Pompeius Suppresses Piracy1
We have already seen how wretched was the state of the affairs of Rome by land and sea in the east, when at the commencement of 687 Pompeius, with an almost unlimited2 plenitude of power, undertook the conduct of the war against the pirates. He began by dividing the immense field committed to him into thirteen districts and assigning each of these districts to one of his lieutenants3, for the purpose of equipping ships and men there, of searching the coasts, and of capturing piratical vessels5 or chasing them into the meshes6 of a colleague. He himself went with the best part of the ships of war that were available—among which on this occasion also those of Rhodes were distinguished7—early in the year to sea, and swept in the first place the Sicilian, African, and Sardinian waters, with a view especially to re-establish the supply of grain from these provinces to Italy. His lieutenants meanwhile addressed themselves to the clearing of the Spanish and Gallic coasts. It was on this occasion that the consul9 Gaius Piso attempted from Rome to prevent the levies10 which Marcus Pomponius, the legate of Pompeius, instituted by virtue11 of the Gabinian law in the province of Narbo—an imprudent proceeding13, to check which, and at the same time to keep the just indignation of the multitude against the consul within legal bounds, Pompeius temporarily reappeared in Rome.(1) When at the end of forty days the navigation had been everywhere set free in the western basin of the Mediterranean14, Pompeius proceeded with sixty of his best vessels to the eastern seas, and first of all to the original and main seat of piracy, the Lycian and Cilician waters. On the news of the approach of the Roman fleet the piratical barks everywhere disappeared from the open sea; and not only so, but even the strong Lycian fortresses15 of Anticragus and Cragus surrendered without offering serious resistance. The well-calculated moderation of Pompeius helped even more than fear to open the gates of these scarcely accessible marine17 strongholds. His predecessors19 had ordered every captured freebooter to be nailed to the cross; without hesitation20 he gave quarter to all, and treated in particular the common rowers found in the captured piratical vessels with unusual indulgence. The bold Cilician sea-kings alone ventured on an attempt to maintain at least their own waters by arms against the Romans; after having placed their children and wives and their rich treasures for security in the mountain-fortresses of the Taurus, they awaited the Roman fleet at the western frontier of Cilicia, in the offing of Coracesium. But here the ships of Pompeius, well manned and well provided with all implements21 of war, achieved a complete victory. Without farther hindrance22 he landed and began to storm and break up the mountain-castles of the corsairs, while he continued to offer to themselves freedom and life as the price of submission23. Soon the great multitude desisted from the continuance of a hopeless war in their strongholds and mountains, and consented to surrender. Forty-nine days after Pompeius had appeared in the eastern seas, Cilicia was subdued24 and the war at an end.
The rapid suppression of piracy was a great relief, but not a grand achievement; with the resources of the Roman state, which had been called forth26 in lavish27 measure, the corsairs could as little cope as the combined gangs of thieves in a great city can cope with a well-organized police. It was a naive28 proceeding to celebrate such a razzia as a victory. But when compared with the prolonged continuance and the vast and daily increasing extent of the evil, it was natural that the surprisingly rapid subjugation29 of the dreaded30 pirates should make a most powerful impression on the public; and the more so, that this was the first trial of rule centralized in a single hand, and the parties were eagerly waiting to see whether that hand would understand the art of ruling better than the collegiate body had done. Nearly 400 ships and boats, including 90 war vessels properly so called, were either taken by Pompeius or surrendered to him; in all about 1300 piratical vessels are said to have been destroyed; besides which the richly-filled arsenals31 and magazines of the buccaneers were burnt. Of the pirates about 10,000 perished; upwards32 of 20,000 fell alive into the hands of the victor; while Publius Clodius the admiral of the Roman army stationed in Cilicia, and a multitude of other individuals carried off by the pirates, some of them long believed at home to be dead, obtained once more their freedom through Pompeius. In the summer of 687, three months after the beginning of the campaign, commerce resumed its wonted course and instead of the former famine abundance prevailed in Italy.
Dissensions between Pompeius and Metellus as to Crete
A disagreeable interlude in the island of Crete, however, disturbed in some measure this pleasing success of the Roman arms. There Quintus Metellus was stationed in the second year of his command, and was employed in finishing the subjugation-already substantially effected—of the island,(2) when Pompeius appeared in the eastern waters. A collision was natural, for according to the Gabinian law the command of Pompeius extended concurrently35 with that of Metellus over the whole island, which stretched to a great length but was nowhere more than ninety miles broad;(3) but Pompeius was considerate enough not to assign it to any of his lieutenants. The still resisting Cretan communities, however, who had seen their subdued countrymen taken to task by Metellus with the most cruel severity and had learned on the other hand the gentle terms which Pompeius was in the habit of imposing36 on the townships which surrendered to him in the south of Asia Minor37, preferred to give in their joint38 surrender to Pompeius. He accepted it in Pamphylia, where he was just at the moment, from their envoys39, and sent along with them his legate Lucius Octavius to announce to Metellus the conclusion of the conventions and to take over the towns. This proceeding was, no doubt, not like that of a colleague; but formal right was wholly on the side of Pompeius, and Metellus was most evidently in the wrong when, utterly40 ignoring the convention of the cities with Pompeius, he continued to treat them as hostile. In vain Octavius protested; in vain, as he had himself come without troops, he summoned from Achaia Lucius Sisenna, the lieutenant4 of Pompeius stationed there; Metellus, not troubling himself about either Octavius or Sisenna, besieged41 Eleutherna and took Lappa by storm, where Octavius in person was taken prisoner and ignominiously42 dismissed, while the Cretans who were taken with him were consigned43 to the executioner. Accordingly formal conflicts took place between the troops of Sisenna, at whose head Octavius placed himself after that leader's death, and those of Metellus; even when the former had been commanded to return to Achaia, Octavius continued the war in concert with the Cretan Aristion, and Hierapytna, where both made a stand, was only subdued by Metellus after the most obstinate44 resistance.
In reality the zealous45 Optimate Metellus had thus begun formal civil war at his own hand against the generalissimo of the democracy. It shows the indescribable disorganization in the Roman state, that these incidents led to nothing farther than a bitter correspondence between the two generals, who a couple of years afterwards were sitting once more peacefully and even "amicably46" side by side in the senate.
Pompeius Takes the Supreme47 Command against Mithradates
Pompeius during these events remained in Cilicia; preparing for the next year, as it seemed, a campaign against the Cretans or rather against Metellus, in reality waiting for the signal which should call him to interfere48 in the utterly confused affairs of the mainland of Asia Minor. The portion of the Lucullan army that was still left after the losses which it had suffered and the departure of the Fimbrian legions remained inactive on the upper Halys in the country of the Trocmi bordering on the Pontic territory. Lucullus still held provisionally the chief command, as his nominated successor Glabrio continued to linger in the west of Asia Minor. The three legions commanded by Quintus Marcius Rex lay equally inactive in Cilicia. The Pontic territory was again wholly in the power of king Mithradates, who made the individuals and communities that had joined the Romans, such as the town of Eupatoria, pay for their revolt with cruel severity. The kings of the east did not proceed to any serious offensive movement against the Romans, either because it formed no part of their plan, or—as was asserted— because the landing of Pompeius in Cilicia induced Mithradates and Tigranes to desist from advancing farther. The Manilian law realized the secretly-cherished hopes of Pompeius more rapidly than he probably himself anticipated; Glabrio and Rex were recalled and the governorships of Pontus-Bithynia and Cilicia with the troops stationed there, as well as the management of the Pontic-Armenian war along with authority to make war, peace, and alliance with the dynasts of the east at his own discretion49, were transferred to Pompeius. Amidst the prospect50 of honours and spoils so ample Pompeius was glad to forgo51 the chastising52 of an ill-humoured Optimate who enviously53 guarded his scanty54 laurels55; he abandoned the expedition against Crete and the farther pursuit of the corsairs, and destined56 his fleet also to support the attack which he projected on the kings of Pontus and Armenia. Yet amidst this land-war he by no means wholly lost sight of piracy, which was perpetually raising its head afresh. Before he left Asia (691) he caused the necessary ships to be fitted out there against the corsairs; on his proposal in the following year a similar measure was resolved on for Italy, and the sum needed for the purpose was granted by the senate. They continued to protect the coasts with guards of cavalry57 and small squadrons, and though as the expeditions to be mentioned afterwards against Cyprus in 696 and Egypt in 699 show, piracy was not thoroughly58 mastered, it yet after the expedition of Pompeius amidst all the vicissitudes60 and political crises of Rome could never again so raise its head and so totally dislodge the Romans from the sea, as it had done under the government of the mouldering61 oligarchy62.
War Preparations of Pompeius
Alliance with the Parthians
Variance63 between Mithradates and Tigranes
The few months which still remained before the commencement of the campaign in Asia Minor, were employed by the new commander- in-chief with strenuous64 activity in diplomatic and military preparations. Envoys were sent to Mithradates, rather to reconnoitre than to attempt a serious mediation65. There was a hope at the Pontic court that Phraates king of the Parthians would be induced by the recent considerable successes which the allies had achieved over Rome to enter into the Pontic-Armenian alliance. To counteract66 this, Roman envoys proceeded to the court of Ctesiphon; and the internal troubles, which distracted the Armenian ruling house, came to their aid. A son of the great-king Tigranes, bearing the same name had rebelled against his father, either because he was unwilling67 to wait for the death of the old man, or because his father's suspicion, which had already cost several of his brothers their lives, led him to discern his only chance of safety in open insurrection. Vanquished68 by his father, he had taken refuge with a number of Armenians of rank at the court of the Arsacid, and intrigued69 against his father there. It was partly due to his exertions70, that Phraates preferred to take the reward which was offered to him by both sides for his accession—the secured possession of Mesopotamia—from the hand of the Romans, renewed with Pompeius the agreement concluded with Lucullus respecting the boundary of the Euphrates,(4) and even consented to operate in concert with the Romans against Armenia. But the younger Tigranes occasioned still greater mischief71 than that which arose out of his promoting the alliance between the Romans and the Parthians, for his insurrection produced a variance between the kings Tigranes and Mithradates themselves. The great-king cherished in secret the suspicion that Mithradates might have had a hand in the insurrection of his grandson—Cleopatra the mother of the younger Tigranes was the daughter of Mithradates— and, though no open rupture72 took place, the good understanding between the two monarchs73 was disturbed at the very moment when it was most urgently needed.
At the same time Pompeius prosecuted74 his warlike preparations with energy. The Asiatic allied75 and client communities were warned to furnish the stipulated76 contingents77. Public notices summoned the discharged veterans of the legions of Fimbria to return to the standards as volunteers, and by great promises and the name of Pompeius a considerable portion of them were induced in reality to obey the call. The whole force united under the orders of Pompeius may have amounted, exclusive of the auxiliaries79, to between 40,000 and 50,000 men.(5)
Pompeius and Lucullus
In the spring of 688 Pompeius proceeded to Galatia, to take the chief command of the troops of Lucullus and to advance with them into the Pontic territory, whither the Cilician legions were directed to follow. At Danala, a place belonging to the Trocmi, the two generals met; but the reconciliation80, which mutual81 friends had hoped to effect, was not accomplished82. The preliminary courtesies soon passed into bitter discussions, and these into violent altercation83: they parted in worse mood than they had met. As Lucullus continued to make honorary gifts and to distribute lands just as if he were still in office, Pompeius declared all the acts performed by his predecessor18 subsequent to his own arrival null and void. Formally he was in the right; customary tactin the treatment of a meritorious84 and more than sufficientlymortified opponent was not to be looked for from him.
Invasion of Pontus
Retreat of Mithradates
So soon as the season allowed, the Roman troops crossed the frontier of Pontus. There they were opposed by king Mithradates with 30,000 infantry86 and 3000 cavalry. Left in the lurch87 by his allies and attacked by Rome with reinforced power and energy, he made an attempt to procure89 peace; but he would hear nothing of the unconditional90 submission which Pompeius demanded—what worse could the most unsuccessful campaign bring to him? That he might not expose his army, mostly archers91 and horsemen, to the formidable shock of the Roman infantry of the line, he slowly retired92 before the enemy, and compelled the Romans to follow him in his various cross-marches; making a stand at the same time, wherever there was opportunity, with his superior cavalry against that of the enemy, and occasioning no small hardship to the Romans by impeding93 their supplies. At length Pompeius in his impatience94 desisted from following the Pontic army, and, letting the king alone, proceeded to subdue25 the land; he marched to the upper Euphrates, crossed it, and entered the eastern provinces of the Pontic empire. But Mithradates followed along the left bank of the Euphrates, and when he had arrived in the Anaitic or Acilisenian province, he intercepted95 the route of the Romans at the castle of Dasteira, which was strong and well provided with water, and from which with his light troops he commanded the plain. Pompeius, still wanting the Cilician legions and not strong enough to maintain himself in this position without them, had to retire over the Euphrates and to seek protection from the cavalry and archers of the king in the wooded ground of Pontic Armenia extensively intersected by rocky ravines and deep valleys. It was not till the troops from Cilicia arrived and rendered it possible to resume the offensive with a superiority of force, that Pompeius again advanced, invested the camp of the king with a chain of posts of almost eighteen miles in length, and kept him formally blockaded there, while the Roman detachments scoured96 the country far and wide. The distress97 in the Pontic camp was great; the draught98 animals even had to be killed; at length after remaining for forty-five days the king caused his sick and wounded, whom he could not save and was unwilling to leave in the hands of the enemy, to be put to death by his own troops, and departed during the night with the utmost secrecy99 towards the east. Cautiously Pompeius followed through the unknown land: the march was now approaching the boundary which separated the dominions101 of Mithradates and Tigranes. When the Roman general perceived that Mithradates intended not to bring the contest to a decision within his own territory, but to draw the enemy away after him into the far distant regions of the east, he determined102 not to permit this.
Battle at Nicopolis
The two armies lay close to each other. During the rest at noon the Roman army set out without the enemy observing the movement, made a circuit, and occupied the heights, which lay in front and commanded a defile103 to be passed by the enemy, on the southern bank of the river Lycus (Jeschil-Irmak) not far from the modern Enderes, at the point where Nicopolis was afterwards built. The following morning the Pontic troops broke up in their usual manner, and, supposing that the enemy was as hitherto behind them, after, accomplishing the day's march they pitched their camp in the very valley whose encircling heights the Romans had occupied. Suddenly in the silence of the night there sounded all around them the dreaded battle-cry of the legions, and missiles from all sides poured on the Asiatic host, in which soldiers and camp-followers104, chariots, horses, and camels jostled each other; and amidst the dense105 throng106, notwithstanding the darkness, not a missile failed to take effect. When the Romans had expended107 their darts108, they charged down from the heights on the masses which had now become visible by the light of the newly-risen moon, and which were abandoned to them almost defenceless; those that did not fall by the steel of the enemy were trodden down in the fearful pressure under the hoofs109 and wheels. It was the last battle-field on which the gray-haired king fought with the Romans. With three attendants—two of his horsemen, and a concubine who was accustomed to follow him in male attire110 and to fight bravely by his side— he made his escape thence to the fortress16 of Sinoria, whither a portion of his trusty followers found their way to him. He divided among them his treasures preserved there, 6000 talents of gold (1,400,000 pounds); furnished them and himself with poison; and hastened with the band that was left to him up the Euphrates to unite with his ally, the great-king of Armenia.
