There is very little to relate of this siege; but the interest it
has acquired by a recent melancholy event, and the contrast between
Lucullus and the emperor of Russia, entitle it to a notice.
Irritated by the presumption and vanity of Tigranes, who refused to
give up his father-in-law Mithridates, after Lucullus had conquered
him, the Roman consul marched into Pontus, and took its cities as fast
as he came to them. Among these was Sinope, known to classical readers
as the birthplace and residence of the Cynic Diogenes, and of which
Mithridates, king of Pontus, had made his capital. Lucullus easily
made himself master of the place; he treated the inhabitants with the
greatest humanity, restoring them, the moment the Roman power was
acknowledged, their liberty and their civic privileges.