On his landing in Syria, Caesar found letters pressing for his instant
return to Rome. Important persons were waiting to give him fuller
information than could be safely committed to writing. He would have
hastened home at once, but restless spirits had been let loose everywhere
by the conflict of the Roman leaders. Disorder had broken out near at
hand. The still recent defeat of Crassus had stirred the ambition of the
Asiatic princes; and to leave the Eastern frontier disturbed was to risk a
greater danger to the Empire than was to be feared from the impatient
politics of the Roman mob, or the dying convulsions of the aristocracy.
Pharnaces, a legitimate son of Mithridates the Great, had been left
sovereign of Upper Armenia. He had watched the collision between Pompey
and Caesar with a neutrality which was to plead for him with the
conqueror, and he had intended to make his own advantage out of the
quarrels between his father's enemies. Deiotarus, tributary king of Lower
Armenia and Colchis, had given some help to Pompey, and had sent him men
and money; and on Pompey's defeat, Pharnaces had supposed that he might
seize on Deiotarus's territories without fear of Caesar's resentment.
Deiotarus had applied to Domitius Calvinus for assistance; which Calvinus,
weakened as he was by the despatch of two of his legions to Egypt, had
been imperfectly able to give.
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