7.  The foundation of the kingdom of Edessa is placed by native chronicles in 620 (iv.  I. The Parthian Empire), but it was not till some time after its rise that it passed into the hands of the Arabic dynasty bearing the names of Abgarus and Mannus, which we afterwards find there.  This dynasty is obviously connected with the settlement of many Arabs by Tigranes the Great in the region of Edessa, Callirrhoe, Carrhae (Plin.  H. N. v. 20, 85; ax, 86; vi. 28, 142); respecting which Plutarch also (Luc. 21) states that Tigranes, changing the habits of the tent-Arabs, settled them nearer to his kingdom in order by their means to possess himself of the trade.  We may presumably take this to mean that the Bedouins, who were accustomed to open routes for traffic through their territory and to levy on these routes fixed transit-dues (Strabo, xvi. 748), were to serve the great-king as a sort of toll-supervisors, and to levy tolls for him and themselves at the passage of the Euphrates.  These “Osrhoenian Arabs” (-Orei Arabes-), as Pliny calls them, must also be the Arabs on Mount Amanus, whom Afranius subdued (Plut.  Pomp. 39).

8.  The disputed question, whether this alleged or real testament proceeded from Alexander I (d. 666) or Alexander ii (d. 673), is usually decided in favour of the former alternative.  But the reasons are inadequate; for Cicero (de L. Agr. i. 4, 12; 15, 38; 16, 41) does not say that Egypt fell to Rome in 666, but that it did so in or after this year; and while the circumstance that Alexander I died abroad, and Alexander ii in Alexandria, has led some to infer that the treasures mentioned in the testament in question as lying in Tyre must have belonged to the former, they have overlooked that Alexander ii was killed nineteen days after his arrival in Egypt (Letronne, Inscr, de I’Egypte, ii. 20), when his treasure might still very well be in Tyre.  On the other hand the circumstance that the second Alexander was the last genuine Lagid is decisive, for in the similar acquisitions of Pergamus, Cyrene, and Bithynia it was always by the last scion of the legitimate ruling family that Rome was appointed heir.  The ancient constitutional law, as it applied at least to the Roman client-states, seems to have given to the reigning prince the right of ultimate disposal of his kingdom not absolutely, but only in the absence of -agnati- entitled to succeed.  Comp.  Gutschmid’s remark in the German translation of S. Sharpe’s History of Egypt, ii. 17.

Whether the testament was genuine or spurious, cannot be ascertained, and is of no great moment; there are no special reasons for assuming a forgery.

9.  IV.  IX.  Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates

10.  IV.  VIII.  Cyrene Roman

11.  V. I. Collapse of the Power of Sertorius

12.  IV.  IV.  The Provinces

13.  IV.  VIII.  Lucullus and the Fleet on the Asiatic Coast

14.  IV.  VIII.  Flaccus Arrives in Asia