the Araxes which comes down from Armenia, empties itself by twelve mouths into the Caspian.  Others say that the Araxes does not join this stream, but that it has a separate outlet, though near to the other, into the same sea.  Pompeius, though he could have opposed the enemy while they were crossing the river, let them cross quietly, and then he attacked and put them to flight and destroyed a great number.  As the King begged for pardon, and sent ambassadors, Pompeius excused him for the wrong that he had done, and making a treaty with him, advanced against the Iberians, who were as numerous as the Albani and more warlike, and had a strong wish to please Mithridates and to repel Pompeius.  For the Iberians had never submitted either to the Medes or the Persians,[268] and they had escaped the dominion of the Macedonians also, inasmuch as Alexander soon quitted Hyrkania.  However Pompeius routed the Iberians also in a great battle, in which nine thousand of them were killed and above ten thousand taken prisoners, and he entered Colchis; and on the Phasis[269] he was met by Servilius with the vessels with which he was guarding the Pontus.

XXXV.  The pursuit of Mithridates was attended with great difficulties, as he had plunged among the nations around the Bosporus and the Maeotis; and intelligence reached Pompeius that the Albani had again revolted.  Moved by passion and desire of revenge, Pompeius turned against the Albani.  He again crossed the Cyrnus with difficulty and danger, for the river had been fenced off with stakes to a great extent by the barbarians; and as the passage of the river was succeeded by a long waterless and difficult march, he had ten thousand skins filled with water and then advanced against the enemy, whom he found posted on the river Abas[270] to the number of sixty thousand foot and twelve thousand cavalry, but poorly armed, and for the most part only with the skins of beasts.  They were commanded by a brother of the king, named Kosis, who, when the two armies had come to close quarters, rushed against Pompeius and struck him with a javelin on the fold[271] of his breastplate, but Pompeius with his javelin in his hand pierced him through and killed him.  In this battle it is said that Amazons[272] also fought on the side of the barbarians, and that they had come down hither from the mountains about the river Thermodon.  For after the battle, when the Romans were stripping the barbarians, they found Amazonian shields and boots, but no body of a woman was seen.  The Amazons inhabit those parts of the Caucasus which extend towards the Hyrcanian sea, but they do not border on the Albani, for Gelae and Leges dwell between; and they cohabit with these people every year for two months, meeting them on the river Thermodon, after which they depart and live by themselves.