rather the nothingness of the people than the greatness of the rulers, which sprang up in the countries of the Euphrates on every change in the supreme sovereignty at the fiat of the new grand sultan.  The new “city of Tigranes,” Tigrano-certa, founded on the borders of Armenia and Mesopotamia, and destined as the capital of the territories newly acquired for Armenia, became a city like Nineveh and Babylon, with walls fifty yards high, and the appendages of palace, garden, and park that were appropriate to sultanism.  In other respects, too, the new great-king proved faithful to his part.  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.”

Mithradates

King Mithradates acted with greater moderation.  He refrained from aggressions in Asia Minor, and contented himself with—­ what no treaty forbade—­placing his dominion along the Black Sea ona firmer basis, and gradually bringing into more definite dependence the regions which separated the Bosporan kingdom, now ruled under his supremacy by his son Machares, from that of Pontus.  But he too applied every effort to render his fleet and army efficient, and especially to arm and organize the latter after the Roman model; in which the Roman emigrants, who sojourned in great numbers at his court, rendered essential service.

Demeanor of the Romans in the East
Egypt not Annexed

The Romans had no desire to become further involved in Oriental affairs than they were already.  This appears with striking clearness in the fact, that the opportunity, which at this time presented itself, of peacefully bringing the kingdom of Egypt under the immediate dominion of Rome was spurned by the senate.  The legitimate descendants of Ptolemaeus son of Lagus had come to an end, when the king installed by Sulla after the death of Ptolemaeus Soter ii Lathyrus—­Alexander ii, a son of Alexander I—­was killed, a few days after he had ascended the throne, on occasion of a tumult in the capital (673).  This Alexander had in his testament(8) appointed the Roman community his heir.  The genuineness of this document was no doubt disputed; but the senate acknowledged it by assuming in virtue of it the sums deposited in Tyre on account of the deceased king.  Nevertheless it allowed two notoriously illegitimate sons of king Lathyrus, Ptolemaeus xi, who was styled the new Dionysos or the Flute-blower (Auletes), and Ptolemaeus the Cyprian, to take practical possession of Egypt and Cyprus respectively.  They were not indeed expressly recognized by the