Tigranes Breaks with Mithradates
Mithradates Crosses the Phasis
This hope likewise was vain; the alliance, on the faith of which Mithradates took the route for Armenia, already by that time existed no longer. During the conflicts between Mithradates and Pompeius just narrated111, the king of the Parthians, yielding to the urgency of the Romans and above all of the exiled Armenian prince, had invaded the kingdom of Tigranes by force of arms, and had compelled him to withdraw into the inaccessible112 mountains. The invading army began even the siege of the capital Artaxata; but, on its becoming protracted113, king Phraates took his departure with the greater portion of his troops; whereupon Tigranes overpowered the Parthian corps114 left behind and the Armenian emigrants115 led by his son, and re-established his dominion100 throughout the kingdom Naturally, however, the king was under such circumstances little inclined to fight with the freshly-victorious116 Romans, and least of all to sacrifice himself for Mithradates; whom he trusted less than ever, since information had reached him that his rebellious117 son intended to betake himself to his grandfather. So he entered into negotiations118 with the Romans for a separate peace; but he did not wait for the conclusion of the treaty to break off the alliance which linked him to Mithradates. The latter, when he had arrived at the frontier of Armenia, was doomed120 to learn that the great-king Tigranes had set a price of 100 talents (24,000 pounds) on his head, had arrested his envoys, and had delivered them to the Romans. King Mithradates saw his kingdom in the hands of the enemy, and his allies on the point of coming to an agreement with them; it was not possible to continue the war; he might deem himself fortunate, if he succeeded in effecting his escape along the eastern and northern shores of the Black Sea, in perhaps dislodging his son Machares—who had revolted and entered into connection with the Romans(6)—once more from the Bosporan kingdom, and in finding on the Maeotis a fresh soil for fresh projects. So he turned northward121. When the king in his flight had crossed the Phasis, the ancient boundary of Asia Minor, Pompeius for the time discontinued his pursuit; but instead of returning to the region of the sources of the Euphrates, he turned aside into the region of the Araxes to settle matters with Tigranes.
Pompeius at Artaxata
Peace with Tigranes
Almost without meeting resistance he arrived in the region of Artaxata (not far from Erivan) and pitched his camp thirteen miles from the city. There he was met by the son of the great-king, who hoped after the fall of his father to receive the Armenian diadem122 from the hand of the Romans, and therefore had endeavoured in every way to prevent the conclusion of the treaty between his father and the Romans. The great-king was only the more resolved to purchase peace at any price. On horseback and without his purple robe, but adorned123 with the royal diadem and the royal turban, he appeared at the gate of the Roman camp and desired to be conducted to the presence of the Roman general. After having given up at the bidding of the lictors, as the regulations of the Roman camp required, his horse and his sword, he threw himself in barbarian124 fashion at the feet of the proconsul and in token of unconditional surrender placed the diadem and tiara in his hands. Pompeius, highly delighted at a victory which cost nothing, raised up the humbled125 king of kings, invested him again with the insignia of his dignity, and dictated126 the peace. Besides a payment of; 1,400,000 pounds (6000 talents) to the war-chest and a present to the soldiers, out of which each of them received 50 -denarii- (2 pounds 2 shillings), the king ceded127 all the conquests which he had made, not merely his Phoenician, Syrian, Cilician, and Cappadocian possessions, but also Sophene and Corduene on the right bank of the Euphrates; he was again restricted to Armenia proper, and his position of great-king was, of course, at an end. In a single campaign Pompeius had totally subdued the two mighty128 kings of Pontus and Armenia. At the beginning of 688 there was not a Roman soldier beyond the frontier of the old Roman possessions; at its close king Mithradates was wandering as an exile and without an army in the ravines of the Caucasus, and king Tigranes sat on the Armenian throne no longer as king of kings, but as a vassal129 of Rome. The whole domain130 of Asia Minor to the west of the Euphrates unconditionally131 obeyed the Romans; the victorious army took up its winter-quarters to the east of that stream on Armenian soil, in the country from the upper Euphrates to the river Kur, from which the Italians then for the first time watered their horses.
The Tribes of the Caucasus
Iberians
Albanians
But the new field, on which the Romans here set foot, raised up for them new conflicts. The brave peoples of the middle and eastern Caucasus saw with indignation the remote Occidentals encamping on their territory. There—in the fertile and well-watered tableland of the modern Georgia—dwelt the Iberians, a brave, well-organized, agricultural nation, whose clan-cantons under their patriarchs cultivated the soil according to the system of common possession, without any separate ownership of the individual cultivators. Army and people were one; the people were headed partly by the ruler- clans—out of which the eldest132 always presided over the whole Iberian nation as king, and the next eldest as judge and leader of the army—partly by special families of priests, on whom chiefly devolved the duty of preserving a knowledge of the treaties concluded with other peoples and of watching over their observance. The mass of the non-freemen were regarded as serfs of the king. Their eastern neighbours, the Albanians or Alans, who were settled on the lower Kur as far as the Caspian Sea, were in a far lower stage of culture. Chiefly a pastoral people they tended, on foot or on horseback, their numerous herds133 in the luxuriant meadows of the modern Shirvan; their few tilled fields were still cultivated with the old wooden plough without iron share. Coined money was unknown, and they did not count beyond a hundred. Each of their tribes, twenty-six in all, had its own chief and spoke134 its distinct dialect. Far superior in number to the Iberians, the Albanians could not at all cope with them in bravery. The mode of fighting was on the whole the same with both nations; they fought chiefly with arrows and light javelins135, which they frequently after the Indian fashion discharged from their lurking-places in the woods behind the trunks of trees, or hurled136 down from the tops of trees on the foe137; the Albanians had also numerous horsemen partly mailed after the Medo-Armenian manner with heavy cuirasses and greaves. Both nations lived on their lands and pastures in a complete independence preserved from time immemorial. Nature itself as it were, seems to have raised the Caucasus between Europe and Asia as a rampart against the tide of national movements; there the arms of Cyrus and of Alexander had formerly139 found their limit; now the brave garrison140 of this partition-wall set themselves to defend it also against the Romans.
Albanians Conquered by Pompeius
Iberians Conquered
Alarmed by the information that the Roman commander-in-chief intended next spring to cross the mountains and to pursue the Pontic king beyond the Caucasus—for Mithradates, they heard, was passing the winter in Dioscurias (Iskuria between Suchum Kale and Anaklia) on the Black Sea—the Albanians under their prince Oroizes first crossed the Kur in the middle of the winter of 688-689 and threw themselves on the army, which was divided for the sake of its supplies into three larger corps under Quintus Metellus Celer, Lucius Flaccus, and Pompeius in person. But Celer, on whom the chief attack fell, made a brave stand, and Pompeius, after having delivered himself from the division sent to attack him, pursued the barbarians141 beaten at all points as far as the Kur. Artoces the king of the Iberians kept quiet and promised peace and friendship; but Pompeius, informed that he was secretly arming so as to fall upon the Romans on their march in the passes of the Caucasus, advanced in the spring of 689, before resuming the pursuit of Mithradates, to the two fortresses just two miles distant from each other, Harmozica (Horum Ziche or Armazi) and Seusamora (Tsumar) which a little above the modern Tiflis command the two valleys of the river Kur and its tributary142 the Aragua, and with these the only passes leading from Armenia to Iberia. Artoces, surprised by the enemy before he was aware of it, hastily burnt the bridge over the Kur and retreated negotiating into the interior. Pompeius occupied the fortresses and followed the Iberians to the other bank of the Kur; by which he hoped to induce them to immediate143 submission. But Artoces retired farther and farther into the interior, and, when at length he halted on the river Pelorus, he did so not to surrender but to fight. The Iberian archers however withstood not for a moment the onset144 of the Roman legions, and, when Artoces saw the Pelorus also crossed by the Romans, he submitted at length to the conditions which the victor proposed, and sent his children as hostages.
Pompeius Proceeds to Colchis
Pompeius now, agreeably to the plan which he had formerly projected, marched through the Sarapana pass from the region of the Kur to that of the Phasis and thence down that river to the Black Sea, where on the Colchian coast the fleet under Servilius already awaited him. But it was for an uncertain idea, and an aim almost unsubstantial, that the army and fleet were thus brought to the richly fabled145 shores of Colchis. The laborious146 march just completed through unknown and mostly hostile nations was nothing when compared with what still awaited them, and if they should really succeed in conducting the force from the mouth of the Phasis to the Crimea, through warlike and poor barbarian tribes, on inhospitable and unknown waters, along a coast where at certain places the mountains sink perpendicularly147 into the sea and it would have been absolutely necessary to embark148 in the ships— if such a march should be successfully accomplished, which was perhaps more difficult than the campaigns of Alexander and Hannibal— what was gained by it even at the best, corresponding at all to its toils149 and dangers? The war doubtless was not ended, so long as the old king was still among the living; but who could guarantee that they would really succeed in catching150 the royal game for the sake of which this unparalleled chase was to be instituted? Was it not better even at the risk of Mithradates once more throwing the torch of war into Asia Minor, to desist from a pursuit which promised so little gain and so many dangers? Doubtless numerous voices in the army, and still more numerous voices in the capital, urged the general to continue the pursuit incessantly151 and at any price; but they were the voices partly of foolhardy Hotspurs, partly of those perfidious152 friends, who would gladly at any price have kept the too-powerful Imperator aloof153 from the capital and entangled154 him amidst interminable undertakings155 in the east. Pompeius was too experienced and too discreet156 an officer to stake his fame and his army in obstinate adherence157 to so injudicious an expedition; an insurrection of the Albanians in rear of the army furnished the pretext159 for abandoning the further pursuit of the king and arranging its return. The fleet received instructions to cruise in the Black Sea, to protect the northern coast of Asia Minor against any hostile invasion, and strictly160 to blockade the Cimmerian Bosporus under the threat of death to any trader who should break the blockade. Pompeius conducted the land troops not without great hardships through the Colchian and Armenian territory to the lower course of the Kur and onward161, crossing the stream, into the Albanian plain.
Fresh Conflicts with the Albanians
For several days the Roman army had to march in the glowing heat through this almost waterless flat country, without encountering the enemy; it was only on the left bank of the Abas (probably the river elsewhere named Alazonius, now Alasan) that the force of the Albanians under the leadership of Coses, brother of the king Oroizes, was drawn162 up against the Romans; they are said to have amounted, including the contingent78 which had arrived from the inhabitants of the Transcaucasian steppes, to 60,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry. Yet they would hardly have risked the battle, unless they had supposed that they had merely to fight with the Roman cavalry; but the cavalry had only been placed in front, and, on its retiring, the masses of Roman infantry showed themselves from their concealment163 behind. After a short conflict the army of the barbarians was driven into the woods, which Pompeius gave orders to invest and set on fire. The Albanians thereupon consented to make peace; and, following the example of the more powerful peoples, all the tribes settled between the Kur and the Caspian concluded a treaty with the Roman general. The Albanians, Iberians, and generally the peoples settled to the south along, and at the foot of, the Caucasus, thus entered at least for the moment into a relation of dependence138 on Rome. When, on the other hand, the peoples between the Phasis and the Maeotis—Colchians, Soani, Heniochi, Zygi, Achaeans, even the remote Bastarnae—were inscribed164 in the long list of the nations subdued by Pompeius, the notion of subjugation was evidently employed in a manner very far from exact. The Caucasus once more verified its significance in the history of the world; the Roman conquest, like the Persian and the Hellenic, found its limit there.
Mithradates Goes to Panticapaeum
Accordingly king Mithradates was left to himself and to destiny. As formerly his ancestor, the founder165 of the Pontic state had first entered his future kingdom as a fugitive166 from the executioners of Antigonus and attended only by six horsemen, so had the grandson now been compelled once more to cross the bounds of his kingdom and to turn his back on his own and his fathers' conquests. But for no one had the dice167 of fate turned up the highest gains and the greatest losses more frequently and more capriciously than for the old sultan of Sinope; and the fortunes of men change rapidly and incalculably in the east. Well might Mithradates now in the evening of his life accept each new vicissitude59 with the thought that it too was only in its turn paving the way for a fresh revolution, and that the only thing constant was the perpetual change of fortune. Inasmuch as the Roman rule was intolerable for the Orientals at the very core of their nature, and Mithradates himself was in good and in evil a true prince of the east, amidst the laxity of the rule exercised by the Roman senate over the provinces, and amidst the dissensions of the political parties in Rome fermenting168 and ripening169 into civil war, Mithradates might, if he was fortunate enough to bide170 his time, doubtless re-establish his dominion yet a third time. For this very reason—because he hoped and planned while still there was life in him—he remained dangerous to the Romans so long as he lived, as an aged171 refugee no less than when he had marched forth with his hundred thousands to wrest172 Hellas and Macedonia from the Romans. The restless old man made his way in the year 689 from Dioscurias amidst unspeakable hardships partly by land partly by sea to the kingdom of Panticapaeum, where by his reputation and his numerous retainers he drove his renegade son Machares from the throne and compelled him to put himself to death. From this point he attempted once more to negotiate with the Romans; he besought173 that his paternal174 kingdom might be restored to him, and declared himself ready to recognize the supremacy175 of Rome and to pay tribute as a vassal. But Pompeius refused to grant the king a position in which he would have begun the old game afresh, and insisted on his personal submission.
His Last Preparations against Rome
Mithradates, however, had no thought of delivering himself into the hands of the enemy, but was projecting new and still more extravagant176 plans. Straining all the resources with which the treasures that he had saved and the remnant of his states supplied him, he equipped a new army of 36,000 men consisting partly of slaves which he armed and exercised after the Roman fashion, and a war-fleet; according to rumour177 he designed to march westward178 through Thrace, Macedonia, and Pannonia, to carry along with him the Scythians in the Sarmatian steppes and the Celts on the Danube as allies, and with this avalanche179 of peoples to throw himself on Italy. This has been deemed a grand idea, and the plan of war of the Pontic king has been compared with the military march of Hannibal; but the same project, which in a gifted man is a stroke of genius, becomes folly180 in one who is wrong-headed. This intended invasion of Italy by the Orientals was simply ridiculous, and nothing but a product of the impotent imagination of despair. Through the prudent12 coolness of their leader the Romans were prevented from Quixotically pursuing their Quixotic antagonist181 and warding182 off in the distant Crimea an attack, which, if it were not nipped of itself in the bud, would still have been soon enough met at the foot of the Alps.
