[15]
Mithridates, having been denied justice by the Romans in this public manner, sent his son Ariarthes with a large force to seize the kingdom of Cappadocia. Ariarthes speedily overpowered it and drove out Ariobarzanes. Then Pelopidas returned to the Roman generals and said: 'How patiently King Mithridates bore injury from you when he was deprived of Phrygia and Cappadocia not long ago you have been told already, O Romans. What injuries Nicomedes inflicted upon him you have seen -- and have not heeded. And when we appealed to your friendship and alliance you answered as though we were not the accusers but the accused, saying that it would not be for your interest that harm should come to Nicomedes, as though he were the injured one. You therefore are accountable to the Roman republic for what has taken place in Cappadocia. Mithridates has done what he has done because you disdained us and mocked us in your answers. He intends to send an embassy to your Senate to complain against you. He summons you to defend yourselves there in person in order that ye may do nothing in haste, nor begin a war of such magnitude without the decree of Rome itself. You should bear in mind that Mithridates is ruling his ancestral domain, which is 2000 stades long, and that he has acquired many neighboring nations, the Colchians, a very warlike people, the Greeks bordering on the Euxine, and the barbarian tribes beyond them. He has allies also ready to obey his every command, Scythians, Taurians, Bastarnæ, Thracians, Sarmatians, and all those who dwell in the region of the Don and Danube and the sea of Azof. Tigranes of Armenia is his son-in-law and Arsaces of Parthia his ally. He has a large number of ships, some in readiness and others building, and apparatus of all kinds in abundance.
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Appian. The Foreign Wars. Horace White. New York. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 1899.
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