Sulla

Then he reproached him bitterly and denounced him for what he had done, and asked him again if he would keep the agreements made through Archelaüs. And when he said that he would, then Sulla greeted him with an embrace and a kiss, and later, bringing to him Ariobarzanes and Nicomedes the kings, he reconciled him with them. Mithridates, accordingly, after handing over to Sulla seventy ships and five hundred archers, sailed away to Pontus.

But Sulla perceived that his soldiers were incensed at the peace which he had made; they thought it a terrible thing to see the most hostile of kings, who had caused one hundred and fifty thousand of the Romans in Asia to be massacred in a single day[*](In the late autumn of 88 B.C. The cities of Asia Minor were glad to obey the orders of Mithridates for a general massacre of the resident Romans. Cf. Appian, Mithridates, xxii. Valerius Maximus (ix. 2, 4, Ext. 3) gives the number slain as 80,000.) go sailing off with wealth and spoils from Asia, which he had for four years continued to plunder and levy taxes on. He therefore defended himself to them by saying that he would not have been able to carry on war with Mithridates and Fimbria too, if they had both joined forces against him.