Revolt against Mithradates
In fact, while Pompeius, without troubling himself further as to the threats of the impotent giant, was employed in organizing the territory which he had gained, the destinies of the aged king drew on to their fulfilment without Roman aid in the remote north. His extravagant preparations had produced the most violent excitement among the Bosporans, whose houses were torn down, and whose oxen were taken from the plough and put to death, in order to procure beams and sinews for constructing engines of war. The soldiers too were disinclined to enter on the hopeless Italian expedition. Mithradates had constantly been surrounded by suspicion and treason; he had not the gift of calling forth affection and fidelity183 among those around him. As in earlier years he had compelled his distinguished general Archelaus to seek protection in the Roman camp; as during the campaigns of Lucullus his most trusted officers Diodes, Phoenix184, and even the most notable of the Roman emigrants had passed over to the enemy; so now, when his star grew pale and the old, infirm, embittered185 sultan was accessible to no one else save his eunuchs, desertion followed still more rapidly on desertion. Castor, the commandant of the fortress Phanagoria (on the Asiatic coast opposite Kertch), first raised the standard of revolt; he proclaimed the freedom of the town and delivered the sons of Mithradates that were in the fortress into the hands of the Romans. While the insurrection spread among the Bosporan towns, and Chersonesus (not far from Sebastopol), Theudosia (Kaffa), and others joined the Phanagorites, the king allowed his suspicion and his cruelty to have free course. On the information of despicable eunuchs his most confidential186 adherents187 were nailed to the cross; the king's own sons were the least sure of their lives. The son who was his father's favourite and was probably destined by him as his successor, Pharnaces, took his resolution and headed the insurgents188. The servants whom Mithradates sent to arrest him, and the troops despatched against him, passed over to his side; the corps of Italian deserters, perhaps the most efficient among the divisions of Mithradates' army, and for that very reason the least inclined to share in the romantic—and for the deserters peculiarly hazardous—expedition against Italy, declared itself en masse for the prince; the other divisions of the army and the fleet followed the example thus set.
Death of Mithadates
After the country and the army had abandoned the king, the capital Panticapaeum at length opened its gates to the insurgents and delivered over to them the old king enclosed in his palace. From the high wall of his castle the latter besought his son at least to grant him life and not imbrue his hands in his father's blood; but the request came ill from the lips of a man whose own hands were stained with the blood of his mother and with the recently-shed blood of his innocent son Xiphares; and in heartless severity and inhumanity Pharnaces even outstripped190 his father. Seeing therefore he had now to die, the sultan resolved at least to die as he had lived; his wives, his concubines and his daughters, including the youthful brides of the kings of Egypt and Cyprus, had all to suffer the bitterness of death and drain the poisoned cup, before he too took it, and then, when the draught did not take effect quickly enough, presented his neck for the fatal stroke to a Celtic mercenary Betuitus. So died in 691 Mithradates Eupator, in the sixty-eighth year of his life and the fifty-seventh of his reign191, twenty-six years after he had for the first time taken the field against the Romans. The dead body, which king Pharnaces sent as a voucher192 of his merits and of his loyalty193 to Pompeius, was by order of the latter laid in the royal sepulchre of Sinope.
The death of Mithradates was looked on by the Romans as equivalent to a victory: the messengers who reported to the general the catastrophe194 appeared crowned with laurel, as if they had a victory to announce, in the Roman camp before Jericho. In him a great enemy was borne to the tomb, a greater than had ever yet withstood the Romans in the indolent east. Instinctively195 the multitude felt this: as formerly Scipio had triumphed even more over Hannibal than over Carthage, so the conquest of the numerous tribes of the east and of the great-king himself was almost forgotten in the death of Mithradates; and at the solemn entry of Pompeius nothing attracted more the eyes of the multitude than the pictures, in which they saw king Mithradates as a fugitive leading his horse by the rein88 and thereafter sinking down in death between the dead bodies of his daughters. Whatever judgment196 may be formed as to the idiosyncrasy of the king, he is a figure of great significance—in the full sense of the expression—for the history of the world. He was not a personage of genius, probably not even of rich endowments; but he possessed197 the very respectable gift of hating, and out of this hatred198 he sustained an unequal conflict against superior foes199 throughout half a century, without success doubtless, but with honour. He became still more significant through the position in which history had placed him thanthrough his individual character. As the forerunner200 of the national reaction of the Orientals against the Occidentals, he opened the new conflict of the east against the west; and the feeling remained with the vanquished as with the victors, that his death was not so much the end as the beginning.
Pompeius Proceeds to Syria
Meanwhile Pompeius, after his warfare201 in 689 with the peoples of the Caucasus, had returned to the kingdom of Pontus, and there reduced the last castles still offering resistance; these were razed202 in order to check the evils of brigandage203, and the castle wells were rendered unserviceable by rolling blocks of rock into them. Thence he set out in the summer of 690 for Syria, to regulate its affairs.
State of Syria
It is difficult to present a clear view of the state of disorganization which then prevailed in the Syrian provinces. It is true that in consequence of the attacks of Lucullus the Armenian governor Magadates had evacuated204 these provinces in 685,(7) and that the Ptolemies, gladly as they would have renewed the attempts of their predecessors to attach the Syrian coast to their kingdom, were yet afraid to provoke the Roman government by the occupation of Syria; the more so, as that government had not yet regulated their more than doubtful legal title even in the case of Egypt, and had been several times solicited205 by the Syrian princes to recognize them as the legitimate206 heirs of the extinct house of the Lagids. But, though the greater powers all at the moment refrained from interference in the affairs of Syria, the land suffered far more than it would have suffered amidst a great war, through the endless and aimless feuds208 of the princes, knights209, and cities.
Arabian Princes
The actual masters in the Seleucid kingdom were at this time the Bedouins, the Jews, and the Nabataeans. The inhospitable sandy steppe destitute210 of springs and trees, which, stretching from the Arabianpeninsula up to and beyond the Euphrates, reaches towards the west as far as the Syrian mountain-chain and its narrow belt of coast, toward the east as far as the rich lowlands of the Tigris and lower Euphrates—this Asiatic Sahara—was the primitive211 home of the sons of Ishmael; from the commencement of tradition we find the "Bedawi," the "son of the desert," pitching his tents there and pasturing his camels, or mounting his swift horse in pursuit now of the foe of his tribe, now of the travelling merchant. Favoured formerly by king Tigranes, who made use of them for his plans half commercial half political,(8) and subsequently by the total absence of any master in the Syrian land, these children of the desert spread themselves over northern Syria. Wellnigh the leading part in a political point of view was enacted212 by those tribes, which had appropriated the first rudiments213 of a settled existence from the vicinity of the civilized214 Syrians. The most noted215 of these emirs were Abgarus, chief of the Arab tribe of the Mardani, whom Tigranes had settled about Edessa and Carrhae in upper Mesopotamia;(9) then to the west of the Euphrates Sampsiceramus, emir of the Arabs of Hemesa (Homs) between Damascus and Antioch, and master of the strong fortress Arethusa; Azizus the head of another horde216 roaming in the same region; Alchaudonius, the prince of the Rhambaeans, who had already put himself into communication with Lucullus; and several others.
Robber-Chiefs
Alongside of these Bedouin princes there had everywhere appeared bold cavaliers, who equalled or excelled the children of the desert in the noble trade of waylaying217. Such was Ptolemaeus son of Mennaeus, perhaps the most powerful among these Syrian robber- chiefs and one of the richest men of this period, who ruled over the territory of the Ityraeans—the modern Druses—in the valleys of the Libanus as well as on the coast and over the plain of Massyas to the northward with the cities of Heliopolis (Baalbec) and Chalcis, and maintained 8000 horsemen at his own expense; such were Dionysius and Cinyras, the masters of the maritime218 cities Tripolis (Tarablus) and Byblus (between Tarablus and Beyrout); such was the Jew Silas in Lysias, a fortress not far from Apamea on the Orontes.
Jews
In the south of Syria, on the other hand, the race of the Jews seemed as though it would about this time consolidate219 itself into a political power. Through the devout220 and bold defence of the primitive Jewish national worship, which was imperilled by the levelling Hellenism of the Syrian kings, the family of the Hasmonaeans or the Makkabi had not only attained221 to their hereditary222 principality and gradually to kingly honours;(10) but these princely high-priests had also spread their conquests to the north, east, and south. When the brave Jannaeus Alexander died (675), the Jewish kingdom stretched towards the south over the whole Philistian territory as far as the frontier of Egypt, towards the south-east as far as that of the Nabataean kingdom of Petra, from which Jannaeus had wrested223 considerable tracts224 on the right bank of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, towards the north over Samaria and Decapolis up to the lake of Gennesareth; here he was already making arrangements to occupy Ptolemais (Acco) and victoriously225 to repel226 the aggressions of the Ityraeans. The coast obeyed the Jews from Mount Carmel as far as Rhinocorura, including the important Gaza—Ascalon alone was still free; so that the territory of the Jews, once almost cut off from the sea, could now be enumerated227 among the asylums228 of piracy. Now that the Armenian invasion, just as it approached the borders of Judaea, was averted229 from that land by the intervention230 of Lucullus,(11) the gifted rulers of the Hasmonaean house would probably have carried their arms still farther, had not the development of the power of that remarkable231 conquering priestly state been nipped in the bud by internal divisions.
Pharisees
Sadducees
The spirit of religious independence, and the spirit of national independence—the energetic union of which had called the Maccabee state into life—speedily became once more dissociated and even antagonistic232. The Jewish orthodoxy or Pharisaism, as it was called, was content with the free exercise of religion, as it had been asserted in defiance233 of the Syrian rulers; its practical aim was a community of Jews, composed of the orthodox in the lands of all rulers, essentially234 irrespective of the secular235 government— a community which found its visible points of union in the tribute for the temple at Jerusalem, which was obligatory236 on every conscientious237 Jew, and in the schools of religion and spiritual courts. Overagainst this orthodoxy, which turned away from political life and became more and more stiffened238 into theological formalism and painful ceremonial service, were arrayed the defenders239 of the national independence, invigorated amidst successful struggles against foreign rule, and advancing towards the ideal of a restoration of the Jewish state, the representatives of the old great families—the so-called Sadducees—partly on dogmatic grounds, in so far as they acknowledged only the sacred books themselves and conceded authority merely, not canonicity, to the "bequests240 of the scribes," that is, to canonical241 tradition;(12) partly and especially on political grounds, in so far as, instead of a fatalistic waiting for the strong arm of the Lord of Zebaoth, they taught that the salvation242 of the nation was to be expected from the weapons of this world, and from the inward and outward strengthening of the kingdom of David as re-established in the glorious times of the Maccabees. Those partisans243 of orthodoxy found their support in the priesthood and the multitude; they contested with the Hasmonaeans the legitimacy244 of their high- priesthood, and fought against the noxious245 heretics with all the reckless implacability, with which the pious246 are often found to contend for the possession of earthly goods. The state-party on the other hand relied for support on intelligence brought into contact with the influences of Hellenism, on the army, in which numerous Pisidian and Cilician mercenaries served, and on the abler kings, who here strove with the ecclesiastical power much as a thousand years later the Hohenstaufen strove with the Papacy. Jannaeus had kept down the priesthood with a strong hand; under his two sons there arose (685 et seq.) a civil and fraternal war, since the Pharisees opposed the vigorous Aristobulus and attempted to obtain their objects under the nominal247 rule of his brother, the good-natured and indolent Hyrcanus. This dissension not merely put a stop to the Jewish conquests, but gave also foreign nations opportunity to interfere and thereby248 obtain a commanding position in southern Syria.
Nabataeans
This was the case first of all with the Nabataeans. This remarkable nation has often been confounded with its eastern neighbours, the wandering Arabs, but it is more closely related to the Aramaean branch than to the proper children of Ishmael. This Aramaean or, according to the designation of the Occidentals, Syrian stock must have in very early times sent forth from its most ancient settlements about Babylon a colony, probably for the sake of trade, to the northern end of the Arabian gulf249; these were the Nabataeans on the Sinaitic peninsula, between the gulf of Suez and Aila, and in the region of Petra (Wadi Mousa). In their ports the wares250 of the Mediterranean were exchanged for those of India; the great southern caravan251-route, which ran from Gaza to the mouth of the Euphrates and the Persian gulf, passed through the capital of the Nabataeans—Petra—whose still magnificent rock-palaces and rock-tombs furnish clearer evidence of the Nabataean civilization than does an almost extinct tradition. The leaders of the Pharisees, to whom after the manner of priests the victory of their faction252 seemed not too dearly bought at the price of the independence and integrity of their country, solicited Aretas the king of the Nabataeans for aid against Aristobulus, in return for which they promised to give back to him all the conquests wrested from him by Jannaeus. Thereupon Aretas had advanced with, it was said, 50,000 men into Judaea and, reinforced by the adherents of the Pharisees, he kept king Aristobulus besieged in his capital.
Syrian Cities
Amidst the system of violence and feud207 which thus prevailed from one end of Syria to another, the larger cities were of course the principal sufferers, such as Antioch, Seleucia, Damascus, whose citizens found themselves paralysed in their husbandry as well as in their maritime and caravan trade. The citizens of Byblus and Berytus (Beyrout) were unable to protect their fields and their ships from the Ityraeans, who issuing from their mountain and maritime strongholds rendered land and sea equally insecure. Those of Damascus sought to ward33 off the attacks of the Ityraeans and Ptolemaeus by handing themselves over to the more remote kings of the Nabataeans or of the Jews. In Antioch Sampsiceramus and Azizus mingled253 in the internal feuds of the citizens, and the Hellenic great city had wellnigh become even now the seat of an Arab emir. The state of things reminds us of the kingless times of the German middle ages, when Nuremberg and Augsburg found their protection not in the king's law and the king's courts, but in their own walls alone; impatiently the merchant-citizens of Syria awaited the strong arm, which should restore to them peace and security of intercourse254.
The Last Seleucids
There was no want, however, of a legitimate king in Syria; there were even two or three of them. A prince Antiochus from the house of the Seleucids had been appointed by Lucullus as ruler of the most northerly province in Syria, Commagene.(13) Antiochus Asiaticus, whose claims on the Syrian throne had met with recognition both from the senate and from Lucullus,(14) had been received in Antioch after the retreat of the Armenians and there acknowledged as king. A third Seleucid prince Philippus had immediately confronted him there as a rival; and the great population of Antioch, excitable and delighting in opposition256 almost like that of Alexandria, as well as one or two of the neighbouring Arab emirs had interfered257 in the family strife258 which now seemed inseparable from the rule of the Seleucids. Was there any wonder that legitimacy became ridiculous and loathsome259 to its subjects, and that the so-called rightful kings were of even somewhat less importance in the land than the petty princes and robber-chiefs?
