A. M. Ant. J.C. 84. "of his court at Pergamus, he meditates plans for a *war he never saw." Such was the lofty style of Sylla, who gave Mithridates to understand at the same time that he would not talk such language had he been present at the past battles. The ambassadors, terrified with this answer, made no reply. Archelaus endeavoured to soften Sylla, and promised him that he would induce Mithridates to consent to all the articles. He set out for that purpose, and Sylla, after having laid waste the country, returned into Macedonia. Archelaus, upon his return, joined him at the city 3920. of Philippi, and informed him that Mithridates would accept the proposed conditions; but that he exceedingly desired to have a conference with him. What made him earnest for this interview was his fear of Fimbria, who, having killed Flaccus, of whom mention has been made before, and put himself at the head of that consul's army, was advancing by great marches against Mithridates; which determined that prince to make peace with Sylla. They had an interview at Dardania, a city of the Troad. Mithridates had with him two hundred gallies, twenty thousand foot, six thousand horse, and a great number of chariots armed with scythes: and Sylla had only four cohorts, and two hundred horse in his company. When Mithridates advanced to meet him, and offered him his hand, Sylla asked him, whether he accepted the proposed conditions? As the king kept silence, Sylla continued, "Do you not know, Mithridates, that it is for suppliants to speak, and for the victo"rious to hear and be silent?" Upon this Mithridates began a long apology, endeavouring to ascribe the cause of the war, partly to the gods, and partly to the Romans. Sylla interrupted him, and after having made a long detail of the violences and inhumanities he had committed, he demanded of him a second time, whether he would ratify the conditions which Archelaus had laid before him. Mithridates, surprised at the haughtiness and pride of the Roman general, having answered in the affirmative, Sylla then received his embraces, and afterwards presenting the kings Ariobarzanes and Nicomedes to him, he reconciled them to each other. Mithridates, after the delivery of the seventy gallies entirely equipped, and five hundred archers, re-embarked. Sylla saw plainly that this treaty of peace was highly disagreeable to his troops. They could not bear that a prince, who of all kings was the most mortal enemy to Rome, and who in one day had caused a hundred thousand Roman citizens, dispersed in Asia, to be put to the sword, should be treated with so much favour and even honour, and declared the friend and ally of the Romans, whilst almost still reeking with their blood. Sylla, to justify his conduct, gave them to understand, that if he had rejected his proposals of peace, Mithridates, on his refusal, would not have failed to treat with Fimbria; and that, if those two enemies had joined their forces, they would have obliged him either to abandon his conquests, or hazard a battle against troops, superior in number, under the command of two great captains, who in one day might have deprived him of the fruit of all his victories. Thus ended the first war with Mithridates, which had lasted four years, and in which Sylla had destroyed more than an hundred and sixty thousand of the enemy; recovered Greece, Macedonia, Ionia, Asia, and many other provinces, of which Mithridates had possessed himself; and, having deprived him of a great part of his fleet, compelled him to confine himself within the bounds of his hereditary dominions. * But what is most to be admired in Sylla is, that, during three years, whilst the factions of Marius and Vix quidquam in Syllæ operibus clarius duxerim, quàm quòd, cùm per triennium Cinnane Marianaque partes Italiam obsiderent, neque illaturum se bellum iis dissimulavit, nec quod erat in manibus omisit; existimavitque antè frangendum hostem, quàm ulciscendum civem; repulsoque externo metu, ubi quod alienum esset vicisset, superaret quod erat domesticum. VELL. PATERC. l. ii. c. 24. Cinta had enslaved Italy, he did not dissemble his intending to turn his arms against them, and yet did not discontinue the war he had begun, convinced that it was necessary to conquer the foreign enemy, 'before he reduced and punished those at home. He was also highly laudable for his constancy in not hearkening to any proposals from Mithridates, who offered him considerable aid against his enemies, till that prince had accepted the conditions of peace he prescribed him. Some days after, Sylla began his march against Fimbria, who was encamped under the walls of Thyatira, in Lydia, and, having marked out a camp near his, he began his entrenchments. Fimbria's soldiers, coming out, unarmed, ran to salute and embrace those