Battle of Tigranocerta - The Siege of Tigranocerta

The Siege of Tigranocerta

Tigranes, who was residing at Tigranocerta in the summer of 69, was not only astonished by the speed of Lucullus' rapid advance into Armenia but by the fact that he had even launched such an operation in the first place. Unable to reconcile with this reality for a certain period of time, he belatedly sent a general named Mithrobarzanes with 2,000 to 3,000 cavalrymen to slow down Lucullus' advance but his forces were cut to pieces and routed by the 1,600 cavalry led by Sextilius, one of the legates serving under Lucullus. Learning of Mithrobarzanes' defeat, Tigranes entrusted the defense of his namesake city to Mancaeus and left to recruit a fighting force in the Taurus Mountains. Nevertheless, Lucullus' legates were able to disrupt two separate detachments coming to the aid of Tigranes and even located and engaged the king's forces in a canyon in the Taurus. Lucullus, nevertheless, chose not to pursue Tigranes while he had an unimpeded path towards Tigranocerta; he advanced and began to lay siege to it.

Tigranocerta was still an unfinished city when Lucullus laid siege to it in the late summer of 69. The city was heavily fortified and according to the Greek historian Appian, had thick and towering walls that stood 25 meters high, providing a formidable defense against a prolonged siege. The Roman siege engines that were employed at Tigranocerta were effectively repelled by the defenders by the use of naphtha, making Tigranocerta, according to one scholar, the site of "perhaps the world's first use of chemical warfare."

However, the loyalty of the city's population was untested: since Tigranes had forcibly removed many of its inhabitants from their native lands and brought them to Tigranocerta, their allegiance to the king was cast into doubt. They soon proved their unreliability: when Tigranes and his army appeared on a hill overlooking the city, the inhabitants "greeted his appearance with shouts and din, and standing on the walls, threateningly pointed out the Armenians to the Romans."