European Historians Relied on Unreliable Data From Roman Historians

Discussing the accounts of European historians of Armenia’s King Dikran II and his ally King Mithridates, of Pontus, historian H. Manandyan says in ‘Tigranes and Rome’: “European historians have shown another shortcoming: they have not only relied upon the questionable an unreliable data from Roman historians, but they have also displayed an enmity to the East and its people. Their political outlook is in sympathy with that of Rome and its historians; they openly idealize the slave-owning Roman Republic. For example, the Italian scholar Ferrero, consider one of the greatest bourgeois historians, comments that Lucullus, a plunderer who destroyed large and wealthy [Hellenistic] cities and the Hellenistic culture of Pontus, ‘demonstrated admiration for Hellenic culture.’”

Discussing the accounts of European historians of Armenia’s King Dikran II and his ally King Mithridates, of Pontus, historian H. Manandyan says in ‘Tigranes and Rome’: “European historians have shown another shortcoming: they have not only relied upon the questionable an unreliable data from Roman historians, but they have also displayed an enmity to the East and its people. Their political outlook is in sympathy with that of Rome and its historians; they openly idealize the slave-owning Roman Republic. For example, the Italian scholar Ferrero, consider one of the greatest bourgeois historians, comments that Lucullus, a plunderer who destroyed large and wealthy [Hellenistic] cities and the Hellenistic culture of Pontus, ‘demonstrated admiration for Hellenic culture.’”