Victory of Cabira

As soon as he received through the first fugitives that arrived at Cabira from the field of battle—­significantly enough, the beaten generals themselves—­the fatal news, earlier even than Lucullus got tidings of the victory, he resolved on an immediate farther retreat.  But the resolution taken by the king spread with the rapidity of lightning among those immediately around him; and, when the soldiers saw the confidants of the king packing in all haste, they too were seized with a panic.  No one was willing to be the hindmost in decamping; all, high and low, ran pell-mell like startled deer; no authority, not even that of the king, was longer heeded; and the king himself was carried away amidst the wild tumult.  Lucullus, perceiving the confusion, made his attack, and the Pontic troops allowed themselves to be massacred almost without offering resistance.  Had the legions been able to maintain discipline and to restrain their eagerness for spoil, hardly a man would have escaped them, and the king himself would doubtless have been taken.  With difficulty Mithradates escaped along with a few attendants through the mountains to Comana (not far from Tocat and the source of the Iris); from which, however, a Roman corps under Marcus Pompeius soon scared him off and pursued him, till, attended by not more than 2000 cavalry, he crossed the frontier of his kingdom at Talaura in Lesser Armenia.  In the empire of the great-king he found a refuge, but nothing more (end of 682).  Tigranes, it is true, ordered royal honours to be shown to his fugitive father-in-law; but he did not even invite him to his court, and detained him in the remote border-province to which he had come in a sort of decorous captivity.

Pontus Becomes Roman
Sieges of the Pontic Cities

The Roman troops overran all Pontus and Lesser Armenia, and as far as Trapezus the flat country submitted without resistance to the conqueror.  The commanders of the royal treasure-houses also surrendered after more or less delay, and delivered up their stores of money.  The king ordered that the women of the royal harem—­his sisters, his numerous wives and concubines—­as it was not possible to secure their flight, should all be put to death by one of his eunuchs at Pharnacea (Kerasunt).  The towns alone offered obstinate resistance.  It is true that the few in the interior—­ Cabira, Amasia, Eupatoria—­were soon in the power of the Romans; but the larger maritime towns, Amisus and Sinope in Pontus, Amastris in Paphlagonia, Tius and the Pontic Heraclea in Bithynia, defended themselves with desperation, partly animated by attachment to the king and to their free Hellenic constitution which he had protected, partly overawed by the bands of corsairs whom the king had called to his aid.  Sinope and Heraclea even sent forth vessels against the Romans; and the squadron of Sinope seized a Roman flotilla which was bringing corn from the Tauric peninsula