Acheron Cocytus and Phlegethon both flowed. The Roman poet Virgil called it the principal river of Tartarus, from which the Styx and Cocytus both sprang. The newly dead would be ferried across the Acheron by Charon in order to enter the Underworld. The Suda describes the river as "a place of healing, not a place of punishment, cleansing and purging the sins of humans". According to later traditions, Acheron had been a son of Helios and either Gaia or Demeter, who had been turned into the Underworld river bearing his name after he refreshed the Titans with drink during their contest
Roman relations with the Armenians alternated between harmony and conflict. In 70 BC the Pontic king Mithridates VI Eupator abandoned Lesser Armenia and fled eastward seeking protection at the court of his son-in-law Tigranes II the Great in Greater Armenia. The Roman general Lucius Licinius Lucullus sent his legate Appius Claudius to Armenia as an emissary. Tigranes received Appius in Antioch. Tigranes was given an ultimatum, surrender Mithridates or face an all out war with Rome. Tigranes denied the Romans their prize and in 69 BC Lucullus launched the first Roman invasion of Armenia. Tigranes had already faced the Romans in battle when he had