Tigranes II
Eupator was porphyrogene of Greater
Armenia from 95-55 BCE. From 93-87 BCE, he subjugated the Arsacid Dynasty (
Parthian) princelings of Atropatene, Adiabene and Gordyene. He consolidated
his imperium by further subjugating the other
Armenian semi-autonomous dynasts who ruled over Sophene, Mygdania and
Commagene. He fugaciously held suzerainty over
Cappadocia and the
Hasmonean Kingdom, as well as
Cilicia. Tigranes II
Eupator even
had an anabasis to Ecbatana. He was bestowed the autonomasia of the Seleucidae porphyrogene which Tigranes II 'the Great' accepted. Due to such overwhelming
success, Tigranes II
Eupator took the grandiloquent appellation of the 'King of kings'. In fact, Tigranes II the Great
had four petty kings as
part of the imperial retinue that attended to him. George Rawlinson in
his Ancient History wrote:
" Tigranes, to whom Lucullus
had sent an ambassador, though of no great power in the beginning of
his reign,
had enlarged it so much by a series of successes, of which there are few examples, that he was commonly surnamed "
King of Kings". After having overthrown and almost ruined the family of the kings, successors of the great Seleucus; after having very often humbled the pride of the
Parthians, transported whole cities of
Greeks into Media, conquered all
Syria and
Palestine, and given laws to the Arabians called Scenites, he reigned with an authority respected by all the princes of
Asia. The people paid him honours after the manners of the East, even to adoration." In Nathaniel Lee's
Mithridates VI,
King of
Pontus, Tigranes II
Eupator laid down
his royal diadem and practiced proskynesis before the feet of
Pompey the Great so as to preserve
his kingdom. This book as well as the
history is a tale of a hubristic self consumed by itself which is the hamartia or the tragic flaw which eventually leads to
Nemesis. The book on the three Mithridatic Wars from 88-85, 83-81 and 74-63 BCE by Nathaniel Lee followed the concepts of mythos, ethos, dianoia, lexis, melos and opsis.
The growth of the Pontic and
Armenian empires from 189-63 BCE. based on (Appian's
History of Rome: The Mithridatic Wars)
The symmachia between
Basileus Mithridates VI Eupator Dionysius and
Basileus Tigranes II
Eupator caused consternation in
Rome. Manius Aquillius, Oppius and Manius Acilius Glabrio were incompetent and failed to gain any
swift and decisive
victory which was key to Karl von Klausewitz and is vital to the Neo-Clausewitzians.
In the end,
Pompey the Great ended the feud between Antiochus I Theos of
Commagene,
Philip II Philorhomaios, Seleucus I Kybiosaktes and Antiochus XIII Asiaticus and turned the Near East from an inimical region to a confederation of
Roman cleruchies and protectorates.
