to the Romans, who had treated them with great rigour, as through the remains of affection for their king, reduced to the mournful condition in which they saw him, from the most splendid fortune and exalted greatness. For the misfortunes of princes naturally excite compassion, and there is generally a profound respect engraven in the hearts of the people for the name and person of kings. Mithri dates, encouraged and strengthened by these new aids, and the troops which several neighbouring states and princes sent him, resumed courage, and saw himself, more than ever, in a condition to make head against the Romans. So that not contented with being re-established in his dominions,* which a moment before he did not so much as hope ever to see again, he had the boldness to attack the Roman troops, so often victorious; beat a body of them, commanded by Fabius; and, after having put them to the rout, pressed Triarius and Sornatius, two other of Lucullus's lieutenants in that country, with great_vigour.

A. M. 3937.

Lucullus at length engaged his soldiers to quit Ant. J. C. 67. their winter-quarters, and to go to their aid. But they arrived too late. Triarius had imprudently ventured a battle, in which Mithridates had defeated him, and killed 7000 of his men; amongst whom were reckoned 150 centurions, and twenty-four tribunes, which made this one of the greatest losses the Romans had sustained for a great while. The army would have been entirely defeated, but for a wound Mithridates had received, which exceedingly alarmed his troops, and gave the enemy time to escape. Lucullus, upon his arrival, found the dead bodies upon the field of battle, and did not give orders for their interment; which still more exasperated his soldiers against him. The spirit of revolt rose so high, that, without any regard for his character as general, they treated him no longer but with insolence and contempt; and though he went from tent to tent, and almost from man to man, to conjure them to march against Mithridates and Tigranes, he could never prevail upon them to quit the place where they were. They answered him brutally, that as he had no thoughts but of enriching himself alone out of the spoils of the enemy, he might march alone, and fight them, if he thought fit.

Jam ferè sic fieri solere accepimus; ut regum afflictæ fortunæ facilè multorum opes alliciant ad misericordiam, maximèque eorum qui aut reges sunt, aut vivunt in regno: quòd regale iis nonien magnum et sanctum esse videatur. Cic. pro leg. Manil. n. 24.

Itaque tantum victus efficere potuit, quantum incolumis nunquam est ausus optare. Nam cùn se in regnum recepisset suum, non fuit eo contentus, quod ei præter spem acciderat, ut eam, posteà quàm pulsus erat, terram unquam attingeret; sed in exerci tum vestrum clarum atque victorem impetum fecit. Cic. pro leg. Manil. n. 25.

Que calamitas tanta fuit, ut eam ad aures L. Luculli, non ex prælio nuntius, sed ex sermone rumor afferret. Cic. pro leg. Manil. n. 25.

SECT. IV.

Mithridates, taking advantage of the discord which had arisen in the Roman army, recovers all his dominions. Pompey is chosen to succeed Luculins. He overthrows Mithridates in several battles. The latter flies in vain to Tigranes, his son-in-law, for refuge, who is engaged in a war with his own son. Pompey marches into Ar menia against Tigranes, who comes to him and surrenders himself. Weary of pursuing Mithridates to no purpose, he returns into Syria, makes himself master of that kingdom, and puts an end to the empire of the Selucida. He inarches back to Pontus. Pharnaces makes the army revolt against his father Mithridates, who kills himself. That prince's character. Pompey's expeditions into Arabia and Jud a, where he fakes je, usalem. After having reduced all the cities of Pontus, he returns to Rome, and receives the honour of a triumph.

Manius Acilius Glabrio and C. Piso had been elected consuls at Rome. The first had Bithynia and Pontus for his province, where Lucullus commanded. The senate, at the same time, disbanded Fimbria's legions, which were a part of his army. All this news augmented the disobedience and insolence of the troops towards Lucullus

It is true, his rough, austere, and frequently haughty disposition, gave some room for such usage. He cannot be denied the glory of having been one of the greatest captains of his age; and of having had almost all the qualities that form a complete general. But one was wanting which diminished the merit of all the rest; I mean the art of gaining the affections, and making himself beloved by the soldiers. He was difficult of access; rough in commanding; carried exactitude, in point of duty, to an excess that made it odious; was inexorable in punishing offences; and did not know how to conciliate good will by praises and rewards opportunely bestowed, or by an air of hindness and affability, and insinuating manners, still more efficacious than either gifts or praises. And what proves that the sedition of the troops was in a great measure his own fault, was their being very docile and obedient under Pompey.

In consequence of the letters which Lucullus had written to the senate, in which he acquainted them, that Mithridates was entirely defeated, and utterly incapable of retrieving himself, commissioners had been nominated to regulate the affairs of Pontus, as of a king dom totally reduced. They were much surprised to find, upon their arrival, that, far from being master of Pontus, he was not so much as master of his army, and that his own soldiers treated him with the utmost contempt.

The arrival of the consul Acilius Glabrio still added to their li centiousness. He informed them,† that Lucullus had been accused at Rome of protracting the war for the sake of continuing his com

* Dion. Cass. 1. xxxv. p. 7.

In ipso illo malo gravissimâque belli offensione, L. Lucullus qui tamen aliquà es parte iis incommodis mederi fortasse potuisset, vestro jussu coactus, quòd imperii diu turnitati modum statuendum, veteri exemplo, putavistis, partem militum, qui jam sti pendiis confectis erant, dimisit, partem Glabrioni tradidit." Cic. pro leg. Manil. n. 26.

mand; that the senate had disbanded part of his troops, and forbade them paying him any farther obedience. So that he soon found himself almost entirely abandoned by the soldiers. Mithridates taking advantage of this disorder, had time to recover his whole kingdom, and to make great ravages in Cappadocia.

A. M. 3938. Ant. J. C. 66.

Whilst the affairs of the army were in this condition, great noise was made at Rome against Lucullus. Pompey had just put an end to the war with the pirates, for which an extraordinary power had been granted to him.* Upon this occasion one of the tribunes of the people, named Manilius, proposed a decree to this effect: "That Pompey, taking upon him the command of all the troops and provinces which were under Lucullus, and adding to them Bithynia, where Acilius commanded, should be charged with the conduct of the war against the kings Mithridates and Tigranes, retaining under him all the naval forces, and continuing to command at sea with the same conditions and prerogatives as had been granted him in the war against the pirates; that is to say, that he should have absolute power on all the coasts of the Mediterranean, to thirty leagues' distance from the sea." This was, in effect, subjecting the whole Roman empire to one man. For all the provinces which had not been granted him by the first decree, Phrygia, Lycaonia, Galatia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, the higher Colchis, and Armenia, were conferred upon him by this second, which included also all the armies and forces, with which Lucullus had defeated the two kings Mithridates and Tigranes.

Consideration for Lucullus, who was deprived of the glory of his great exploits, and in the place of whom a general was appointed to succeed more to the honours of his triumph than the command of his armies, was not, however, what gave the nobility and senate most concern: they were well convinced that great wrong was done him, and that his services were not treated with the gratitude they deserved: but what gave them most pain, and what they could not support, was that high degree of power to which Pompey was raised, which they considered as a tyranny already formed. For this reason they exhorted each other in private, and mutually encouraged one another to oppose this decree, and not abandon their expiring liberty.

Cesar and Cicero, who were very powerful at Rome, supported Manilius, or rather Pompey, with all their credit. It was upon this occasion that the latter pronounced that fine oration before the people, entitled, "For the law of Manilius." After having demonstrated, in the first two parts of his discourse, the necessity and importance of the war in question, he proves, in the third, that Pompey is the only person capable of terminating it successfully. For this purpose, he enumerates at length the qualities necessary to form a general of an army, and shows that Pompey possesses

Plut. in Pomp. p. 634. Appian. p. 238. Dion. Cass. 1. xxxv. p. 20.

them all in a supreme degree. He insists principally upon his probity, humanity, innocence of manners, integrity, disinterestedness, love of the public good: "Virtues, by so much the more necessary," says he, "as the Roman name* is become infamous and hateful amongst foreign nations, and our allies, in consequence of the debauches, avarice, and unheard-of oppressions of the generals and magistrates we send amongst them. Instead of which, the prudent, moderate, and irreproachable conduct of Pompey will make him be regarded, not as sent from Rome, but descended from heaven, for the happiness of the nations. People begin to believe, that all which is related of the noble disinterestedness of those ancient Romans is real and true; and that it was not without reason, that, under such magistrates, nations chose rather to obey the Roman people than to command others."

Pompey was at that time the idol of the people; wherefore the fear of displeasing the multitude kept those grave senators silent, who had at first appeared so well inclined, and so full of courage. The decree was authorized by the suffrages of all the tribes; and Pompey, though absent, declared absolute master of almost all Sylla had usurped by arms, and by making a cruel war upon his country. We must not imagine, says a very judicious historian, that either Cæsar or Cicero, who took so much pains to have this law passed, acted from views of the public good. Cæsar, full of ambition and great projects, endeavoured to make his court to the people, whose authority he knew was at that time much greater than the senate's: he thereby opened himself a way to the same power, and familiarized the Romans to extraordinary and unlimited commissions: in heaping upon the head of Pompey so many favours and glaring dis tinctions, he flattered himself that he should at length render him odious to the people, who would soon take offence at him. So that in lifting him up, he had no other design than to prepare a precipice for him. Cicero also had in view only his own greatness. His weak side was a desire of bearing sway in the commonwealth; not indeed by guilt and violence, but by the method of persuasion. Besides his wish to support himself by the influence of Pompey, he was very well pleased with showing the nobility and people, who formed two parties, and, in a manner, two republics in the state, that he was capable of making the balance incline to the side he espoused. It was always his policy to conciliate equally both parties, in declaring sometimes for the one, and sometimes for the other.

* Difficile est dictu, Quirites, quanto in odio simus apud cæteras nationes, propter eorum, quos ad eas hoc anno cum imperio misimus, injurias ac libidines, Cic. pro leg. Man. n. 61.

Itaque omnes quidem nunc in his locis Cn. Pompeium, sicut aliquem non ex bâG urbe missum, sed de cœlo delapsum intuentur. Nunc denique incipiunt credere, fuisse homines Romanos hâc quondam abstinentiâ, quod jam nationibus cæteris incredibile ae falsò memoriæ proditum videbatur. Nunc imperii nostri splendor illis gentibus lucet: nunc intelligunt, non sine causâ majores suos tum, cùm hâc temperantiâ magistratus habebamus, servire populo Romano, quàm imperare aliis maluisse. Ibid. n. 41.

Dion. Cass. L xxxvi. p. 20, 21.

A. M. 3938.

Ant. J. C. 66.

Pompey, who had lately terminated the war with the pirates, was still in Cilicia, when he received letters to inform him of all the people had decreed in his favour. When his friends, who were present, congratulated him, and expressed their joy, it is said, that he knit his brows, struck his thigh, and cried out, as if oppressed by, and sorry for, that new command: "Gods! what endless labours am I devoted to? Should I not have been more happy as a man unknown and inglorious? Shall I never cease to make war, nor ever have my arms off my back? Shall I never escape the envy that persecutes me, nor live at peace in the country with my wife and children?"

This is usually enough the language of the ambitious, even of those who are most inordinately actuated by that passion. But, however successful they may be in imposing upon themselves, it seldom happens that they deceive others; and the public is far from mistaking them. The friends of Pompey, and even those who were most intimate with him, could not endure his dissimulation at this time. For there was not one of them who did not know, that his natural ambition and passion for command, still me inflamed by his quarrel with Lucullus, made him feel a more refined and sensible satisfaction in the new charge conferred upon him; and his actions soon took off the mask, and discovered his real sentiments.

The first step which he took upon arriving in the provinces of his government, was, to forbid any obedience whatsoever to the orders of Lucullus. In his march he altered every thing which his predecessor had decreed. He exonerated some from the penal ties Lucullus had laid upon them; deprived others of the rewards he had given them: in short, his sole view in every thing was to let the partisans of Lucullus see that they adhered to a man who had neither authority nor power. Strabo's uncle, by the mother's side, highly discontented with Mithridates for having put to death several of his relations, to avenge himself for that cruelty, had gone over to Lucullus, and had given up fifteen places in Cappadocia to him. Lucullus loaded him with honours, and promised to reward him as such considerable services deserved. Pompey, far from having any regard for such just and reasonable engagements, which his predecessor had entered into solely from a view to the public good, affected a universal opposition to them, and looked upon all those as his enemies who had contracted any friendship with Lucullus.

It is not uncommon for a successor to endeavour to lessen the value of his predecessor's actions, in order to arrogate all the honour to himself; out, certainly none ever carried that conduct to such monstrous excess as Pompey did at this time. His great qualities and innumerable conquests are exceedingly extolled; but so base and odious a jealousy ought to sully, or rather totally eclipse. *Plut. in Pomp. 634-636. Dion. Cass. 1. xxxvi. p. 22-25. App. p. 238 Strab. I. xii. p. 557, 558.