The independence of Cappadocia having meanwhile been proclaimed at Rome, the inhabitants of the country, in order to preclude domestic broils, themselves elect a king, appointing to that dignity Ariobarzanes I. who was installed by Sylla, 92, and, backed by the Romans, kept his footing in the Mithridatic wars. In 63 he made the crown over to his son, Ariobarzanes II. who was slain by the army of Brutus and Cassius, 43, as was his brother, Ariobarzanes III. 34, by Mark Antony; Antony then appointed Archelaus to be king, who enticed to Rome by Tiberius, A. D. 17, was there assassinated; and Cappadocia then became a Roman province. 5. _Armenia_ was a province of the Syrian empire until the defeat of Antiochus the Great by Rome, 190. That defeat was followed by the accession of Antiochus's lieutenants, Artaxias and Zariadras; and now arose the two kingdoms of Armenia Major and Armenia Minor (the latter on the west bank of the Upper Euphrates). In Armenia Major the family of Artaxias kept possession of the throne, under eight (according to others _ten_) consecutive kings, until B. C. 5.--The only remarkable prince of this line was Tigranes I. 95-60, son-in-law and ally of Mithridates the Great, and lord of Asia Minor, Cappadocia, and Syria. He was, however, at the peace of 63, obliged to give up all, so that Armenia was dependent on the Romans, and remained so until B. C. 5, when it became the object of contention between the Romans and Parthians, being ruled at intervals by kings appointed by both parties, who endeavoured thereby to protect their own provinces. Finally, in A. D. 412, Armenia became a province of the new Persian empire.--In Asia Minor the descendants of Zariadras ruled dependently on Rome; after its defection under Mithridates the Great it usually formed part of some one of the neighbouring kingdoms, until in the reign of Vespasian it was converted into a province of the Roman empire. VAILLANT, _Elenchus regum Armeniae Majoris_, in his _Hist. Imp. Arsacidarum_. 4. Besides the above small kingdoms, two mighty empires arose in Inner Asia, both out of Alexander's monarchy, and at the same time: these were the Parthian and the Bactrian; each having previously constituted a part of the empire of the Seleucidae, from which they seceded under Antiochus II. The Parthian kingdom, or that of the Arsacidae, B. C. 256-A. D. 226, at the maximum of its extension, comprised the countries between the Euphrates and Indus. Its history, so far as we are acquainted with it, is divided into four periods (see below); but unfortunately our information is so imperfect respecting all that relates to the Parthians, except their wars, that even the most important particulars are beyond the reach of conjecture.