{{Infobox Military Conflict|
image=300px|
caption=
|conflict=Battle of Tigranocerta
|partof= the Third Mithridatic War
|date= October 6, 69 BC
|place=Tigranocerta, Armenia (modern Turkey)
|result= Roman victory
|combatant1=Roman Republic
|combatant2=22px Kingdom of Armenia
|commander1=Lucius Licinius Lucullus <br/> Legatus Fannius <br> Legatus Sextilius <br/> Legatus Hadrianus 
|commander2=Tigranes the Great <br/> Taxilés <br/> Mancaeus
|strength1= 40,000 men consisting of: <br/> 24,000 infantry <br/> 3,300 Roman and 10,000 Gallic and Thracian cavalry <br/> Bithynian infantry <ref name="SovArm"> Manaseryan, Ruben. ''«Տիգրանակերտի ճակատամարտ Մ.Թ.Ա. 69»'' (Battle of Tigranakert, 69 B.C.). Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia. vol. xi. Yerevan, Armenian SSR: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1985, p. 700.</ref>
|strength2= 80,000 - 90,000 men consisting of: <br/> Adiabenians, Gordyenians, Iberians, Medians <br/> 20,000 - 25,000 Armenians <ref name="SovArm"/>
|casualties1=Unknown
|casualties2=Unknown, estimates given from 10,000 to 100,000<ref></ref>  
}}

The '''Battle of Tigranocerta''' (, ''Tigranakerti Tchakatamartuh'') was fought on Lucius Licinius Lucullus, and Tigranes was defeated. His capital city of Tigranocerta was lost to Rome as a result.<ref name="SovArm"/> 

The battle arose from the Cleopatra was married to Tigranes. Mithridates fled to seek shelter with his son-in-law, and Rome invaded the Kingdom of Armenia. Having laid siege to Tigranocerta, the Roman forces fell back behind a nearby river when the large Armenian army approached. Feigning retreat, the Romans crossed at a ford and fell on the right flank of the Armenian army. After the Romans defeated the Armenian cataphracts, the balance of the Armenian army, which was mostly made up of raw levies and peasant troops from Tigranes' extensive empire, panicked and fled, and the Romans won the battle.<ref name="SovArm"/> 

==Background==
 
Tigranes' expansion into the Near East led to the creation of an Armenian empire that stretched almost across the entire region. With his father-in-law ally securing the empire's western flank, Tigranes was able to conquer territories in Parthia and Mesopotamia and annex the lands of the Levant. In Syria, he began the construction of the city of Tigranocerta (also written Tigranakert), which he named after himself, and imported a multitude of peoples, including Arabs, Greeks, and Jews, to populate it. The city soon became the king's headquarters in Syria and flourished as a great center for Hellenistic culture, complete with theaters, parks and hunting grounds.<ref></ref>

This period of Armenian hegemony in the region, however, was coming close to an end with a series of Roman victories in the Roman-Mithirdatic wars that were taking place in the west. Friction between the two had existed for several decades, although it was during the Third Mithridatic War that the Roman armies under Lucius Licinius Lucullus made significant progress against Mithridates, forcing him to take refuge with Tigranes. Lucullus sent an ambassador named Appius Claudius to Antioch to demand that Tigranes surrender his father-in-law; should he refuse, Armenia would face war with Rome.<ref>Sherwin-White. "Lucullus", p. 239.</ref> Tigranes refused Appius Claudius' demands, stating that he would prepare for war against the Republic.  

Lucullus was astonished upon hearing this in the year 70, and he began immediately to prepare for an invasion of Armenia. Although he had no legal mandate to authorize such a move, he attempted to justify his invasion by distinguishing as his enemy as Tigranes and not his subjects. In the summer of 69, he marched his troops across Tsopk, where Tigranocerta was located. 

==The siege of Tigranocerta==
thumb|305px|[[Tigranes the Great's empire circa 80 B.C.]]
Tigranes, who was residing at Tigranocerta in the summer of 69, was not only astonished by the speed of Lucullus' rapid advance into Armenia but by the fact that he had even launched such an operation in the first place. Unable to reconcile with this reality for a certain period of time, he belatedly sent a general named Mithrobarzanes with 2,000 to 3,000 men to slow down Lucullus' advance but his forces were cut to pieces and legates serving under Lucullus, Sextilius. Learning of Mithrobarzanes' defeat, Tigranes entrusted the defense of his namesake city to Mancaeus and left to recruit a fighting force in the Taurus Mountains.<ref>Plutarch. ''Life of Lucullus'', [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Lucullus*.html 25.5].</ref> Nevertheless, Lucullus' legates were able to disrupt two separate detachments coming to Tigranes aid and even located and engaged the king's forces in a canyon in the Taurus. Lucullus, nevertheless, chose not to pursue Tigranes while he had an unimpeded path towards Tigranocerta; he advanced and began to lay siege to it.<ref>Plutarch. ''Life of Lucullus'', [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Lucullus*.html 26.1].</ref>      

