“Tigranes (II) had hitherto been continually increasing in strength. By the defeat of Artunes, king of Sopheni or Armenia Minor, he had made himself master of Armenia in its widest extent; by his wars with Parthia herself, he had acquired Gordyene, or Northern Mesopotamia, and Adiabeni or the entire rich tract east of the middle Tigris (including Assyria proper and Arbelitis), as far, at any rate, as the course of the lower Zab; by means which are not stated, he had brought under subjection the king of the important country of Media Atropatene, independent since the time of Alexander. Invited into Syria, about B.C. 83, by the wretched inhabitants, wearied with perpetual civil wars between the princes of the house of Seleucidae, he had found no difficulty in establishing himself as a king over Cilicia, Syria and most of Phœnicia. About B.C. 80, he had determined on building himself a new capital in the province of Gordieni, a capital of vast size, provided with all the luxuries required by an Oriental court, and fortified with a wall which recalled the glories of the ancient cities of Assyria.”[32] This magnificent capital was called after him--Tigranaghert[33] (built by Tigranes). Long before this time the Romans had been following the track of the Macedonian conqueror to snatch the fragments of his broken Eastern empire from his successors. But Tigranes the Great was like a great wall before their fast advance. Now he was dead. Still worse, there was not, as before, that firm alliance between the Parthians and Armenians, which had been the foundation of their stability. Had the Parthian and Armenian monarchs recognized the fact that Rome was a common enemy to both, and kept their alliance firm and unshaken by the intrigues and enticements of the Roman generals, and had encountered the common foe with their united forces, the Roman power would never have been able to make her appearance, or maintain it, in western Asia. However, whether with bravery or treachery (we rather think with a combination of the two), the Romans pushed their way into that country.