, heavily armed and very uneasy, as if in prisons of iron, thence conceived hopes with great ease to defeat them, and by them began his charge and victory. And now that our musketeers are in credit, I believe some invention will be found out to immure us for our safety, and to draw us to the war in castles, such as those the ancients loaded their elephants withal. ”

“ In this last-named project he was assisted by the Armenians, with whose king, Tigranes, he had (about B.C. 96) formed a close alliance, at the same time giving him his daughter, Cleopatra, in marriage. Rome, though she had not yet determined on war with Mithridates, was resolved to thwart his Cappadocian projects, and in B.C. 92 sent Sulla into Asia with orders to put down the puppet whom Mithridates and Tigranes were establishing, and to replace upon the Cappadocian throne a certain Ariobarzanes, whom they had driven from his kingdom. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then Moses of Khorene speaks of Tigranes I., who, in conjunction with Cyrus, put an end to the kingdom of Media. The epics say of Tigranes that “his face was of lovely hue, his eyes were soft and lustrous, his shoulders stalwart, the calves of his legs were well-shaped, he was altogether fair to look upon; in food and drink he was moderate; he was of lofty mind, eloquent in speech, and masterly in the conduct of affairs. Just and equitable, he weighed each man’s acts in the scale of his mind. ”

“ As amidst the perpetual childhood of the east the childlike conceptions of kings with real crowns on their heads have never disappeared, Tigranes, when he showed himselfin public, appeared in the state and the costume of a successor of Darius and Xerxes, with the purple caftan, the half-white half-purple tunic, the long plaited trousers, the high turban, and the royal diadem—attended moreover and served in slavish fashion, wherever he went or stood, by four "kings." ”

“ Reedy marshes, alive with water-fowl, arable lands, bare buff plains, brown tents, brown flocks, mat huts, mud and brick villages, groups of women and children, flights of armed horsemen, alternate rapidly,—the unchanging features are the posts and wires of the telegraph.
The Tigris in parts is wonderfully tortuous, and at one great bend, "The Devil's Elbow," a man on foot can walk the distance in less than an hour which takes the steamer four hours to accomplish. ”

“ The name Tigris is derived from the Zend Tighra, which comes from the Sanscrit Tig, to sharpen. It is now called Dijleh. It joins the Euphrates 90 miles from the sea, and the united stream is called Shat-el-Arab. ”

“ As they grew up to manhood the difference of their tempers became more visible, and gradually alienated them from each other. Tigranes began to despise the uniform labours of the shepherd and the humble occupations of the country; his sheep were neglected, and frequently wandered over the plains without a leader to guard them in the day, or bring them back at night; and the greater part of his time was employed in climbing rocks, or in traversing the forest, to seek for eagles' nests, or in piercing with his arrows the different wild animals which inhabit the woods. ”

“ Near the Tigris are the places belonging to the Gordyæi,533 whom the ancients called Carduchi; their cities are Sareisa, Satalca, and Pinaca, a very strong fortress with three citadels, each enclosed by its own wall, so that it is as it were a triple city. It was, however, subject to the king of Armenia; the Romans also took it by storm, although the Gordyæi had the reputation of excelling in the art of building, and to be skilful in the construction of siege engines. It was for this reason Tigranes took them into his service. ”

“ Gibbon here boldly substitutes the Western Khabour and maintains that “the Roman frontier traversed, but never followed, the course of the Tigris.” He appears not to be able to understand how the Tigris could be the frontier, when five provinces across the Tigris were Roman. But the intention of the article probably was, first, to mark the complete cession to Rome of Eastern as well as Western Mesopotamia, and, secondly, to establish the Tigris as the line separating the empires below the point down to which the Romans held both banks. ”

“ She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when they said to the old man, "We desire thee to carry us a-pleasuring in this thy boat and take this dinar;" he answered, "Who may go a- pleasuring on the Tigris? The Caliph Harun al-Rashid every night cometh down Tigris stream in his state-barge [FN#186] and with him one crying aloud: 'Ho, ye people all, great and small, gentle and simple, men and boys, whoso is found in a boat on the Tigris by night, I will strike off his head or hang him to the mast of his craft!' And ye had well nigh met him ”

“ No sooner was the Tigris crossed and the march through Mesopotamia began, than the host of Tiridates melted away like an iceberg in the Gulf Stream. The tribes of the Desert set the example of flight; and in a little time almost the whole army had dispersed, drawing off either to the camp of the enemy or to their homes. Tiridates reached the Euphrates with a mere handful of followers, and crossing into Syria found himself once more safe under the protection of the Romans. ”

“ Or, again, for mystery and romance, here is another scene on the Tigris between Amara and Kut.
The evening is still. No breeze stirs the sliding surface of the river. On every side immeasurable plains stretch from horizon to horizon, "dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom of leaden-coloured even," save where the misty blue ridge of the Persian mountains links heaven to earth, gleaming with a ghostly chain of snow beneath a rose-flushed sky. A few marsh Arabs' reed huts and a distant fire are the only signs that the world is inhabited. ”