Annexation260 of Syria
To create order amidst this chaos261 did not require either brilliance262 of conception or a mighty display of force, but it required a clear insight into the interests of Rome and of her subjects, and vigour263 and consistency264 in establishing and maintaining the institutions recognized as necessary. The policy of the senate in support of legitimacy had sufficiently85 degraded itself; the general, whom the opposition had brought into power, was not to be guided by dynastic considerations, but had only to see that the Syrian kingdom should not be withdrawn265 from the clientship of Rome in future either by the quarrels of pretenders or by the Covetousness266 of neighbours. But to secure this end there was only one course; that the Roman community should send a satrap to grasp with a vigorous hand the reins268 of government, which had long since practically slipped from the hands of the kings of the ruling house more even through their own fault than through outward misfortunes. This course Pompeius took. Antiochus the Asiatic, on requesting to be acknowledged as the hereditary ruler of Syria, received the answer that Pompeius would not give back the sovereignty to a king who knew neither how to maintain nor how to govern his kingdom, even at the request of his subjects, much less against their distinctly expressed wishes. With this letter of the Roman proconsul the house of Seleucus was ejected from the throne which it had occupied for two hundred and fifty years. Antiochus soon after lost his life through the artifice269 of the emir Sampsiceramus, as whose client he played the ruler in Antioch; thenceforth there is no further mention of these mock-kings and their pretensions270.
Military Pacification271 of Syria
But, to establish the new Roman government and introduce any tolerable order into the confusion of affairs, it was further necessary to advance into Syria with a military force and to terrify or subdue all the disturbers of the peace, who had sprung up during the many years of anarchy272, by means of the Roman legions. Already during the campaigns in the kingdom of Pontus and on the Caucasus Pompeius had turned his attention to the affairs of Syria and directed detached commissioners273 and corps to interfere, where there was need. Aulus Gabinius—the same who as tribune of the people had sent Pompeius to the east—had in 689 marched along the Tigris and then across Mesopotamia to Syria, to adjust the complicated affairs of Judaea. In like manner the severely274 pressed Damascus had already been occupied by Lollius and Metellus. Soon afterwards another adjutant of Pompeius, Marcus Scaurus, arrived in Judaea, to allay275 the feuds ever breaking out afresh there. Lucius Afranius also, who during the expedition of Pompeius to the Caucasus held the command of the Roman troops in Armenia, had proceeded from Corduene (the northern Kurdistan) to upper Mesopotamia, and, after he had successfully accomplished the perilous276 march through the desert with the sympathizing help of the Hellenes settled in Carrhae, brought the Arabs in Osrhoene to submission. Towards the end of 690 Pompeius in person arrived in Syria,(15) and remained there till the summer of the following year, resolutely278 interfering279 and regulating matters for the present and the future. He sought to restore the kingdom to its state in the better times of the Seleucid rule; all usurped280 powers were set aside, the robber-chiefs were summoned to give up their castles, the Arab sheiks were again restricted to their desert domains281, the affairs of the several communities were definitely regulated.
The Robber-Chiefs Chastised282
The legions stood ready to procure obedience283 to these stern orders, and their interference proved especially necessary against the audacious robber-chiefs. Silas the ruler of Lysias, Dionysius the ruler of Tripolis, Cinyras the ruler of Byblus were taken prisoners in their fortresses and executed, the mountain and maritime strongholds of the Ityraeans were broken up, Ptolemaeus son of Mennaeus in Chalcis was forced to purchase his freedom and his lordship with a ransom284 of 1000 talents (240,000 pounds). Elsewhere the commands of the new master met for the most part with unresisting obedience.
Negotiations and Conflicts with the Jews
The Jews alone hesitated. The mediators formerly sent by Pompeius, Gabinius and Scaurus, had—both, as it was said, bribed285 with considerable sums—in the dispute between the brothers Hyrcanus and Aristobulus decided286 in favour of the latter, and had also induced king Aretas to raise the siege of Jerusalem and to proceed homeward, in doing which he sustained a defeat at the hands of Aristobulus. But, when Pompeius arrived in Syria, he cancelled the orders of his subordinates and directed the Jews to resume their old constitution under high-priests, as the senate had recognized it about 593,(16) and to renounce287 along with the hereditary principality itself all the conquests made by the Hasmonaean princes. It was the Pharisees, who had sent an embassy of two hundred of their most respected men to the Roman general and procured288 from him the overthrow289 of the kingdom; not to the advantage of their own nation, but doubtless to that of the Romans, who from the nature of the case could not but here revert290 to the old rights of the Seleucids, and could not tolerate a conquering power like that of Jannaeus within the limits of their empire. Aristobulus was uncertain whether it was better patiently to acquiesce291 in his inevitable292 doom119 or to meet his fate with arms in hand; at one time he seemed on the point of submitting to Pompeius, at another he seemed as though he would summon the national party among the Jews to a struggle with the Romans. When at length, with the legions already at the gates, he yielded to the enemy, the more resolute277 or more fanatical portion of his army refused to comply with the orders of a king who was not free. The capital submitted; the steep temple-rock was defended by that fanatical band for three months with an obstinacy293 ready to brave death, till at last the besiegers effected an entrance while the besieged were resting on the Sabbath, possessed themselves of the sanctuary294, and handed over the authors of that desperate resistance, so far as they had not fallen under the sword of the Romans, to the axes of the lictors. Thus ended the last resistance of the territories newly annexed295 to the Roman state.
The New Relations of the Romans in the East
The work begun by Lucullus had been completed by Pompeius; the hitherto formally independent states of Bithynia, Pontus, and Syria were united with the Roman state; the exchange—which had been recognized for more than a hundred years as necessary— of the feeble system of a protectorate for that of direct sovereignty over the more important dependent territories,(17) had at length been realized, as soon as the senate had been overthrown296 and the Gracchan party had come to the helm. Rome had obtained in the east new frontiers, new neighbours, new friendly and hostile relations. There were now added to the indirect territories of Rome the kingdom of Armenia and the principalities of the Caucasus, and also the kingdom on the Cimmerian Bosporus, the small remnant of the extensive conquests of Mithradates Eupator, now a client-state of Rome under the government of his son and murderer Pharnaces; the town of Phanagoria alone, whose commandant Castor had given the signal for the revolt, was on that account recognized by the Romans as free and independent.
Conflicts with the Nabataeans
No like successes could be boasted of against the Nabataeans. King Aretas had indeed, yielding to the desire of the Romans, evacuated Judaea; but Damascus was still in his hands, and the Nabataean land had not yet been trodden by any Roman soldier. To subdue that region or at least to show to their new neighbours in Arabia that the Roman eagles were now dominant297 on the Orontes and on the Jordan, and that the time had gone by when any one was free to levy298 contributions in the Syrian lands as a domain without a master, Pompeius began in 691 an expedition against Petra; but detained by the revolt of the Jews, which broke out during this expedition, he was not reluctant to leave to his successor Marcus Scaurus the carrying out of the difficult enterprise against the Nabataean city situated299 far off amidst the desert.(18) In reality Scaurus also soon found himself compelled to return without having accomplished his object. He had to content himself with making war on the Nabataeans in the deserts on the left bank of the Jordan, where he could lean for support on the Jews, but yet bore off only very trifling300 successes. Ultimately the adroit301 Jewish minister Antipater from Idumaea persuaded Aretas to purchase a guarantee for all his possessions, Damascus included, from the Roman governor for a sum of money; and this is the peace celebrated302 on the coins of Scaurus, where king Aretas appears—leading his camel— as a suppliant303 offering the olive branch to the Roman.
Difficulty with the Parthians
Far more fraught304 with momentous305 effects than these new relations of the Romans to the Armenians, Iberians, Bosporans, and Nabataeans was the proximity306 into which through the occupation of Syria they were brought with the Parthian state. Complaisant307 as had been the demeanour of Roman diplomacy308 towards Phraates while the Pontic and Armenian states still subsisted309, willingly as both Lucullus and Pompeius had then conceded to him the possession of the regions beyond the Euphrates,(19) the new neighbour now sternly took up his position by the side of the Arsacids; and Phraates, if the royal art of forgetting his own faults allowed him, might well recall now the warning words of Mithradates that the Parthian by his alliance with the Occidentals against the kingdoms of kindred race paved the way first for their destruction and then for his own. Romans and Parthians in league had brought Armenia to ruin; when it was overthrown, Rome true to her old policy now reversed the parts and favoured the humbled foe at the expense of the powerful ally. The singular preference, which the father Tigranes experienced from Pompeius as contrasted with his son the ally and son-in-law of the Parthian king, was already part of this policy; it was a direct offence, when soon afterwards by the orders of Pompeius the younger Tigranes and his family were arrested and were not released even on Phraates interceding310 with the friendly general for his daughter and his son-in-law. But Pompeius paused not here. The province of Corduene, to which both Phraates and Tigranes laid claim, was at the command of Pompeius occupied by Roman troops for the latter, and the Parthians who were found in possession were driven beyond the frontier and pursued even as far as Arbela in Adiabene, without the government of Ctesiphon having even been previously311 heard (689). Far the most suspicious circumstance however was, that the Romans seemed not at all inclined to respect the boundary of the Euphrates fixed312 by treaty. On several occasions Roman divisions destined from Armenia for Syria marched across Mesopotamia; the Arab emir Abgarus of Osrhoene was received under singularly favourable313 conditions into Roman protection; nay314, Oruros, situated in Upper Mesopotamia somewhere between Nisibis and the Tigris 220 miles eastward315 from the Commagenian passage of the Euphrates, was designated as the eastern limit of the Roman dominion— presumably their indirect dominion, inasmuch as the larger and more fertile northern half of Mesopotamia had been assigned by the Romans in like manner with Corduene to the Armenian empire. The boundary between Romans and Parthians thus became the great Syro-Mesopotamian desert instead of the Euphrates; and this too seemed only provisional. To the Parthian envoys, who came to insist on the maintenance of the agreements—which certainly, as it would seem, were only concluded orally—respecting the Euphrates boundary, Pompeius gave the ambiguous reply that the territory of Rome extended as far as her rights. The remarkable intercourse between the Roman commander-in-chief and the Parthian satraps of the region of Media and even of the distant province Elymais (between Susiana, Media, and Persia, in the modern Luristan) seemed a commentary on this speech.(20) The viceroys of this latter mountainous, warlike, and remote land had always exerted themselves to acquire a position independent of the great-king; it was the more offensive and menacing to the Parthian government, when Pompeius accepted the proffered316 homage317 of this dynast. Not less significant was the fact that the title of "king of kings," which had been hitherto conceded to the Parthian king by the Romans in official intercourse, was now all at once exchanged by them for the simple title of king. This was even more a threat than a violation318 of etiquette319. Since Rome had entered on the heritage of the Seleucids, it seemed almost as if the Romans had a mind to revert at a convenient moment to those old times, when all Iran and Turan were ruled from Antioch, and there was as yet no Parthian empire but merely a Parthian satrapy. The court of Ctesiphon would thus have had reason enough for going to war with Rome; it seemed the prelude320 to its doing so, when in 690 it declared war on Armenia on account of the question of the frontier. But Phraates had not the courage to come to an open rupture with the Romans at a time when the dreaded general with his strong army was on the borders of the Parthian empire. When Pompeius sent commissioners to settle amicably the dispute between Parthia and Armenia, Phraates yielded to the Roman mediation forced upon him and acquiesced321 in their award, which assigned to the Armenians Corduene and northern Mesopotamia. Soon afterwards his daughter with her son and her husband adorned the triumph of the Roman general. Even the Parthians trembled before the superior power of Rome; and, if they had not, like the inhabitants of Pontus and Armenia, succumbed322 to the Roman arms, the reason seemed only to be that they had not ventured to stand the conflict.
Organization of the Provinces
There still devolved on the general the duty of regulating the internal relations of the newly-acquired provinces and of removing as far as possible the traces of a thirteen years' desolating323 war. The work of organization begun in Asia Minor by Lucullus and the commission associated with him, and in Crete by Metellus, received its final conclusion from Pompeius. The former province of Asia, which embraced Mysia, Lydia, Phrygia, and Caria, was converted from a frontier province into a central one. The newly-erected324 provinces were, that of Bithynia and Pontus, which was formed out of the whole former kingdom of Nicomedes and the western half of the former Pontic state as far as and beyond the Halys; that of Cilicia, which indeed was older, but was now for the first time enlarged and organized in a manner befitting its name, and comprehended also Pamphylia and Isauria; that of Syria, and that of Crete. Much was no doubt wanting to render that mass of countries capable of being regarded as the territorial325 possession of Rome in the modern sense of the term. The form and order of the government remained substantially as they were; only the Roman community came in place of the former monarchs. Those Asiatic provinces consisted as formerly of a motley mixture of domanial possessions, urban territories de facto or de jure autonomous326, lordships pertaining327 to princes and priests, and kingdoms, all of which were as regards internal administration more or less left to themselves, and in other respects were dependent, sometimes in milder sometimes in stricter forms, on the Roman government and its proconsuls very much as formerly on the great-king and his satraps.
Feudatory Kings
Cappadocia
Commagene
Galatia
The first place, in rank at least, among the dependent dynasts was held by the king of Cappadocia, whose territory Lucullus had already enlarged by investing him with the province of Melitene (about Malatia) as far as the Euphrates, and to whom Pompeius farther granted on the western frontier some districts taken off Cilicia from Castabala as far as Derbe near Iconium, and on the eastern frontier the province of Sophene situated on the left bank of the Euphrates opposite Melitene and at first destined for the Armenian prince Tigranes; so that the most important passage of the Euphrates thus came wholly into the power of the Cappadocian prince. The small province of Commagene between Syria and Cappadocia with its capital Samosata (Samsat) remained a dependent kingdom in the hands of the already-named Seleucid Antiochus;(21) to him too were assigned the important fortress of Seleucia (near Biradjik) commanding the more southern passage of the Euphrates, and the adjoining tracts on the left bank of that river; and thus care was taken that the two chief passages of the Euphrates with a corresponding territory on the eastern bank were left in the hands of two dynasts wholly dependent on Rome. Alongside of the kings of Cappadocia and Commagene, and in real power far superior to them, the new king Deiotarus ruled in Asia Minor. One of the tetrarchs of the Celtic stock of the Tolistobogii settled round Pessinus, and summoned by Lucullus and Pompeius to render military service with the other small Roman clients, Deiotarus had in these campaigns so brilliantly proved his trustworthiness and his energy as contrasted with all the indolent Orientals that the Roman generals conferred upon him, in addition to his Galatian heritage and his possessions in the rich country between Amisus and the mouth of the Halys, the eastern half of the former Pontic empire with the maritime towns of Pharnacia and Trapezus and the Pontic Armenia as far as the frontier of Colchis and the Greater Armenia, to form the kingdom of Lesser328 Armenia. Soon afterwards he increased his already considerable territory by the country of the Celtic Trocmi, whose tetrarch he dispossessed. Thus the petty feudatory became one of the most powerful dynasts of Asia Minor, to whom might be entrusted329 the guardianship330 of an important part of the frontier of the empire.
Princes and Chiefs
Vassals331 of lesser importance were, the other numerous Galatian tetrarchs, one of whom, Bogodiatarus prince of the Trocmi, was on account of his tried valour in the Mithradatic war presented by Pompeius with the formerly Pontic frontier-town of Mithradatium; Attalus prince of Paphlagonia, who traced back his lineage to the old ruling house of the Pylaemenids; Aristarchus and other petty lords in the Colchian territory; Tarcondimotus who ruled in eastern Cilicia in the mountain-valleys of the Amanus; Ptolemaeus son of Mennaeus who continued to rule in Chalcis on the Libanus; Aretas king of the Nabataeans as lord of Damascus; lastly, the Arabic emirs in the countries on either side of the Euphrates, Abgarus in Osrhoene, whom the Romans endeavoured in every way to draw over to their interest with the view of using him as an advanced post against the Parthians, Sampsiceramus in Hemesa, Alchaudonius the Rhambaean, and another emir in Bostra.
Priestly Princes
To these fell to be added the spiritual lords who in the east frequently ruled over land and people like secular dynasts, and whose authority firmly established in that native home of fanaticism332 the Romans prudently333 refrained from disturbing, as they refrained from even robbing the temples of their treasures: the high-priest of the Goddess Mother in Pessinus; the two high-priests of the goddess Ma in the Cappadocian Comana (on the upper Sarus) and in the Pontic city of the same name (Gumenek near Tocat), both lords who were in their countries inferior only to the king in power, and each of whom even at a much later period possessed extensive estates with special jurisdiction334 and about six thousand temple-slaves—Archelaus, son of the general of that name who passed over from Mithradates to the Romans, was invested by Pompeius with the Pontic high-priesthood—the high-priest of the Venasian Zeus in the Cappadocian district of Morimene, whose revenues amounted annually335 to 3600 pounds (15 talents); the "archpriest and lord" of that territory in Cilicia Trachea, where Teucer the son of Ajax had founded a temple to Zeus, over which his descendants presided by virtue of hereditary right; the "arch-priest and lord of the people" of the Jews, to whom Pompeius, after having razed the walls of the capital and the royal treasuries336 and strongholds in the land, gave back the presidency337 of the nation with a serious admonition to keep the peace and no longer to aim at conquests.
Urban Communities
Alongside of these secular and spiritual potentates338 stood the urban communities. These were partly associated into larger unions which rejoiced in a comparative independence, such as in particular the league of the twenty-three Lycian cities, which was well organized and constantly, for instance, kept aloof from participation339 in the disorders340 of piracy; whereas the numerous detached communities, even if they had self-government secured by charter, were in practice wholly dependent on the Roman governors.
Elevation341 of Urban Life in Asia
The Romans failed not to see that with the task of representing Hellenism and protecting and extending the domain of Alexander in the east there devolved on them the primary duty of elevating the urban system; for, while cities are everywhere the pillars of civilization, the antagonism342 between Orientals and Occidentals was especially and most sharply embodied343 in the contrast between the Oriental, military-despotic, feudal344 hierarchy345 and the Helleno- Italic urban commonwealth346 prosecuting347 trade and commerce. Lucullus and Pompeius, however little they in other respects aimed at the reduction of things to one level in the east, and however much the latter was disposed in questions of detail to censure348 and alter the arrangements of his predecessor, were yet completely agreed in the principle of promoting as far as they could an urban life in Asia Minor and Syria. Cyzicus, on whose vigorous resistance the first violence of the last war had spent itself, received from Lucullus a considerable extension of its domain. The Pontic Heraclea, energetically as it had resisted the Romans, yet recovered its territory and its harbours; and the barbarous fury of Cotta against the unhappy city met with the sharpest censure in the senate. Lucullus had deeply and sincerely regretted that fate had refused him the happiness of rescuing Sinope and Amisus from devastation349 by the Pontic soldiery and his own: he did at least what he could to restore them, extended considerably350 their territories, peopled them afresh—partly with the old inhabitants, who at his invitation returned in troops to their beloved homes, partly with new settlers of Hellenic descent—and provided for the reconstruction351 of the buildings destroyed. Pompeius acted in the same spirit and on a greater scale. Already after the subjugation of the pirates he had, instead of following the example of his predecessors and crucifying his prisoners, whose number exceeded 20,000, settled them partly in the desolated352 cities of the Plain Cilicia, such as Mallus, Adana, Epiphaneia, and especially in Soli, which thenceforth bore the name of Pompeius' city (Pompeiupolis), partly at Dyme in Achaia, and even at Tarentum. This colonizing353 by means of pirates met with manifold censure,(22) as it seemed in some measure to set a premium354 on crime; in reality it was, politically and morally, well justified355, for, as things then stood, piracy was something different from robbery and the prisoners might fairly be treated according to martial356 law.
New Towns Established
But Pompeius made it his business above all to promote urban life in the new Roman provinces. We have already observed how poorly provided with towns the Pontic empire was:(23) most districts of Cappadocia even a century after this had no towns, but merely mountain fortresses as a refuge for the agricultural population in war; the whole east of Asia Minor, apart from the sparse357 Greek colonies on the coasts, must have been at this time in a similar plight358. The number of towns newly established by Pompeius in these provinces is, including the Cilician settlements, stated at thirty- nine, several of which attained great prosperity. The most notable of these townships in the former kingdom of Pontus were Nicopolis, the "city of victory," founded on the spot where Mithradates sustained the last decisive defeat(24)—the fairest memorial of a general rich in similar trophies359; Megalopolis360, named from Pompeius' surname, on the frontier of Cappadocia and Lesser Armenia, the subsequent Sebasteia (now Siwas); Ziela, where the Romans fought the unfortunate battle,(25) a township which had arisen round the temple of Anaitis there and hitherto had belonged to its high- priest, and to which Pompeius now gave the form and privileges of a city; Diopolis, formerly Cabira, afterwards Neocaesarea (Niksar), likewise one of the battle-fields of the late war; Magnopolis or Pompeiupolis, the restored Eupatoria at the confluence361 of the Lycus and the Iris362, originally built by Mithradates, but again destroyed by him on account of the defection of the city to the Romans;(26) Neapolis, formerly Phazemon, between Amasia and the Halys. Most of the towns thus established were formed not by bringing colonists363 from a distance, but by the suppression of villages and the collection of their inhabitants within the new ring-wall; only in Nicopolis Pompeius settled the invalids364 and veterans of his army, who preferred to establish a home for themselves there at once rather than afterwards in Italy. But at other places also there arose on the suggestion of the regent new centres of Hellenic civilization. In Paphlagonia a third Pompeiupolis marked the spot where the army of Mithradates in 666 achieved the great victory over the Bithynians.(27) In Cappadocia, which perhaps had suffered more than any other province by the war, the royal residence Mazaca (afterwards Caesarea, now Kaisarieh) and seven other townships were re-established by Pompeius and received urban institutions. In Cilicia and Coelesyria there were enumerated twenty towns laid out by Pompeius. In the districts ceded by the Jews, Gadara in the Decapolis rose from its ruins at the command of Pompeius, and the city of Seleucis was founded. By far the greatest portion of the domain-land at his disposal on the Asiatic continent must have been applied365 by Pompeius for his new settlements; whereas in Crete, about which Pompeius troubled himself little or not at all, the Roman domanial possessions seem to have continued tolerably extensive.
Pompeius was no less intent on regulating and elevating the existing communities than on founding new townships. The abuses and usurpations which prevailed were done away with as far as lay in his power; detailed366 ordinances367 drawn up carefully for the different provinces regulated the particulars of the municipal system. A number of the most considerable cities had fresh privileges conferred on them. Autonomy was bestowed368 on Antioch on the Orontes, the most important city of Roman Asia and but little inferior to the Egyptian Alexandria and to the Bagdad of antiquity369, the city of Seleucia in the Parthian empire; as also on the neighbour of Antioch, the Pierian Seleucia, which was thus rewarded for its courageous370 resistance to Tigranes; on Gaza and generally on all the towns liberated371 from the Jewish rule; on Mytilene in the west of Asia Minor; and on Phanagoria on the Black Sea.
Aggregate372 Results
Thus was completed the structure of the Roman state in Asia, which with its feudatory kings and vassals, its priests made into princes, and its series of free and half-free cities puts us vividly373 in mind of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. It was no miraculous374 work, either as respects the difficulties overcome or as respects the consummation attained; nor was it made so by all the high-sounding words, which the Roman world of quality lavished375 in favour of Lucullus and the artless multitude in praise of Pompeius. Pompeius in particular consented to be praised, and praised himself, in such a fashion that people might almost have reckoned him still more weak-minded than he really was. If the Mytilenaeans erected a statue to him as their deliverer and founder, as the man who had as well by land as by sea terminated the wars with which the world was filled, such a homage might not seem too extravagant for the vanquisher376 of the pirates and of the empires of the east. But the Romans this time surpassed the Greeks. The triumphal inscriptions377 of Pompeius himself enumerated 12 millions of people as subjugated378 and 1538 cities and strongholds as conquered—it seemed as if quantity was to make up for quality— and made the circle of his victories extend from the Maeotic Sea to the Caspian and from the latter to the Red Sea, when his eyes had never seen any one of the three; nay farther, if he did not exactly say so, he at any late induced the public to suppose that the annexation of Syria, which in truth was no heroic deed, had added the whole east as far as Bactria and India to the Roman empire— so dim was the mist of distance, amidst which according to his statements the boundary-line of his eastern conquests was lost. The democratic servility, which has at all times rivalled that of courts, readily entered into these insipid379 extravagances. It was not satisfied by the pompous380 triumphal procession, which moved through the streets of Rome on the 28th and 29th Sept. 693— the forty-sixth birthday of Pompeius the Great—adorned, to say nothing of jewels of all sorts, by the crown insignia of Mithradates and by the children of the three mightiest381 kings of Asia, Mithradates, Tigranes, and Phraates; it rewarded its general, who had conquered twenty-two kings, with regal honours and bestowed on him the golden chaplet and the insignia of the magistracy for life. The coins struck in his honour exhibit the globe itself placed amidst the triple laurels brought home from the three continents, and surmounted382 by the golden chaplet conferred by the burgesses on the man who had triumphed over Africa, Spain, and Asia. It need excite no surprise, if in presence of such childish acts of homage voices were heard of an opposite import. Among the Roman world of quality it was currently affirmed that the true merit of having subdued the east belonged to Lucullus, and that Pompeius had only gone thither383 to supplant384 Lucullus and to wreathe around his own brow the laurels which another hand had plucked. Both statements were totally erroneous: it was not Pompeius but Glabrio that was sent to Asia to relieve Lucullus, and, bravely as Lucullus had fought, it was a fact that, when Pompeius took the supreme command, the Romans had forfeited385 all their earlier successes and had not a foot's breadth of Pontic soil in their possession. More pointed255 and effective was the ridicule386 of the inhabitants of the capital, who failed not to nickname the mighty conqueror387 of the globe after the great powers which he had conquered, and saluted388 him now as "conqueror of Salem," now as "emir" (-Arabarches-), now as the Roman Sampsiceramus.
Lucullus and Pompeius as Administrators389
The unprejudiced judge will not agree either with those exaggerations or with these disparagements. Lucullus and Pompeius, in subduing391 and regulating Asia, showed themselves to be, not heroes and state-creators, but sagacious and energetic army-leaders and governors. As general Lucullus displayed no common talents and a self-confidence bordering on rashness, while Pompeius displayed military judgment and a rare self-restraint; for hardly has any general with such forces and a position so wholly free ever acted so cautiously as Pompeius in the east. The most brilliant undertakings, as it were, offered themselves to him on all sides; he was free to start for the Cimmerian Bosporus and for the Red Sea; he had opportunity of declaring war against the Parthians; the revolted provinces of Egypt invited him to dethrone king Ptolemaeus who was not recognized by the Romans, and to carry out the testament392 of Alexander; but Pompeius marched neither to Panticapaeum nor to Petra, neither to Ctesiphon nor to Alexandria; throughout he gathered only those fruits which of themselves fell to his hand. In like manner he fought all his battles by sea and land with a crushing superiority of force. Had this moderation proceeded from the strict observance of the instructions given to him, as Pompeius was wont34 to profess393, or even from a perception that the conquests of Rome must somewhere find a limit and that fresh accessions of territory were not advantageous394 to the state, it would deserve a higher praise than history confers on the most talented officer; but constituted as Pompeius was, his self- restraint was beyond doubt solely395 the result of his peculiar189 want of decision and of initiative—defects, indeed, which were in his case far more useful to the state than the opposite excellences396 of his predecessor. Certainly very grave errors were perpetrated both by Lucullus and by Pompeius. Lucullus reaped their fruits himself, when his imprudent conduct wrested from him all the results of his victories; Pompeius left it to his successors to bear the consequences of his false policy towards the Parthians. He might either have made war on the Parthians, if he had had the courage to do so, or have maintained peace with them and recognized, as he had promised, the Euphrates as boundary; he was too timid for the former course, too vain for the latter, and so he resorted to the silly perfidy397 of rendering398 the good neighbourhood, which the court of Ctesiphon desired and on its part practised, impossible through the most unbounded aggressions, and yet allowing the enemy to choose of themselves the time for rupture and retaliation399. As administrator390 of Asia Lucullus acquired a more than princely wealth; and Pompeius also received as reward for its organization large sums in cash and still more considerable promissory notes from the king of Cappadocia, from the rich city of Antioch, and from other lords and communities. But such exactions had become almost a customary tax; and both generals showed themselves at any rate to be not altogether venal400 in questions of greater importance, and, if possible, got themselves paid by the party whose interests coincided with those of Rome. Looking to the state of the times, this does not prevent us from characterizing the administration of both as comparatively commendable401 and conducted primarily in the interest of Rome, secondarily in that of the provincials402.
