Chapter 78

Thus he marched through Gallograecia and Bithynia into Asia, holding investigations and giving his formal ruling on matters of dispute in all those provinces, and assigning due prerogatives to tetrarchs, kings and states. Now Mithridates of Pergamum, whose speedy and successful action in Egypt I have described above, was not merely of royal birth but also of royal training and upbringing; for Mithridates, king of all Asia, had carried him off to cam]) with him from Pergamum on the score of his noble birth when he was quite young, and had kept him there for many years; for which reasons Caesar now appointed him king of Bosphorus, which had formerly been under control of Pharnaces, and, by thus creating a buffer state ruled by a most friendly king, he secured the provinces of the Roman people from barbarian and unfriendly kings. To the same Mithridates he awarded, by right of racial affinity and kinship, the tetrarchy of Gallograecia which had been seized and occupied a few years earlier by Deiotarus. Nowhere, however, did he delay any longer than the urgency of unsettled conditions at Rome appeared to warrant; and when he had accomplished his tasks with the greatest success and expedition, he arrived in Italy more quickly than anyone expected.