🟡 “A TASK WITHOUT LIMIT” “Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, Commander in Chief, having completed a thirty years' war, routed, scattered, slain or received the surrender of 12,183,000 people, sunk or taken 846 ships, received the capitulation of 1538 towns and forts, subdued the lands from the Maeotians to the Red Sea, duly dedicates his offering vowed to Minerva. This is his summary of his exploits in the east. But the announcement of the triumphal procession that he led on September 28 in the consulship of Marcus Piso and Marcus Messala was as follows: After having rescued the sea coast from pirates and restored to the Roman People the command of the sea, he celebrated a triumph over Asia, Pontus, Armenia, Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, Cicilia, Syria, the Scythians, Jews and Albanians, lberia, the Island of Crete, the Basternae, and, in addition to these, over King Mithridates and Tigranes. The crowning pinnacle of this glorious record was (as he himself declared in assembly when discoursing on his achievements) to have found Asia the remotest of the provinces and then to have made her a central dominion of his country. If anybody on the other side desires to review in similar manner the achievements of Caesar, who showed himself greater than Pompey, he must assuredly roll off the entire world, and this it will be agreed is a task without limit.” Pliny the Elder