But this was but a temporary falling back of the Roman power. The people, profoundly dissatisfied with the policy that had made such brilliant victories unproductive, put the supreme power into the hands of a man whom it could trust. In 67 B.C. Pompey cleared the Mediterranean of the pirates, and two years later he brought to an end the long struggle with Mithradates. Tigranes had made his submission to Rome, and, while surrendering all his conquests, had been permitted to retain his hereditary kingdom of Armenia. Mithradates was driven to take refuge in a remote region at the eastern end of the Black Sea. He had conceived, it is said, a bold scheme of raising the tribes to the north of that sea and falling upon Italy as the Gauls and as Hannibal had fallen upon it. But he had not the means of carrying out so large a project. His subjects, wearied of perpetual exactions, rebelled, led by one of his sons, and he saw that nothing remained but death. His wives and his daughters were compelled or possibly offered to drink poison. He drank it himself, but--so runs the story--had so fortified himself with antidotes, that the drug did not affect him. He then commanded a Celtic mercenary to render him the last service by a stroke of his sword. By his death the Roman dominion was practically established as far as the Euphrates. That it was not to be extended beyond it was practically proved by the events which I have now to relate. Five years after the fall of Mithradates there was formed at Rome what is commonly called the First Triumvirate.[39]