of Sylla, and assisted them with great pleasure in forming their lines. Fimbria, seeing this change in his troops, and fearing Sylla as an irreconcileable enemy from whom he could expect no mercy, after having attempted in vain to get him assassinated, killed himself. Sylla condemned Asia in general to pay twenty thousand talents, and besides that fine, rifled individuals exceedingly, by abandoning their houses to the insolence and rapaciousness of his troops, whom he quartered upon them, and who lived at discretion as in conquered cities. For he gave orders that every host should pay each soldier quartered on him four drachmas † a day, and entertain at table himself, and as many of his friends as he should think fit to invite; that each captain should have fifty drachmas, and besides that a robe to wear in the house, and another when he went abroad. *After having thus punished Asia, he set out from Ephesus with all his ships, and arrived the third day at the Piraeus. Having been initiated in the great mys * Plut. in Syll. p. 468. Strab. 1. xiii. p. 609. Athen. 1. vii. p. 214. Laert. in Theoph. About three millions sterling. + About two shillings. teries, he took for his own use the library of Apellicon, in which were the works of Aristotle. That philosopher, at his death, had left his writings to Theophrastus, one of his most illustrious disciples. The latter had transferred them to Neleus of Scepsis, a city in the neighbourhood of Pergamus in Asia; after whose death those works fell into the hands of his heirs, ignorant persons, who kept them shut up in a chest. When the kings of Pergamus began to collect industriously all sorts of books for their library, as the city of Scepsis was dependent upon them, those heirs apprehending these works would be taken from them, thought proper to hide them in a vault under ground, where they remained almost an hundred and thirty years; till the heirs of Neleus's family, who after several generations were fallen into extreme poverty, brought them out to sell to Apellicon, a rich Athenian, who sought every where after the most curious books for his library. As they were very much damaged by the length of time, and the damp place where they had lain, Apellicon had copies immediately taken of them, in which there were many chasms; because the originals were either rotted in many places, or worm-eaten and obliterated. These blanks, words, and letters, were filled up as well as they could be by conjecture, and that in some places with sufficient want of judgement. From hence arose the many difficulties in those works which have ever since exercised the learned world. Apellicon being dead some small time before Sylla's arrival at Athens, he seized upon his library, and with these works of Aristotle, which he found in it, enriched his own at Rome. A famous grammarian of those times, named Tyrannion, who lived then at Rome, having a great desire, for these works of Aristotle, obtained permission from Sylla's librarian to take a copy of them. That copy was communicated to Andronicus, the Rhodian, who afterwards imparted it to the public, and to him the world is obliged for the works of that great philosopher: Aut. J. C. 83. SECT. II. Second war against Mithridates, under Murena, of only three years' duration. Mithridates prepares to renew the war. He concludes a treaty with Sertorius. Third war with Mithridates. Lucullus the consul sent against him. He obliges him to raise the siege of Cyzicum, and defeats his troops. He gains a complete victory over him, and reduces him to fly into Pontus. Tragical end of the sisters and wives of Mithridates. He endeavours to retire to Tigranes, his son-in-law. Lucullus regulates the affairs of Asia. A. M. 'SYLLA, on setting out for Rome, had left the 3.921. government of Asia to Murena, with the two legions that had served under Fimbria, to keep the province in obedience. This Murena is the father of him for whom Cicero made the fine oration which bears his name. His son at this time made his first campaigns under him. After Sylla's departure, Mithridates, being returned into Pontus, turned his arms against the people of Colchis and the Bosphorus, who had revolted against him. They first demanded his son Mithridates for their king, and having obtained him, immediately returned to their duty. The king, imagining their conduct to proceed from his son's intrigues, took umbrage at it, and having caused him to come to him, he ordered him to be bound with chains of gold, and soon after put him to death. That son had done him great services in the war against Fimbria. We see here a new instance of the jealousy which the excessive love of power is apt to excite, and to what an height the prince, who abandons himself to it, is capable of carrying his sus 1 Appian. p. 213-216. |