“ TIGRANES, or Dikran, a name borne by several kings of ancient Armenia. According to the legend of the Armenians, the first of these kings was the Tigranes who in Xenophon's romance appears as the schoolfellow of Cyrus, and to him they ascribe the foundation of Tigranocerta (Dikranagerd) on the Tigris. But in reality, as classical writers relate, this city was built by the first historical Tigranes of Armenia, variously known as Tigranes II. and Tigranes I., for whose history see Persia, (vol. xviii. p) His son Tigranes is known by his rebellion against his father (Persia, ut supra) . ”

“ The youth, satisfied with the promise of the Caliph, went to the shores of the Tigris. With a small vessel he every morning went to the river, scooping out the water and throwing it on the land; and after having for hours thus employed himself, he knelt down and prayed. The fishes became at last uneasy at his perseverance; [40] and being fearful that, in course of time, he might exhaust the waters, they assembled in great council.
"What is the purpose of this man?" demanded the monarch of the fishes.
"The possession of the carbuncle that lies buried in the sluice of the Tigris," was the reply. ”

“ ARBELA
“These Persians must be either very much frightened or very bold, if they have nothing to say to us at such a place as this.”
Such in substance was what every one in the Macedonian army was saying or thinking as they struggled through the dangerous and difficult ford of the Tigris. It was indeed a crossing which even a few resolute men posted on the opposite shore would have made disastrous, if not impossible, to the advancing army. ”

“ The inhabitants, who generally speak three languages, Persian, Arabic, and Turkish, are much of the same complexion with the Spaniards. The women mostly wear, in the gristle of the nose, a ring like a wedding-ring, but rather larger, having a pearl and a turquoise stone set in it; and this however poor they may be. This is a place of great trade, being the thoroughfare from the East Indies to Aleppo. The town is well supplied with provisions, which are brought down the river Tigris from Mosul, in Diarbekir, or Mesopotamia, where stood the ancient city of Nineveh. ”

“ This lordship lies in the kingdom of Tigrimahom, and it is a very populous country in all parts, and fertile, a country of mountains and rivers; all the towns are on heights, and away from the roads: this they do on account of the travellers, who take from them by force whatever they have. The people who carried our baggage made a great fence of thorny bushes for us, and for the mules, which was to defend us from the wild beasts ”

“ There is a march peculiar to the troops of Tigrè, which, when the drums of Tesfos beat at passing, a despondency seemed to fall on all the Tigran soldiers, greater than if ten thousand men of Amhara had joined the rebels. It was a fine day, and the troops, spread abroad upon the face of the hill, not only shewed more in number than they really were, but also more security than they were, in point of prudence, warranted to do, when at so small a distance from such an army as ours. ”

“ Under him, men and women wore fine garments, of divers colours, richly embroidered, which made the ill-favoured to look fair and the beautiful to look like demi-gods.
“Tigranes, the bringer of peace and prosperity, caused all men to grow fat with butter and honey. In his day, the infantry became cavalry, slingers became skilful archers, dagger-bearers were equipped with swords, and naked soldiers were provided with shields and armour.”
The historian adds that the splendour of the arms and equipments was enough of itself to drive back the enemy. ”

“ This was the decisive moment which Chares had foreseen and provided for; in an instant the bands of Lebanon retreated, by the orders of Sophron, with a precipitation bordering upon flight. Tigranes, supposing himself certain of victory, orders his troops to advance, and decide the fortune of the battle; but while they are rashly preparing to obey, a sudden noise is heard that equals the loudest thunders; the earth itself trembles with a convulsive motion under their feet, then bursts asunder with a violence that nothing can resist! ”

“ The flowery meadows, shady groves, and rich vallies, with which the former abounds, are celebrated for the resort of numerous pilgrims, professedly devout, who clothe themselves in a yellow dress, with a cord round their waists, and pass their time there in religious and secluded retirement; but the satirical vein of pleasantry which distinguishes the Tigrians ascribes to them more unseemly motives: and scandal does not hesitate to say that Love, not of the purest kind, presides over their retreat. ”

“ Men and horses died in great numbers. At noon the air danced above the rocks in burning rays, and through the ashen-grey desert wound the silvery waves of Tigris, like a lazy serpent basking his coils in the sun.
The Romans saw at length, beyond the Tigris, a lofty rock rising, rose-coloured, bare and jagged. This was the second fortress defending Ctesiphon, the southern capital of Persia. It was a place far more difficult to take than Perizaborh, and soared to the clouds like an eagle's nest. ”

“ The next day the unfortunate troops of Tigré, loaded with curses and opprobrious language, pelted with stones and dirt, and a few way-laid and slain for private injuries, were conducted up the hill above Debra Berhan, on the road through Woggora to Tigré, by a guard of horse from Gusho's camp, who protected them with great humanity as far as they were able; but it was out of the power of any force but that of an army to protect them from the enraged populace, over whom they had tyrannised so many years. ”