The conversion403 of the clients into subjects, the better regulation of the eastern frontier, the establishment of a single and strong government, were full of blessing404 for the rulers as well as for the ruled. The financial gain acquired by Rome was immense; the new property tax, which with the exception of some specially8 exempted405 communities all those princes, priests, and cities had to pay to Rome, raised the Roman state-revenues almost by a half above their former amount. Asia indeed suffered severely. Pompeius brought in money and jewels an amount of 2,000,000 pounds (200,000,000 sesterces) into the state-chest and distributed 3,900,000 pounds (16,000 talents) among his officers and soldiers; if we add to this the considerable sums brought home by Lucullus, the non-official exactions of the Roman army, and the amount of the damage done by the war, the financial exhaustion406 of the land may be readily conceived. The Roman taxation407 of Asia was perhaps in itself not worse than that of its earlier rulers, but it formed a heavier burden on the land, in so far as the taxes thenceforth went out of the country and only the lesser portion of the proceeds was again expended in Asia; and at any rate it was, in the old as well as the newly-acquired provinces, based on a systematic408 plundering409 of the provinces for the benefit of Rome. But the responsibility for this rests far less on the generals personally than on the parties at home, whom these had to consider; Lucullus had even exerted himself energetically to set limits to the usurious dealings of the Roman capitalists in Asia, and this essentially contributed to bring about his fall. How much both men earnestly sought to revive the prosperity of the reduced provinces, is shown by their action in cases where no considerations of party policy tied their hands, and especially in their care for the cities of Asia Minor. Although for centuries afterwards many an Asiatic village lying in ruins recalled the times of the great war, Sinope might well begin a new era with the date of its re-establishment by Lucullus, and almost all the more considerable inland towns of the Pontic kingdom might gratefully honour Pompeius as their founder. The organization of Roman Asia by Lucullus and Pompeius may with all its undeniable defects be described as on the whole judicious158 and praiseworthy; serious as were the evils that might still adhere to it, it could not but be welcome to the sorely tormented410 Asiatics for the very reason that it came attended by the inward and outward peace, the absence of which had been so long and so painfully felt.
The East after the Departure of Pompeius
Peace continued substantially in the east, till the idea—merely indicated by Pompeius with his characteristic timidity—of joining the regions eastward of the Euphrates to the Roman empire was taken up again energetically but unsuccessfully by the new triumvirate of Roman regents, and soon thereafter the civil war drew the eastern provinces as well as all the rest into its fatal vortex. In the interval411 the governors of Cilicia had to fight constantly with the mountain-tribes of the Amanus and those of Syria with the hordes412 of the desert, and in the latter war against the Bedouins especially many Roman troops were destroyed; but these movements had no farther significance. More remarkable was the obstinate resistance, which the tough Jewish nation opposed to the conquerors413. Alexander, son of the deposed414 king Aristobulus, and Aristobulus himself who after some time succeeded in escaping from captivity415, excited during the governorship of Aulus Gabinius (697-700) three different revolts against the new rulers, to each of which the government of the high-priest Hyrcanus installed by Rome impotently succumbed. It was not political conviction, but the invincible416 repugnance417 of the Oriental towards the unnatural418 yoke419, which compelled them to kick against the pricks420; as indeed the last and most dangerous of these revolts, for which the withdrawal421 of the Syrian army of occupation in consequence of the Egyptian crisis furnished the immediate impulse, began with the murder of the Romans settled in Palestine. It was not without difficulty that the able governor succeeded in rescuing the few Romans, who had escaped this fate and found a temporary refuge on Mount Gerizim, from the insurgents who kept them blockaded there, and in overpowering the revolt after several severely contested battles and tedious sieges. In consequence of this the monarchy422 of the high-priests was abolished and the Jewish land was broken up as Macedonia had formerly been, into five independent districts administered by governing colleges with an Optimate organization; Samaria and other townships razed by the Jews were re-established, to form a counterpoise to Jerusalem; and lastly a heavier tribute was imposed on the Jews than on the other Syrian subjects of Rome.
The Kingdom of Egypt
It still remains423 that we should glance at the kingdom of Egypt along with the last dependency that remained to it of the extensive acquisitions of the Lagids, the fair island of Cyprus. Egypt was now the only state of the Hellenic east that was still at least nominally424 independent; just as formerly, when the Persians established themselves along the eastern half of the Mediterranean, Egypt was their last conquest, so now the mighty conquerors from the west long delayed the annexation of that opulent and peculiar country. The reason lay, as was already indicated, neitherin any fear of the resistance of Egypt nor in the want of a fitting occasion. Egypt was just about as powerless as Syria, and had already in 673 fallen in all due form of law to the Roman community.(28) The control exercised over the court of Alexandria by the royal guard—which appointed and deposed ministers and occasionally kings, took for itself what it pleased, and, if it was refused a rise of pay, besieged the king in his palace— was by no means liked in the country or rather in the capital (for the country with its population of agricultural slaves was hardly taken into account); and at least a party there wished for the annexation of Egypt by Rome, and even took steps to procure it But the less the kings of Egypt could think of contending in arms against Rome, the more energetically Egyptian gold set itself to resist the Roman plans of union; and in consequence of the peculiar despotico- communistic centralization of the Egyptian finances the revenues of the court of Alexandria were still nearly equal to the public income of Rome even after its augmentation by Pompeius. The suspicious jealousy425 of the oligarchy, which was chary426 of allowing any individual either to conquer or to administer Egypt, operated in the same direction. So the de facto rulers of Egypt and Cyprus were enabled by bribing427 the leading men in the senate not merely to respite428 their tottering429 crowns, but even to fortify430 them afresh and to purchase from the senate the confirmation431 of their royal title. But with this they had not yet obtained their object. Formal state-law required a decree of the Roman burgesses; until this was issued, the Ptolemies were dependent on the caprice of every democratic holder432 of power, and they had thus to commence the warfare of bribery433 also against the other Roman party, which as the more powerful stipulated for far higher prices.
Cyprus Annexed
The result in the two cases was different. The annexation of Cyprus was decreed in 696 by the people, that is, by the leaders of the democracy, the support given to piracy by the Cypriots being alleged434 as the official reason why that course should now be adopted. Marcus Cato, entrusted by his opponents with the execution of this measure, came to the island without an army; but he had no need of one. The king took poison; the inhabitants submitted without offering resistance to their inevitable fate, and were placed under the governor of Cilicia. The ample treasure of nearly 7000 talents (1,700,000 pounds), which the equally covetous267 and miserly king could not prevail on himself to apply for the bribes435 requisite436 to save his crown, fell along with the latter to the Romans, and filled after a desirable fashion the empty vaults437 of their treasury438.
Ptolemaeus in Egypt Recognized but Expelled by His Subjects
On the other hand the brother who reigned439 in Egypt succeeded in purchasing his recognition by decree of the people from the new masters of Rome in 695; the purchase-money is said to have amounted to 6000 talents (1,460,000 pounds). The citizens indeed, long exasperated440 against their good flute-player and bad ruler, and now reduced to extremities441 by the definitive442 loss of Cyprus and the pressure of the taxes which were raised to an intolerable degree in consequence of the transactions with the Romans (696), chased him on that account out of the country. When the king thereupon applied, as if on account of his eviction443 from the estate which he had purchased, to those who sold it, these were reasonable enough to see that it was their duty as honest men of business to get back his kingdom for Ptolemaeus; only the parties could not agree as to the person to whom the important charge of occupying Egypt by force along with the perquisites444 thence to be expected should be assigned. It was only when the triumvirate was confirmed anew at the conference of Luca, that this affair was also arranged, after Ptolemaeus had agreed to a further payment of 10,000 talents (2,400,000 pounds); the governor of Syria, Aulus Gabinius, now obtained orders from those in power to take the necessary steps immediately for bringing back the king. The citizens of Alexandria had meanwhile placed the crown on the head of Berenice the eldest daughter of the ejected king, and given to her a husband in the person of one of the spiritual princes of Roman Asia, Archelaus the high-priest of Comana,(29) who possessed ambition enough to hazard his secure and respectable position in the hope of mounting the throne of the Lagids. His attempts to gain the Roman regents to his interests remained without success; but he did not recoil445 before the idea of being obliged to maintain his new kingdom with arms in hand even against the Romans.
And Brought Back by Gabinius
A Roman Garrison Remains in Alexandria
Gabinius, without ostensible446 powers to undertake war against Egypt but directed to do so by the regents, made a pretext out of the alleged furtherance of piracy by the Egyptians and the building of a fleet by Archelaus, and started without delay for the Egyptian frontier (699). The march through the sandy desert between Gaza and Pelusium, in which so many invasions previously directed against Egypt had broken down, was on this occasion successfully accomplished—a result especially due to the quick and skilful447 leader of the cavalry Marcus Antonius. The frontier fortress of Pelusium also was surrendered without resistance by the Jewish garrison stationed there. In front of this city the Romans met the Egyptians, defeated them—on which occasion Antonius again distinguished himself—and arrived, as the first Roman army, at the Nile. Here the fleet and army of the Egyptians were drawn up for the last decisive struggle; but the Romans once more conquered, and Archelaus himself with many of his followers perished in the combat. Immediately after this battle the capital surrendered, and therewith all resistance was at an end. The unhappy land was handed over to its legitimate oppressor; the hanging and beheading, with which, but for the intervention of the chivalrous448 Antonius, Ptolemaeus would have already in Pelusium begun to celebrate the restoration of the legitimate government, now took its course unhindered, and first of all the innocent daughter was sent by her father to the scaffold. The payment of the reward agreed upon with the regents broke down through the absolute impossibility of exacting449 from the exhausted450 land the enormous sums required, although they took from the poor people the last penny; but care was taken that the country should at least be kept quiet by the garrison of Roman infantry and Celtic and German cavalry left in the capital, which took the place of the native praetorians and otherwise emulated451 them not unsuccessfully. The previous hegemony of Rome over Egypt was thus converted into a direct military occupation, and the nominal continuance of the native monarchy was not so much a privilege granted to the land as a double burden imposed on it.
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1 piracy | |
n.海盗行为,剽窃,著作权侵害 | |
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2 unlimited | |
adj.无限的,不受控制的,无条件的 | |
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3 lieutenants | |
n.陆军中尉( lieutenant的名词复数 );副职官员;空军;仅低于…官阶的官员 | |
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4 lieutenant | |
n.陆军中尉,海军上尉;代理官员,副职官员 | |
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5 vessels | |
n.血管( vessel的名词复数 );船;容器;(具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的)人 | |
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6 meshes | |
网孔( mesh的名词复数 ); 网状物; 陷阱; 困境 | |
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7 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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8 specially | |
adv.特定地;特殊地;明确地 | |
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9 consul | |
n.领事;执政官 | |
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10 levies | |
(部队)征兵( levy的名词复数 ); 募捐; 被征募的军队 | |
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11 virtue | |
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力 | |
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12 prudent | |
adj.谨慎的,有远见的,精打细算的 | |
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13 proceeding | |
n.行动,进行,(pl.)会议录,学报 | |
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14 Mediterranean | |
adj.地中海的;地中海沿岸的 | |
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15 fortresses | |
堡垒,要塞( fortress的名词复数 ) | |
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16 fortress | |
n.堡垒,防御工事 | |
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17 marine | |
adj.海的;海生的;航海的;海事的;n.水兵 | |
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18 predecessor | |
n.前辈,前任 | |
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19 predecessors | |
n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 );前辈;(被取代的)原有事物;前身 | |
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20 hesitation | |
n.犹豫,踌躇 | |
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21 implements | |
n.工具( implement的名词复数 );家具;手段;[法律]履行(契约等)v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 );执行;贯彻;使生效 | |
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22 hindrance | |
n.妨碍,障碍 | |
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23 submission | |
n.服从,投降;温顺,谦虚;提出 | |
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24 subdued | |
adj. 屈服的,柔和的,减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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25 subdue | |
vt.制服,使顺从,征服;抑制,克制 | |
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26 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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27 lavish | |
adj.无节制的;浪费的;vt.慷慨地给予,挥霍 | |
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28 naive | |
adj.幼稚的,轻信的;天真的 | |
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29 subjugation | |
n.镇压,平息,征服 | |
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30 dreaded | |
adj.令人畏惧的;害怕的v.害怕,恐惧,担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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31 arsenals | |
n.兵工厂,军火库( arsenal的名词复数 );任何事物的集成 | |
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32 upwards | |
adv.向上,在更高处...以上 | |
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33 ward | |
n.守卫,监护,病房,行政区,由监护人或法院保护的人(尤指儿童);vt.守护,躲开 | |
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34 wont | |
adj.习惯于;v.习惯;n.习惯 | |
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35 concurrently | |
adv.同时地 | |
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36 imposing | |
adj.使人难忘的,壮丽的,堂皇的,雄伟的 | |
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37 minor | |
adj.较小(少)的,较次要的;n.辅修学科;vi.辅修 | |
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38 joint | |
adj.联合的,共同的;n.关节,接合处;v.连接,贴合 | |
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39 envoys | |
使节( envoy的名词复数 ); 公使; 谈判代表; 使节身份 | |
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40 utterly | |
adv.完全地,绝对地 | |
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41 besieged | |
包围,围困,围攻( besiege的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42 ignominiously | |
adv.耻辱地,屈辱地,丢脸地 | |
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43 consigned | |
v.把…置于(令人不快的境地)( consign的过去式和过去分词 );把…托付给;把…托人代售;丟弃 | |
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44 obstinate | |
adj.顽固的,倔强的,不易屈服的,较难治愈的 | |
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45 zealous | |
adj.狂热的,热心的 | |
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46 amicably | |
adv.友善地 | |
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47 supreme | |
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的 | |
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48 interfere | |
v.(in)干涉,干预;(with)妨碍,打扰 | |
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49 discretion | |
n.谨慎;随意处理 | |
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50 prospect | |
n.前景,前途;景色,视野 | |
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51 forgo | |
v.放弃,抛弃 | |
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52 chastising | |
v.严惩(某人)(尤指责打)( chastise的现在分词 ) | |
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53 enviously | |
adv.满怀嫉妒地 | |
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54 scanty | |
adj.缺乏的,仅有的,节省的,狭小的,不够的 | |
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55 laurels | |
n.桂冠,荣誉 | |
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56 destined | |
adj.命中注定的;(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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57 cavalry | |
n.骑兵;轻装甲部队 | |
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58 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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59 vicissitude | |
n.变化,变迁,荣枯,盛衰 | |
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60 vicissitudes | |
n.变迁,世事变化;变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 );盛衰兴废 | |
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61 mouldering | |
v.腐朽( moulder的现在分词 );腐烂,崩塌 | |
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62 oligarchy | |
n.寡头政治 | |
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63 variance | |
n.矛盾,不同 | |
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64 strenuous | |
adj.奋发的,使劲的;紧张的;热烈的,狂热的 | |
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65 mediation | |
n.调解 | |
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66 counteract | |
vt.对…起反作用,对抗,抵消 | |
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67 unwilling | |