Tigranocerta was still an unfinished city when Lucullus laid to siege it in the late summer of 69. The city was heavily fortified and  according to the Greek historian Appian, had towering walls that stood 25 meters high, providing a formidable defenses against a prolonged siege.<ref>Appian. ''The Mithrdatic Wars'', [http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/appian/appian_mithridatic_17.html#%A784 12.84].</ref> The Roman siege engines that were employed at Tigranocerta were effectively repelled by the defenders by the use of naphtha, making  Tigranocerta the site of "perhaps the world's first use of chemical warfare."<ref></ref>

The loyalty of the city's population was, however, untested: since Tigranes had forcibly removed many of its inhabitants from their native lands and brought them to Tigranocerta, their allegiance to the king was cast into doubt. They soon proved their unreliability: when Tigranes and his army appeared on a hill overlooking the city, the inhabitants "greeted his [Lucullus] appearance with shouts and din, and standing on the walls, threateningly pointed out the Armenians to the Romans."<ref>Plutarch. ''Life of Lucullus'', [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Lucullus*.html 27.1].</ref>   

==Forces==
thumb|305px|King Tigranes the Great, as depicted on a contemporaneous coin.
Appian claims that Lucullus had embarked from Rome with only a single Adrian Sherwin-White places the size of Lucullus' force to 12,000 seasoned Gallic, Thracian, and Bithynian infantry and cavalry.  

Tigranes' army clearly held a numerical superiority over that of Lucullus'.<ref></ref> According to Appian, it numbered 250,000 infantry and 50,000 cavalry.<ref>Appian. ''The Mithrdatic Wars'', [http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/appian/appian_mithridatic_17.html#%A785 12.85].</ref> Many scholars, however, doubt these figures accurately reflect the true number of Tigranes' numerically superior army and are regarded to be highly inflated.<ref name="Luke"/><ref>Cowan and Hook. ''Roman Battle Tactics'', p. 41.</ref> Some historians, most notably Kurkjian, Vahan (1958). ''[http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Asia/Armenia/_Texts/KURARM/13*.html#before_Tigranocerta A History of Armenia]''. New York: Armenian General Benevolent Union of America, p. 80.</ref><ref></ref> Tigranes also had in his possession several thousand heavily armored cavalry that were clad in chain mail and often armed with lances, spears or bows.

'''Bitwa pod Tigranocertą''' została stoczona między Rzymianami dowodzonymi przez Tigranesa II  6 paździenika 69 r. p.n.e., w czasie III wojny Rzymu z królem pontyjskim Mirtydatesem VI Eupatorem.

==Przebieg==
Lukullus w pościgu za Mitrydatesem VI uderzył na Armenię i rozpoczą oblężenie jej stolicy Tigranocerty.Gdy nadeszła duża ormiańska armia, doradcy radzili Lukullusowi, aby się wycofał, on jednak 6000 żołnierzy nakazał kontynuowanie oblężenia, a sam na czele 10000 legionistów i 3000 kawalerii udał się w kierunku nadciągającego wroga.Obie armie przez krótki czas obozowały na przeciwległych brzegach rzeki.Mitrydates VI wysłał na pomoc Ormianom swojego najlepszego stratega Taksilesa, który zasugerował Tigranesowi II aby powstrzymywał się od bezpośredniej konforntacji z legionistami, lecz podjazdami lekkiej kawalerii szarpał linię wroga, między armią oblężniczą a Lukullusem.Tym sposobem chciał odciąć  kontakt między głównymi siłami i ich zaopatrzeniem.Brzeg na którym stacjonowali Ormianie był za stromy na atak więc Rzymianie posunęli się zgodnie z prądem rzeki i przeszli w miejscu, gdzie teren był płaski. Wykorzystując niezdecydowanie ormiańskiego króla, który się cofnął, zaatakowali prawe skrzydło armii wroga, łamiąc szyk ciężkozbrojnej ormiańskiej piechoty. Armia Tigranesa poszła w rozsypkę, a zwycięstwo Lukullusa było zdecydowane.