merchant named Hippalus about the year 100 b.c.[1] As might be expected, full utilization of this knowledge was not made until later, roughly the middle of the first century of our era.[2]
His widely extended empire undoubtedly forced Mithradates to delegate extraordinary powers to his subordinates and gave greater opportunities than ever for self-aggrandizement. The satrap of satraps, Gotarzes, who appears on a relief cut by Mithradates in the great rock at Behistun, must by that time already have embarked on a career which eventually brought him into open revolt against his sovereign. If we accept the restoration by Herzfeld,[3] based on a copy made before the partial destruction of the relief, the inscription[4] should read
1 ΚΩΦΑΣΑΤΗΣ ΜΙΘΡΑΤΗΣ ΠΕΠ[ΙΣΤΕΥΜΕΝΟΣ . . . . . . ] ΓΩΤΑΡΖΗϹ
2 ΣΑΤΡΑΠΗΣ ΤΩΝ ΣΑΤΡ[ΑΠΩΝ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΜΕΓΑΣ ΜΙΘΡΑΔΑ]ΤΗϹ
"Kophasates, Mithrates the overseer(?), . . . . . . , Gotarzes the satrap of satraps, (and) the Great King Mithradates."
- ↑ Date uncertain. See PW, art. "Hippalos," No. 3; W. L. Westermann, "On Inland Transportation and Communication in Antiquity," Political Science Quarterly, XLIII (1928), 384 f.
- ↑ E. H. Warmington, The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India (Cambridge, 1928), pp. 35 ff.
- ↑ Am Tor von Asien (Berlin, 1920), pp. 35 ff.
- ↑ OGIS, I, No. 431.
