Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
To support his assertion he sent his wife to Rome to swear she had had three sons. Mithridates, as if in burlesque of the imposture, sent Gordius to swear that the youth on the throne was son of a Cappadocian king who had died more than thirty years before. The Senate decided as a lion might between two jackals quarrelling over a carcase.
Gordius was a sort of mountain farmer. One day he was plowing, and an eagle came down and alighted upon his yoke, and remained there until he had finished his plowing. This was an omen, but what was the signification of it? Gordius did not know, and he accordingly went to a neighboring town in order to consult the prophets and soothsayers.
Such a welcome as this poor countryman had! "Here comes our king!" was the cry from everyone. "We were told he should come this day in a wagon drawn by oxen, and here he is!" Gordius could not believe what he heard. But the chief men brought the crown and put it on his head and declared him king, and he agreed to do his best to deserve the honor.
Then he set on the throne his own son, to whom he gave his nephew's name, and made Gordius his guardian. Him the Cappadocians expelled, and raised to the throne another nephew of Mithridates; but Mithridates instantly drove him from power. Nicomedes now appealed to the Senate, and produced, as he asserted, a third nephew of Mithridates as a claimant for the crown.
This proved effectual. Mithradates yielded on all points; Gordius had to assume the blame of the Cappadocian troubles, and the pseudo-Ariarathes disappeared; the election of king, which the Pontic faction had vainly attempted to direct towards Gordius, fell on the respected Cappadocian Ariobarzanes. First Contact between the Romans and the Parthians
The demi-god Atlas figures with a world upon his shoulders in the title-page of some early works on geography; and has probably in this way lent to our map-books their name. Gordius, the Phrygian king who tied the famous 'gordian' knot which Alexander cut, will supply a natural transition from mythical to historical.
King Ariarathes VI was killed by Gordius, it was said by the orders, at any rate in the interest, of Ariarathes' brother-in-law Mithradates Eupator: his young son Ariarathes knew no means of meeting the encroachments of the king of Bithynia except the ambiguous help of his uncle, in return for which the latter then suggested to him that he should allow the murderer of his father, who had taken flight, to return to Cappadocia.
The speedy death of the youth placed by the people on the throne gave to the Pontic king the greater liberty of action, because with that youth the Cappadocian royal house became extinct. A pseudo-Ariarathes was proclaimed as nominal regent, just as had been done in Paphlagonia; under whose name Gordius administered the kingdom as lieutenant of Mithradates. Empire of Mithradates
Tradition said that it had originally belonged to the peasant Gordius and his son Midas, rustic chiefs who had been selected by the gods and chosen by the people as the primitive kings of Phrygia.
On his way he met a damsel, who, like Rebecca in the days of Abraham, was going forth to draw water. Gordius fell into conversation with her, and related to her the occurrence which had interested him so strongly. The maiden advised him to go back and offer a sacrifice to Jupiter. Finally, she consented to go back with him and aid him.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking