Sulla

Now since Cinna and Carbo[*](Elected consul with Cinna in 85 B.C.) at Rome were treating the most eminent men with injustice and violence, many of these had fled from their tyranny and were repairing to Sulla’s camp as to a harbour of refuge, and in a little time he had about him a semblance of a senate. Metella, also, who had with difficulty stolen herself and her children away, came with tidings that his house and his villas had been burned by his enemies, and with entreaties that he would come to the help of his partisans at home.

But while he was in doubt what to do, and could neither consent to neglect his country when she was outraged, nor see his way clear to go away and leave unfinished so great a task as the war with Mithridates, there came to him a merchant of Delos, named Archelaüs, who secretly brought from Archelaüs the king’s general certain vague hopes and propositions. The matter was so welcome to Sulla that he was eager to have a personal conference with Archelaüs;

and they had a meeting on the sea-coast near Delium, where the temple of Apollo is. Archelaüs began the conference by urging Sulla to abandon Asia and Pontus and sail for the war in Rome, on condition of receiving money, triremes, and as large a force as he wished, from the king. Sulla rejoined by bidding him take no further thought for Mithridates, but assume the crown himself in his stead, becoming an ally of the Romans, and surrendering to them his ships.

And when Archelaüs expressed his abhorrence of such treason, Sulla said: So then, thou, Archelaüs, who art a Cappadocian, and a slave of a barbarian king, or, if thou wilt, his friend, wilt not consent to a disgraceful deed for such great rewards; but to me, who am a Roman commander, and Sulla, thou darest to propose treachery? as if thou were not that Archelaüs who fled from Chaeroneia with a few survivors out of one hundred and twenty thousand men, and who lay hid for two days in the marshes of Orchomenus, and who left Boeotia impassable for the multitude of dead bodies!

Upon this, Archelaüs changed his tone, and as a humble suppliant besought him to desist from the war and be reconciled with Mithridates. Sulla granted the request, and terms of agreement were made as follows: Mithridates was to renounce Asia and Paphlagonia, restore Bithynia to Nicomedes and Cappadocia to Ariobarzanes, pay down to the Romans two thousand talents, and give them seventy bronze-armoured ships with their proper equipment; Sulla, on his part, was to confirm Mithridates in the rest of his dominions, and get him voted an ally of the Romans.