6.  It is very probable that the extraordinary drought, which is the chief obstacle now to agriculture in the Crimea and in these regions generally, has been greatly increased by the disappearance of the forests of central and southern Russia, which formerly to some extent protected the coast-provinces from the parching northeast wind.

7.  The recently discovered decree of the town of Chersonesus in honour of this Diophantus (Dittenberger, Syll. n. 252) thoroughly confirms the traditional account.  It shows us the city in the immediate vicinity—­the port of Balaclava must at that time have been in the power of the Tauri and Simferopol in that of the Scythians—­hard pressed partly by the Tauri on the south coast of the Crimea, partly and especially by the Scythians who held in their power the whole interior of the peninsula and the mainland adjoining; it shows us further how the general of king Mithradates relieves on all sides the Greek city, defeats the Tauri, and erects in their territory a stronghold (probably Eupatorion), restores the connection between the western and the eastern Hellenes of the peninsula, overpowers in the west the dynasty of Scilurus, and in the east Saumacus prince of the Scythians, pursues the Scythians even to the mainland, and at length conquers them with the Reuxinales—­such is the name given to the later Roxolani here, where they first appear—­in the great pitched battle, which is mentioned also in the traditional account.  There does not seem to have been any formal subordination of the Greek city under the king; Mithradates appears only as protecting ally, who fights the battles against the Scythians that passed as invincible (—­tous anupostatous dokountas eimen—­), on behalf of the Greek city, which probably stood to him nearly in the relation of Massilia and Athens to Rome.  The Scythians on the other band in the Crimea become subjects (—­upakooi—­) of Mithradates.

8.  The chronology of the following events can only be determined approximately.  Mithradates Eupator seems to have practically entered on the government somewhere about 640; Sulla’s intervention took place in 662 (Liv.  Ep. 70) with which accords the calculation assigning to the Mithradatic wars a period of thirty years (662-691) (Plin.  H. N. vii. 26, 97).  In the interval fell the quarrels as to the Paphlagonian and Cappadocian succession, with which the bribery attempted by Mithradates in Rome (Diod. 631) apparently in the first tribunate of Saturninus in 651 (iv.  Vi.  Saturninus) was probably connected.  Marius, who left Rome in 665 and did not remain long in the east, found Mithradates already in Cappadocia and negotiated with him regarding his aggressions (Cic. ad Brut. i. 5; Plut.  Mar. 31); Ariarathes vi had consequently been by that time put to death.

9.  IV.  III.  Character of the Constitution of Gaius Gracchus

10.  A decree of the senate of the year 638 recently found in the village Aresti to the south of Synnada (Viereck, -Sermo Graecus quo senatus Romanus usus sit-, p. 51) confirms all the regulations made by the king up to his death and thus shows that Great Phrygia after the death of the father was not merely taken from the son, as Appian also states, but was thereby brought directly under Roman allegiance.