108 
ANCIENT HISTORY OF MSKETT. 
Roman troops celebrating the Saturnalia. But their general, 
who no sooner perceived his expected friends, than he saw them 
to be enemies, gave orders to allow the barbarians to pass the 
river, and then prepared his men to receive them as their 
broken faith deserved. The Albanians crossed in a body of 
forty thousand men, — so vast a multitude had they collected, 
to oppose their formidable foe; but it was in vain : the dis¬ 
cipline of the Roman band of veterans was more than a match 
for the population of the whole country ; and, utterly discom¬ 
fited in the battle which ensued, the Albanians yielded absolute 
submission. The consequence was, Pompey placed his own 
keys in the locks of the country; and proceeded, without 
further opposition, towards Iberia. According to the writers of 
the period I refer to, Albania was then bounded to the south by 
the Cyrus (or Kur), from the shores of the Caspian, to the 
junction of the river with the Aragua. From the nature of 
Pompey’s views in the country, and the difficult and dangerous 
passage of the Caucasus between Armenia and his next great 
object, — difficult from their .unexplored intricacies, and danger¬ 
ous from the inevitable harassing of the warlike natives, who had 
never known subjection, — though these mountains were his 
direct path, yet the more circuitous one of the eastern bank of 
the Kur, being altogether the most eligible, from its fewer natural 
obstacles, and being in part through the country of the 
Albanians, who had promised him a free passage, it appears 
that Pompey could not but take this line of march, and, accord¬ 
ingly, we have found his traces all along the path. The Kur is 
fordable in many places, particularly above Tiflis ; and between 
that city and Mskett lies an extensive plain, the spot, most 
probably, where the Iberians made a desperate stand against the 
I 
