Plutarch Lucullus 29

[1] This was the reason why Mithridates made no haste to be at the battle. He thought Lucullus would carry on the war with his wonted caution and indirectness, and so marched slowly to join Tigranes. At first he met a few Armenians hurrying back over the road in panic fear, and conjectured what had happened; then presently, when he had learned of the defeat from more unarmed and wounded fugitives whom he met, he sought to find Tigranes.

[2] And though he found him destitute of all things and humiliated, he did not return his insolent behaviour, but got down from his horse and wept with him over their common sufferings. Then he gave him his own royal equipage, and tried to fill him with courage for the future. And so these kings began again to assemble fresh forces. But in the city of Tigranocerta, the Greeks had risen up against the Barbarians and were ready to hand the city over to Lucullus; so he assaulted and took it.

[3] The royal treasures in the city he took into his own charge, but the city itself he turned over to his soldiers for plunder, and it contained eight thousand talents in money, together with the usual valuables. Besides this, he gave to each man eight hundred drachmas from the general spoils.

[4] On learning that many dramatic artists had been captured in the city, whom Tigranes had collected there from all quarters for the formal dedication of the theatre which he had built, Lucullus employed them for the contests and spectacles with which he celebrated his victories. The Greeks he sent to their native cities, giving them also the means wherewith to make the journey, and likewise the Barbarians who had been compelled to settle there. Thus it came to pass that the dissolution of one city was the restoration of many others, by reason of their recovering their own inhabitants, and they all loved Lucullus as their benefactor and founder.

[5] And whatever else he did also prospered, in a way worthy of the man, who was ambitious of the praise that is consequent upon righteousness and humanity, rather than of that which follows military successes. For the latter, the army also was in no slight degree, and fortune in the highest degree, responsible; but the former were the manifestations of a gentle and disciplined spirit, and in the exercise of these qualities Lucullus now, without appeal to arms, subdued the Barbarians. The kings of the Arabs came to him, with proffers of their possessions, and the Sopheni joined his cause.

[6] The Gordyeni were so affected by his kindness that they were ready to abandon their cities and follow him with their wives and children, in voluntary service. The reason for this was as follows. Zarbienus, the king of the Gordyeni, as has been said, ¹ secretly stipulated with Lucullus, through Appius, for an alliance, being oppressed by the tyranny of Tigranes. He was informed against, however, and put to death, and his wife and children perished with him, before the Romans entered Armenia.

[7] Lucullus was not unmindful of all this, but on entering the country of the Gordyeni, appointed funeral rites in honour of Zarbienus, and after adorning a pyre with royal raiment and gold and with the spoils taken from Tigranes, set fire to it with his own hand, and joined the friends and kindred of the man in pouring libations upon it, calling him a comrade of his and an ally of the Romans.

[8] He also ordered that a monument be erected to his memory at great cost; for many treasures were found in the palace of Zarbienus, including gold and silver, and three million bushels of grain were stored up there, so that the soldiers were plentifully supplied, and Lucullus was admired for not taking a single drachma from the public treasury, but making the war pay for itself.