Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

132 HISTORY OF PERSIA.
Parthians; but their mutual progress was continually
bringing them nearer ; while another great power, too,
had about the same time sprung up in the same
neighbourhood, that of Mithradates V, of Pontus, the
son of a former ally of Rome, whose rise was perhaps
more sudden and more remarkable than that of any
other of the kings of Western Asia. Hostile as he was,
alike to Roman and Parthian, it was but natural that a
joint effort should be made by the latter power and
Rome, to repress the new and common enemy ;
hence
an embassy from the Parthian Mithradates II to Sylla,
shortly after the defeat of the Cappadocians by the
Romans, an embassy perhaps stimulated by the fact
that Tigranes of Armenia had attached himself to the
cause of the king of Pontus, and had taken from
Parthia the whole of Upper Mesopotamia. Sylla, however,,
did not at once fall in with this scheme, and
the Parthian Mithradates II soon after died,
after a
reign of more than thirty-five years.
For some years after this event, it is not clear who
was the actual ruler of Parthia ; but during this period
the great war between the Romans and Mithradates of
Pontus was in progress, the obvious policy of the
Parthians being to keep aloof, and to amuse both sides
with fair words and empty promises ; in the end, how-
ever, Phraates III made an alliance with Pompey, and
marching into Armenia while the Roman general was
occupied with Mithradates, was completely successful.
But Pompey, perhaps not choosing at the time to give
additional strength to any Asiatic prince, not only failed
to reward Phraates for his services, but drove the Par-
thians out of Gordyene (or Upper Mesopotamia), which