Pompey, on his side, no doubt took the question into consideration whether or no he should declare the Parthian prince a Roman enemy, and proceed to direct against him the available forces of the Empire.  He had purposely made him hostile, and compelled him to take steps which might have furnished a plausible casus belli.  But, on the whole, he found that he was not prepared to venture on the encounter.  The war had not been formally committed to him; and if he did not prosper in it, he dreaded the accusations of his enemies at Rome.  He had seen, moreover, with his own eyes; that the Parthians were an enemy far from despicable, and his knowledge of campaigning told him that success against them was not certain.  He feared to risk the loss of all the glory which he had obtained by grasping greedily at more, and preferred enjoying the fruits of the good luck which had hitherto attended him to tempting fortune on a new field.  He therefore determined that he would not allow himself to be provoked into hostilities by the reproaches, the dictatorial words, or even the daring acts of the Parthian King.  When Phraates demanded his lost provinces he replied, that the question of borders was one which lay, not between Parthia and Rome, but between Parthia and Armenia.  When he laid it down that the Euphrates properly bounded the Roman territory, and charged Pompey not to cross it, the latter said he would keep to the just bounds, whatever they were.  When Tigranes complained that after having been received into the Roman alliance he was still attacked by the Parthian armies, the reply of Pompey was that he was willing to appoint arbitrators who should decide all the disputes between the two nations.  The moderation and caution of these answers proved contagious.  The monarchs addressed resolved to compose their differences, or at any rate to defer the settlement of them to a more convenient time.  They accepted Pompey’s proposal of an arbitration; and in a short time an arrangement was effected by which relations of amity were re-established between the two countries.

It would seem that not very long after the conclusion of this peace and the retirement of Pompey from Asia (B.C. 62), Phraates lost his life.  He was assassinated by his two sons, Mithridates and Orodes; for what cause we are not told.  Mithridates, the elder of the two, succeeded him (about B.C. 60); and, as all fear of the Romans had now passed away in consequence of their apparently peaceful attitude, he returned soon after his accession to the policy of his namesake, Mithridates II., and resumed the struggle with Armenia from which his father had desisted.  The object of the war was probably the recovery of the lost province of Gordyene, which, having been delivered to the elder Tigranes by Pompey, had remained in the occupation of the Armenians.  Mithridates seems to have succeeded in his enterprise.  When we next obtain a distinct view of the boundary line which divides Parthia from