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The Zagros ridges run from north-west to south-east, like the principal mountains of Italy, Greece, Arabia, Hindustan, and Cochin China; those of Armenia have a course from a little north of east to a little south of west, like the Spanish Sierras, the Swiss and Tyrolese Alps, the Southern Carpathians, the Greater Balkan, the Cilician Taurus, the Cyprian Olympus, and the Thian Chan.

Ships were sent to the Cilician coast without any delay; the Persian land force was conveyed in safety across the strait and landed on the opposite shore; the ships then rounded Cape St. Andreas and anchored in the bay opposite Salamis, where the Ionian fleet was drawn up in defence of the town.

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.

If life and death were at stake, so much the better! He had informed his friend of Iras's fears. The fleet must be in a critical situation, and if the little Cilician had had nothing to conceal she would not have shunned the Epicurus. It was worth while to learn what had induced her to turn back just before reaching the harbour.

This new misfortune forced him to sail back again into Spain, whence he was also repulsed, and, some Cilician pirate ships joining with him, they made for the island of Pityussa, where they landed and overpowered the garrison placed there by Annius, who, however, came not long after with a great fleet of ships, and five thousand soldiers.

Italian farms depreciated from the conversion of tillage into pasture lands and parks, as in England in the present day. Slavery inordinately increased from the captives taken in war. Western Asia furnished the greatest number of this miserable population, and Cretan and Cilician slave-hunters were found on all the coasts of Syria and Greece.

Perhaps even if they had willed it, such a course might have been impossible. They had no fleet of their own; the Cilician pirates off the coast might have refused to accept such dangerous passengers and to imperil their reputation as honest members of the slave trade. And, if the fugitives crossed the sea, what homes had they to which they could return?

The captives were first tortured, then taken up to a high place and dashed downwards to the ground. The consul then moved on Enna. The rebels defended their last stronghold with the utmost courage and persistence. Achaeus seems to have already fallen, but the brave Cilician leaders still held out with all the native valour of their race.

But he could not then recede from the enterprise, so he set sail. Sixty of his ships he sent toward Egypt; with the rest he went and fought the king of Persia's fleet, composed of Phoenician and Cilician galleys, recovered all the cities thereabout, and threatened Egypt; designing no less than the entire ruin of the Persian empire.

Some short epigraphs on Assyrian gems, tablets, and cylinders belong apparently to about the same period. The series of Phoenician and Cilician coins begins soon after this, and continues to the time of the Roman supremacy in Western Asia.