adj.不情愿的 | |
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68 vanquished | |
v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 );战胜;克服;抑制 | |
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69 intrigued | |
adj.好奇的,被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式);激起…的兴趣或好奇心;“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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70 exertions | |
n.努力( exertion的名词复数 );费力;(能力、权力等的)运用;行使 | |
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71 mischief | |
n.损害,伤害,危害;恶作剧,捣蛋,胡闹 | |
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72 rupture | |
n.破裂;(关系的)决裂;v.(使)破裂 | |
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73 monarchs | |
君主,帝王( monarch的名词复数 ) | |
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74 prosecuted | |
a.被起诉的 | |
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75 allied | |
adj.协约国的;同盟国的 | |
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76 stipulated | |
vt.& vi.规定;约定adj.[法]合同规定的 | |
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77 contingents | |
(志趣相投、尤指来自同一地方的)一组与会者( contingent的名词复数 ); 代表团; (军队的)分遣队; 小分队 | |
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78 contingent | |
adj.视条件而定的;n.一组,代表团,分遣队 | |
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79 auxiliaries | |
n.助动词 ( auxiliary的名词复数 );辅助工,辅助人员 | |
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80 reconciliation | |
n.和解,和谐,一致 | |
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81 mutual | |
adj.相互的,彼此的;共同的,共有的 | |
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82 accomplished | |
adj.有才艺的;有造诣的;达到了的 | |
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83 altercation | |
n.争吵,争论 | |
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84 meritorious | |
adj.值得赞赏的 | |
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85 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
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86 infantry | |
n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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87 lurch | |
n.突然向前或旁边倒;v.蹒跚而行 | |
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88 rein | |
n.疆绳,统治,支配;vt.以僵绳控制,统治 | |
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89 procure | |
vt.获得,取得,促成;vi.拉皮条 | |
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90 unconditional | |
adj.无条件的,无限制的,绝对的 | |
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91 archers | |
n.弓箭手,射箭运动员( archer的名词复数 ) | |
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92 retired | |
adj.隐退的,退休的,退役的 | |
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93 impeding | |
a.(尤指坏事)即将发生的,临近的 | |
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94 impatience | |
n.不耐烦,急躁 | |
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95 intercepted | |
拦截( intercept的过去式和过去分词 ); 截住; 截击; 拦阻 | |
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96 scoured | |
走遍(某地)搜寻(人或物)( scour的过去式和过去分词 ); (用力)刷; 擦净; 擦亮 | |
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97 distress | |
n.苦恼,痛苦,不舒适;不幸;vt.使悲痛 | |
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98 draught | |
n.拉,牵引,拖;一网(饮,吸,阵);顿服药量,通风;v.起草,设计 | |
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99 secrecy | |
n.秘密,保密,隐蔽 | |
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100 dominion | |
n.统治,管辖,支配权;领土,版图 | |
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101 dominions | |
统治权( dominion的名词复数 ); 领土; 疆土; 版图 | |
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102 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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103 defile | |
v.弄污,弄脏;n.(山间)小道 | |
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104 followers | |
追随者( follower的名词复数 ); 用户; 契据的附面; 从动件 | |
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105 dense | |
a.密集的,稠密的,浓密的;密度大的 | |
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106 throng | |
n.人群,群众;v.拥挤,群集 | |
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107 expended | |
v.花费( expend的过去式和过去分词 );使用(钱等)做某事;用光;耗尽 | |
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108 darts | |
n.掷飞镖游戏;飞镖( dart的名词复数 );急驰,飞奔v.投掷,投射( dart的第三人称单数 );向前冲,飞奔 | |
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109 hoofs | |
n.(兽的)蹄,马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.(兽的)蹄,马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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110 attire | |
v.穿衣,装扮[同]array;n.衣着;盛装 | |
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111 narrated | |
v.故事( narrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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112 inaccessible | |
adj.达不到的,难接近的 | |
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113 protracted | |
adj.拖延的;延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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114 corps | |
n.(通信等兵种的)部队;(同类作的)一组 | |
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115 emigrants | |
n.(从本国移往他国的)移民( emigrant的名词复数 ) | |
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116 victorious | |
adj.胜利的,得胜的 | |
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117 rebellious | |
adj.造反的,反抗的,难控制的 | |
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118 negotiations | |
协商( negotiation的名词复数 ); 谈判; 完成(难事); 通过 | |
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119 doom | |
n.厄运,劫数;v.注定,命定 | |
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120 doomed | |
命定的 | |
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121 northward | |
adv.向北;n.北方的地区 | |
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122 diadem | |
n.王冠,冕 | |
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123 adorned | |
[计]被修饰的 | |
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124 barbarian | |
n.野蛮人;adj.野蛮(人)的;未开化的 | |
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125 humbled | |
adj. 卑下的,谦逊的,粗陋的 vt. 使 ... 卑下,贬低 | |
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126 dictated | |
v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 );口授;支配;摆布 | |
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127 ceded | |
v.让给,割让,放弃( cede的过去式 ) | |
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128 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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129 vassal | |
n.附庸的;属下;adj.奴仆的 | |
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130 domain | |
n.(活动等)领域,范围;领地,势力范围 | |
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131 unconditionally | |
adv.无条件地 | |
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132 eldest | |
adj.最年长的,最年老的 | |
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133 herds | |
兽群( herd的名词复数 ); 牧群; 人群; 群众 | |
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134 spoke | |
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说 | |
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135 javelins | |
n.标枪( javelin的名词复数 ) | |
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136 hurled | |
v.猛投,用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 );大声叫骂 | |
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137 foe | |
n.敌人,仇敌 | |
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138 dependence | |
n.依靠,依赖;信任,信赖;隶属 | |
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139 formerly | |
adv.从前,以前 | |
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140 garrison | |
n.卫戍部队;驻地,卫戍区;vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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141 barbarians | |
n.野蛮人( barbarian的名词复数 );外国人;粗野的人;无教养的人 | |
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142 tributary | |
n.支流;纳贡国;adj.附庸的;辅助的;支流的 | |
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143 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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144 onset | |
n.进攻,袭击,开始,突然开始 | |
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145 fabled | |
adj.寓言中的,虚构的 | |
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146 laborious | |
adj.吃力的,努力的,不流畅 | |
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147 perpendicularly | |
adv. 垂直地, 笔直地, 纵向地 | |
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148 embark | |
vi.乘船,着手,从事,上飞机 | |
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149 toils | |
网 | |
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150 catching | |
adj.易传染的,有魅力的,迷人的,接住 | |
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151 incessantly | |
ad.不停地 | |
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152 perfidious | |
adj.不忠的,背信弃义的 | |
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153 aloof | |
adj.远离的;冷淡的,漠不关心的 | |
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154 entangled | |
adj.卷入的;陷入的;被缠住的;缠在一起的v.使某人(某物/自己)缠绕,纠缠于(某物中),使某人(自己)陷入(困难或复杂的环境中)( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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155 undertakings | |
企业( undertaking的名词复数 ); 保证; 殡仪业; 任务 | |
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156 discreet | |
adj.(言行)谨慎的;慎重的;有判断力的 | |
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157 adherence | |
n.信奉,依附,坚持,固着 | |
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158 judicious | |
adj.明智的,明断的,能作出明智决定的 | |
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159 pretext | |
n.借口,托词 | |
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160 strictly | |
adv.严厉地,严格地;严密地 | |
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161 onward | |
adj.向前的,前进的;adv.向前,前进,在先 | |
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162 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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163 concealment | |
n.隐藏, 掩盖,隐瞒 | |
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164 inscribed | |
v.写,刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 );内接 | |
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165 Founder | |
n.创始者,缔造者 | |
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166 fugitive | |
adj.逃亡的,易逝的;n.逃犯,逃亡者 | |
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167 dice | |
n.骰子;vt.把(食物)切成小方块,冒险 | |
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168 fermenting | |
v.(使)发酵( ferment的现在分词 );(使)激动;骚动;骚扰 | |
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169 ripening | |
v.成熟,使熟( ripen的现在分词 );熟化;熟成 | |
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170 bide | |
v.忍耐;等候;住 | |
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171 aged | |
adj.年老的,陈年的 | |
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172 wrest | |
n.扭,拧,猛夺;v.夺取,猛扭,歪曲 | |
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173 besought | |
v.恳求,乞求(某事物)( beseech的过去式和过去分词 );(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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174 paternal | |
adj.父亲的,像父亲的,父系的,父方的 | |
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175 supremacy | |
n.至上;至高权力 | |
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176 extravagant | |
adj.奢侈的;过分的;(言行等)放肆的 | |
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177 rumour | |
n.谣言,谣传,传闻 | |
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178 westward | |
n.西方,西部;adj.西方的,向西的;adv.向西 | |
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179 avalanche | |
n.雪崩,大量涌来 | |
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180 folly | |
n.愚笨,愚蠢,蠢事,蠢行,傻话 | |
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181 antagonist | |
n.敌人,对抗者,对手 | |
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182 warding | |
监护,守护(ward的现在分词形式) | |
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183 fidelity | |
n.忠诚,忠实;精确 | |
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184 phoenix | |
n.凤凰,长生(不死)鸟;引申为重生 | |
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185 embittered | |
v.使怨恨,激怒( embitter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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186 confidential | |
adj.秘(机)密的,表示信任的,担任机密工作的 | |
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187 adherents | |
n.支持者,拥护者( adherent的名词复数 );党羽;徒子徒孙 | |
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188 insurgents | |
n.起义,暴动,造反( insurgent的名词复数 ) | |
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189 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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190 outstripped | |
v.做得比…更好,(在赛跑等中)超过( outstrip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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191 reign | |
n.统治时期,统治,支配,盛行;v.占优势 | |
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192 voucher | |
n.收据;传票;凭单,凭证 | |
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193 loyalty | |
n.忠诚,忠心 | |
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194 catastrophe | |
n.大灾难,大祸 | |
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195 instinctively | |
adv.本能地 | |
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196 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
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197 possessed | |
adj.疯狂的;拥有的,占有的 | |
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198 hatred | |
n.憎恶,憎恨,仇恨 | |
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199 foes | |
敌人,仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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200 forerunner | |
n.前身,先驱(者),预兆,祖先 | |
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201 warfare | |
n.战争(状态);斗争;冲突 | |
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202 razed | |
v.彻底摧毁,将…夷为平地( raze的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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203 brigandage | |
n.抢劫;盗窃;土匪;强盗 | |
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204 evacuated | |
撤退者的 | |
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205 solicited | |
v.恳求( solicit的过去式和过去分词 );(指娼妇)拉客;索求;征求 | |
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206 legitimate | |
adj.合法的,合理的,合乎逻辑的;v.使合法 | |
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207 feud | |
n.长期不和;世仇;v.长期争斗;世代结仇 | |
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208 feuds | |
n.长期不和,世仇( feud的名词复数 ) | |
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209 knights | |
骑士; (中古时代的)武士( knight的名词复数 ); 骑士; 爵士; (国际象棋中)马 | |
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210 destitute | |
adj.缺乏的;穷困的 | |
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211 primitive | |
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物 | |
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212 enacted | |
制定(法律),通过(法案)( enact的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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213 rudiments | |
n.基础知识,入门 | |
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214 civilized | |
a.有教养的,文雅的 | |
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215 noted | |
adj.著名的,知名的 | |
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216 horde | |
n.群众,一大群 | |
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217 waylaying | |
v.拦截,拦路( waylay的现在分词 ) | |
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218 maritime | |
adj.海的,海事的,航海的,近海的,沿海的 | |
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219 consolidate | |
v.使加固,使加强;(把...)联为一体,合并 | |
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220 devout | |
adj.虔诚的,虔敬的,衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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221 attained | |
(通常经过努力)实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 ); 达到; 获得; 达到(某年龄、水平、状况) | |
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222 hereditary | |
adj.遗传的,遗传性的,可继承的,世袭的 | |
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223 wrested | |
(用力)拧( wrest的过去式和过去分词 ); 费力取得; (从…)攫取; ( 从… ) 强行取去… | |
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224 tracts | |
大片土地( tract的名词复数 ); 地带; (体内的)道; (尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的)短文 | |
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225 victoriously | |
adv.获胜地,胜利地 | |
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226 repel | |
v.击退,抵制,拒绝,排斥 | |
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227 enumerated | |
v.列举,枚举,数( enumerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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228 asylums | |
n.避难所( asylum的名词复数 );庇护;政治避难;精神病院 | |
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229 averted | |
防止,避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 ); 转移 | |
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230 intervention | |
n.介入,干涉,干预 | |
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231 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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232 antagonistic | |
adj.敌对的 | |
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233 defiance | |
n.挑战,挑衅,蔑视,违抗 | |
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234 essentially | |
adv.本质上,实质上,基本上 | |
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235 secular | |
n.牧师,凡人;adj.世俗的,现世的,不朽的 | |
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236 obligatory | |
adj.强制性的,义务的,必须的 | |
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237 conscientious | |
adj.审慎正直的,认真的,本着良心的 | |
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238 stiffened | |
加强的 | |
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239 defenders | |
n.防御者( defender的名词复数 );守卫者;保护者;辩护者 | |
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240 bequests | |
n.遗赠( bequest的名词复数 );遗产,遗赠物 | |
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241 canonical | |
n.权威的;典型的 | |
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242 salvation | |
n.(尤指基督)救世,超度,拯救,解困 | |
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243 partisans | |
游击队员( partisan的名词复数 ); 党人; 党羽; 帮伙 | |
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244 legitimacy | |
n.合法,正当 | |
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245 noxious | |
adj.有害的,有毒的;使道德败坏的,讨厌的 | |
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246 pious | |
adj.虔诚的;道貌岸然的 | |
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247 nominal | |
adj.名义上的;(金额、租金)微不足道的 | |
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248 thereby | |
adv.因此,从而 | |
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249 gulf | |
n.海湾;深渊,鸿沟;分歧,隔阂 | |
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250 wares | |
n. 货物, 商品 | |
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251 caravan | |
n.大蓬车;活动房屋 | |
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252 faction | |
n.宗派,小集团;派别;派系斗争 | |
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253 mingled | |
混合,混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 ); 混进,与…交往[联系] | |
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254 intercourse | |
n.性交;交流,交往,交际 | |
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255 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
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256 opposition | |
n.反对,敌对 | |
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257 interfered | |
v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 );调停;妨碍;干涉 | |
