The few months which still remained before the commencement of the campaign in Asia Minor, were employed by the new commander-in-chief with strenuous activity in diplomatic and military preparations.  Envoys were sent to Mithradates, rather to reconnoitre than to attempt a serious mediation.  There was a hope at the Pontic court that Phraates king of the Parthians would be induced by the recent considerable successes which the allies had achieved over Rome to enter into the Pontic-Armenian alliance.  To counteract this, Roman envoys proceeded to the court of Ctesiphon; and the internal troubles, which distracted the Armenian ruling house, came to their aid.  A son of the great-king Tigranes, bearing the same name had rebelled against his father, either because he was unwilling to wait for the death of the old man, or because his father’s suspicion, which had already cost several of his brothers their lives, led him to discern his only chance of safety in open insurrection.  Vanquished by his father, he had taken refuge with a number of Armenians of rank at the court of the Arsacid, and intrigued against his father there.  It was partly due to his exertions, that Phraates preferred to take the reward which was offered to him by both sides for his accession—­the secured possession of Mesopotamia—­from the hand of the Romans, renewed with Pompeius the agreement concluded with Lucullus respecting the boundary of the Euphrates,(4) and even consented to operate in concert with the Romans against Armenia.  But the younger Tigranes occasioned still greater mischief than that which arose out of his promoting the alliance between the Romans and the Parthians, for his insurrection produced a variance between the kings Tigranes and Mithradates themselves.  The great-king cherished in secret the suspicion that Mithradates might have had a hand in the insurrection of his grandson—­Cleopatra the mother of the younger Tigranes was the daughter of Mithradates—­ and, though no open rupture took place, the good understanding between the two monarchs was disturbed at the very moment when it was most urgently needed.

At the same time Pompeius prosecuted his warlike preparations with energy.  The Asiatic allied and client communities were warned to furnish the stipulated contingents.  Public notices summoned the discharged veterans of the legions of Fimbria to return to the standards as volunteers, and by great promises and the name of Pompeius a considerable portion of them were induced in reality to obey the call.  The whole force united under the orders of Pompeius may have amounted, exclusive of the auxiliaries, to between 40,000 and 50,000 men.(5)

Pompeius and Lucullus