Читать книгу A Companion to the Hellenistic and Roman Near East онлайн

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This is when Pompey intervened. At first, provided with an extraordinary command against the pirates who infested the entire Mediterranean (lex Gabinia, 67 BCE), Pompey had full power on the sea and over a wide strip of the coast. He took action against the brigands, notably in Cilicia and in Phoenicia. But as the commands held by Lucullus were gradually taken away from him, it allowed Mithridates VI of Pontus to reconquer a part of the lost territories. In the winter of 67–66 BCE, Pompey was entrusted by the lex Manilia with the command of the Roman forces against the king of Pontus and, after driving Mithridates out of Anatolia and gaining the submission of Tigranes, Pompey turned to Syria where his legates had already arrived ahead of him. He decided to return land to those who had chased off Tigranes from possessing the country, not to those who had fled and shown themselves to be incapable of fighting against him. So Pompey decided to depose two Seleucid kinglets (Sampsigeramos of Emesa quickly got rid of Antiochus XIII who had taken refuge near him, while Philip II managed to escape from Azizos of Aleppo before being killed, probably during a riot in Antioch) and reduce all that was left of the kingdom to a Roman province.