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258 strife | |
n.争吵,冲突,倾轧,竞争 | |
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259 loathsome | |
adj.讨厌的,令人厌恶的 | |
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260 annexation | |
n.吞并,合并 | |
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261 chaos | |
n.混乱,无秩序 | |
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262 brilliance | |
n.光辉,辉煌,壮丽,(卓越的)才华,才智 | |
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263 vigour | |
(=vigor)n.智力,体力,精力 | |
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264 consistency | |
n.一贯性,前后一致,稳定性;(液体的)浓度 | |
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265 withdrawn | |
vt.收回;使退出;vi.撤退,退出 | |
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266 covetousness | |
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267 covetous | |
adj.贪婪的,贪心的 | |
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268 reins | |
感情,激情; 缰( rein的名词复数 ); 控制手段; 掌管; (成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的)保护带 | |
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269 artifice | |
n.妙计,高明的手段;狡诈,诡计 | |
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270 pretensions | |
自称( pretension的名词复数 ); 自命不凡; 要求; 权力 | |
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271 pacification | |
n. 讲和,绥靖,平定 | |
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272 anarchy | |
n.无政府状态;社会秩序混乱,无秩序 | |
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273 commissioners | |
n.专员( commissioner的名词复数 );长官;委员;政府部门的长官 | |
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274 severely | |
adv.严格地;严厉地;非常恶劣地 | |
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275 allay | |
v.消除,减轻(恐惧、怀疑等) | |
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276 perilous | |
adj.危险的,冒险的 | |
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277 resolute | |
adj.坚决的,果敢的 | |
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278 resolutely | |
adj.坚决地,果断地 | |
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279 interfering | |
adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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280 usurped | |
篡夺,霸占( usurp的过去式和过去分词 ); 盗用; 篡夺,篡权 | |
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281 domains | |
n.范围( domain的名词复数 );领域;版图;地产 | |
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282 chastised | |
v.严惩(某人)(尤指责打)( chastise的过去式 ) | |
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283 obedience | |
n.服从,顺从 | |
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284 ransom | |
n.赎金,赎身;v.赎回,解救 | |
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285 bribed | |
v.贿赂( bribe的过去式和过去分词 );向(某人)行贿,贿赂 | |
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286 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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287 renounce | |
v.放弃;拒绝承认,宣布与…断绝关系 | |
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288 procured | |
v.(努力)取得, (设法)获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 );拉皮条 | |
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289 overthrow | |
v.推翻,打倒,颠覆;n.推翻,瓦解,颠覆 | |
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290 revert | |
v.恢复,复归,回到 | |
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291 acquiesce | |
vi.默许,顺从,同意 | |
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292 inevitable | |
adj.不可避免的,必然发生的 | |
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293 obstinacy | |
n.顽固;(病痛等)难治 | |
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294 sanctuary | |
n.圣所,圣堂,寺庙;禁猎区,保护区 | |
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295 annexed | |
[法] 附加的,附属的 | |
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296 overthrown | |
adj. 打翻的,推倒的,倾覆的 动词overthrow的过去分词 | |
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297 dominant | |
adj.支配的,统治的;占优势的;显性的;n.主因,要素,主要的人(或物);显性基因 | |
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298 levy | |
n.征收税或其他款项,征收额 | |
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299 situated | |
adj.坐落在...的,处于某种境地的 | |
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300 trifling | |
adj.微不足道的;没什么价值的 | |
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301 adroit | |
adj.熟练的,灵巧的 | |
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302 celebrated | |
adj.有名的,声誉卓著的 | |
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303 suppliant | |
adj.哀恳的;n.恳求者,哀求者 | |
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304 fraught | |
adj.充满…的,伴有(危险等)的;忧虑的 | |
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305 momentous | |
adj.重要的,重大的 | |
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306 proximity | |
n.接近,邻近 | |
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307 complaisant | |
adj.顺从的,讨好的 | |
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308 diplomacy | |
n.外交;外交手腕,交际手腕 | |
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309 subsisted | |
v.(靠很少的钱或食物)维持生活,生存下去( subsist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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310 interceding | |
v.斡旋,调解( intercede的现在分词 );说情 | |
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311 previously | |
adv.以前,先前(地) | |
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312 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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313 favourable | |
adj.赞成的,称赞的,有利的,良好的,顺利的 | |
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314 nay | |
adv.不;n.反对票,投反对票者 | |
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315 eastward | |
adv.向东;adj.向东的;n.东方,东部 | |
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316 proffered | |
v.提供,贡献,提出( proffer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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317 homage | |
n.尊敬,敬意,崇敬 | |
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318 violation | |
n.违反(行为),违背(行为),侵犯 | |
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319 etiquette | |
n.礼仪,礼节;规矩 | |
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320 prelude | |
n.序言,前兆,序曲 | |
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321 acquiesced | |
v.默认,默许( acquiesce的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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322 succumbed | |
不再抵抗(诱惑、疾病、攻击等)( succumb的过去式和过去分词 ); 屈从; 被压垮; 死 | |
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323 desolating | |
毁坏( desolate的现在分词 ); 极大地破坏; 使沮丧; 使痛苦 | |
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324 ERECTED | |
adj. 直立的,竖立的,笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立,建立 | |
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325 territorial | |
adj.领土的,领地的 | |
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326 autonomous | |
adj.自治的;独立的 | |
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327 pertaining | |
与…有关系的,附属…的,为…固有的(to) | |
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328 lesser | |
adj.次要的,较小的;adv.较小地,较少地 | |
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329 entrusted | |
v.委托,托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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330 guardianship | |
n. 监护, 保护, 守护 | |
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331 vassals | |
n.奴仆( vassal的名词复数 );(封建时代)诸侯;从属者;下属 | |
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332 fanaticism | |
n.狂热,盲信 | |
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333 prudently | |
adv. 谨慎地,慎重地 | |
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334 jurisdiction | |
n.司法权,审判权,管辖权,控制权 | |
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335 annually | |
adv.一年一次,每年 | |
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336 treasuries | |
n.(政府的)财政部( treasury的名词复数 );国库,金库 | |
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337 presidency | |
n.总统(校长,总经理)的职位(任期) | |
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338 potentates | |
n.君主,统治者( potentate的名词复数 );有权势的人 | |
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339 participation | |
n.参与,参加,分享 | |
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340 disorders | |
n.混乱( disorder的名词复数 );凌乱;骚乱;(身心、机能)失调 | |
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341 elevation | |
n.高度;海拔;高地;上升;提高 | |
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342 antagonism | |
n.对抗,敌对,对立 | |
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343 embodied | |
v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 );象征;包括;包含 | |
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344 feudal | |
adj.封建的,封地的,领地的 | |
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345 hierarchy | |
n.等级制度;统治集团,领导层 | |
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346 commonwealth | |
n.共和国,联邦,共同体 | |
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347 prosecuting | |
检举、告发某人( prosecute的现在分词 ); 对某人提起公诉; 继续从事(某事物); 担任控方律师 | |
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348 censure | |
v./n.责备;非难;责难 | |
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349 devastation | |
n.毁坏;荒废;极度震惊或悲伤 | |
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350 considerably | |
adv.极大地;相当大地;在很大程度上 | |
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351 reconstruction | |
n.重建,再现,复原 | |
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352 desolated | |
adj.荒凉的,荒废的 | |
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353 colonizing | |
v.开拓殖民地,移民于殖民地( colonize的现在分词 ) | |
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354 premium | |
n.加付款;赠品;adj.高级的;售价高的 | |
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355 justified | |
a.正当的,有理的 | |
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356 martial | |
adj.战争的,军事的,尚武的,威武的 | |
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357 sparse | |
adj.稀疏的,稀稀落落的,薄的 | |
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358 plight | |
n.困境,境况,誓约,艰难;vt.宣誓,保证,约定 | |
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359 trophies | |
n.(为竞赛获胜者颁发的)奖品( trophy的名词复数 );奖杯;(尤指狩猎或战争中获得的)纪念品;(用于比赛或赛跑名称)奖 | |
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360 megalopolis | |
n.特大城市 | |
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361 confluence | |
n.汇合,聚集 | |
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362 iris | |
n.虹膜,彩虹 | |
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363 colonists | |
n.殖民地开拓者,移民,殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
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364 invalids | |
病人,残疾者( invalid的名词复数 ) | |
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365 applied | |
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用 | |
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366 detailed | |
adj.详细的,详尽的,极注意细节的,完全的 | |
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367 ordinances | |
n.条例,法令( ordinance的名词复数 ) | |
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368 bestowed | |
赠给,授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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369 antiquity | |
n.古老;高龄;古物,古迹 | |
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370 courageous | |
adj.勇敢的,有胆量的 | |
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371 liberated | |
a.无拘束的,放纵的 | |
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372 aggregate | |
adj.总计的,集合的;n.总数;v.合计;集合 | |
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373 vividly | |
adv.清楚地,鲜明地,生动地 | |
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374 miraculous | |
adj.像奇迹一样的,不可思议的 | |
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375 lavished | |
v.过分给予,滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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376 vanquisher | |
征服者,胜利者 | |
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377 inscriptions | |
(作者)题词( inscription的名词复数 ); 献词; 碑文; 证劵持有人的登记 | |
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378 subjugated | |
v.征服,降伏( subjugate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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379 insipid | |
adj.无味的,枯燥乏味的,单调的 | |
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380 pompous | |
adj.傲慢的,自大的;夸大的;豪华的 | |
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381 mightiest | |
adj.趾高气扬( mighty的最高级 );巨大的;强有力的;浩瀚的 | |
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382 surmounted | |
战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 ); 克服(困难); 居于…之上; 在…顶上 | |
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383 thither | |
adv.向那里;adj.在那边的,对岸的 | |
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384 supplant | |
vt.排挤;取代 | |
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385 forfeited | |
(因违反协议、犯规、受罚等)丧失,失去( forfeit的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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386 ridicule | |
v.讥讽,挖苦;n.嘲弄 | |
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387 conqueror | |
n.征服者,胜利者 | |
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388 saluted | |
v.欢迎,致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 );赞扬,赞颂 | |
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389 administrators | |
n.管理者( administrator的名词复数 );有管理(或行政)才能的人;(由遗嘱检验法庭指定的)遗产管理人;奉派暂管主教教区的牧师 | |
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390 administrator | |
n.经营管理者,行政官员 | |
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391 subduing | |
征服( subdue的现在分词 ); 克制; 制服; 色变暗 | |
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392 testament | |
n.遗嘱;证明 | |
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393 profess | |
v.声称,冒称,以...为业,正式接受入教,表明信仰 | |
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394 advantageous | |
adj.有利的;有帮助的 | |
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395 solely | |
adv.仅仅,唯一地 | |
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396 excellences | |
n.卓越( excellence的名词复数 );(只用于所修饰的名词后)杰出的;卓越的;出类拔萃的 | |
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397 perfidy | |
n.背信弃义,不忠贞 | |
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398 rendering | |
n.表现,描写 | |
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399 retaliation | |
n.报复,反击 | |
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400 venal | |
adj.唯利是图的,贪脏枉法的 | |
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401 commendable | |
adj.值得称赞的 | |
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402 provincials | |
n.首都以外的人,地区居民( provincial的名词复数 ) | |
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403 conversion | |
n.转化,转换,转变 | |
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404 blessing | |
n.祈神赐福;祷告;祝福,祝愿 | |
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405 exempted | |
使免除[豁免]( exempt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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406 exhaustion | |
n.耗尽枯竭,疲惫,筋疲力尽,竭尽,详尽无遗的论述 | |
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407 taxation | |
n.征税,税收,税金 | |
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408 systematic | |
adj.有系统的,有计划的,有方法的 | |
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409 plundering | |
掠夺,抢劫( plunder的现在分词 ) | |
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410 tormented | |
饱受折磨的 | |
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411 interval | |
n.间隔,间距;幕间休息,中场休息 | |
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412 hordes | |
n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 );部落 | |
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413 conquerors | |
征服者,占领者( conqueror的名词复数 ) | |
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414 deposed | |
v.罢免( depose的过去式和过去分词 );(在法庭上)宣誓作证 | |
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415 captivity | |
n.囚禁;被俘;束缚 | |
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416 invincible | |
adj.不可征服的,难以制服的 | |
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417 repugnance | |
n.嫌恶 | |
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418 unnatural | |
adj.不自然的;反常的 | |
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419 yoke | |
n.轭;支配;v.给...上轭,连接,使成配偶 | |
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420 pricks | |
刺痛( prick的名词复数 ); 刺孔; 刺痕; 植物的刺 | |
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421 withdrawal | |
n.取回,提款;撤退,撤军;收回,撤销 | |
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422 monarchy | |
n.君主,最高统治者;君主政体,君主国 | |
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423 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
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424 nominally | |
在名义上,表面地; 应名儿 | |
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425 jealousy | |
n.妒忌,嫉妒,猜忌 | |
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426 chary | |
adj.谨慎的,细心的 | |
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427 bribing | |
贿赂 | |
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428 respite | |
n.休息,中止,暂缓 | |
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429 tottering | |
adj.蹒跚的,动摇的v.走得或动得不稳( totter的现在分词 );踉跄;蹒跚;摇摇欲坠 | |
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430 fortify | |
v.强化防御,为…设防;加强,强化 | |
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431 confirmation | |
n.证实,确认,批准 | |
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432 holder | |
n.持有者,占有者;(台,架等)支持物 | |
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433 bribery | |
n.贿络行为,行贿,受贿 | |
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434 alleged | |
a.被指控的,嫌疑的 | |
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435 bribes | |
n.贿赂( bribe的名词复数 );向(某人)行贿,贿赂v.贿赂( bribe的第三人称单数 );向(某人)行贿,贿赂 | |
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436 requisite | |
adj.需要的,必不可少的;n.必需品 | |
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437 vaults | |
n.拱顶( vault的名词复数 );地下室;撑物跳高;墓穴 | |
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438 treasury | |
n.宝库;国库,金库;文库 | |
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439 reigned | |
vi.当政,统治(reign的过去式形式) | |
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440 exasperated | |
adj.恼怒的 | |
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441 extremities | |
n.端点( extremity的名词复数 );尽头;手和足;极窘迫的境地 | |
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442 definitive | |
adj.确切的,权威性的;最后的,决定性的 | |
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443 eviction | |
n.租地等的收回 | |
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444 perquisites | |
n.(工资以外的)财务补贴( perquisite的名词复数 );额外收入;(随职位而得到的)好处;利益 | |
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445 recoil | |
vi.退却,退缩,畏缩 | |
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446 ostensible | |
adj.(指理由)表面的,假装的 | |
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447 skilful | |
(=skillful)adj.灵巧的,熟练的 | |
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448 chivalrous | |
adj.武士精神的;对女人彬彬有礼的 | |
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449 exacting | |
adj.苛求的,要求严格的 | |
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450 exhausted | |
adj.极其疲惫的,精疲力尽的 | |
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451 emulated | |
v.与…竞争( emulate的过去式和过去分词 );努力赶上;计算机程序等仿真;模仿 | |
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