Mithridatic Wars

When Zenobius approached Ephesus with his army, the citizens ordered him to leave his arms at the gates and come in with only a few attendants. He obeyed the order and made a visit to Philopœmen (the father of Monima, the favorite wife of Mithridates), whom the latter had appointed overseer of Ephesus, and summoned the Ephesians to the assembly. They expected nothing good from him, and adjourned the meeting till the next day. During the night, however, they met for mutual consultation and encouragement, after which they cast Zenobius into prison and put him to death. They then manned the walls, put the citizens in training, brought in supplies from the country, and put the city in a state of complete defence. When the people of Tralles, Hypæpa, Metropolis, and several other towns heard of this they feared lest they should meet the fate of Chios, and followed the example of Ephesus. Mithridates sent an army against the revolters and inflicted terrible punishments on those whom he captured, but as he feared other defections, he gave freedom to the Greek cities, proclaimed the cancelling of debts, gave the right of citizenship to all sojourners therein, and freed the slaves. He did this hoping (as indeed it turned out) that the debtors, sojourners, and slaves would consider their new privileges secure only under the rule of Mithridates, and would therefore be well disposed toward him. In the meantime Mynnio and Philotimus of Smyrna, Cleistheness and Asclepiodotus of Lesbos, all of them the king's intimates (Asclepiodotus had once entertained him as a guest) joined in a conspiracy against Mithridates. Of this conspiracy Asclepiodotus himself became the informer, and in order to confirm his story he arranged that the king should conceal himself under a couch and hear what Mynnio said. The plot being thus revealed the conspirators were put to death with torture, and many others suffered from suspicion of similar designs. Thus eighty citizens of Pergamus were caught taking counsel together to like purpose, and others in other cities. The king sent spies everywhere who denounced their own enemies, and in this way about 1500 men lost their lives. Some of these accusers were captured by Sulla a little later and put to death, others committed suicide, and still others took refuge with Mithridates himself in Pontus.

While these events were taking place in Asia, Mithridates assembled an army of 80,000 men, which Dorylaus led to Archelaus in Greece, who still had 10,000 of his former force remaining. Sulla had taken a position against Archelaus near Orchomenus. When he saw the great number of the enemy's horse coming up, he dug a number of ditches through the plain ten feet wide, and drew up his army to meet Archelaus when the latter advanced. The Romans fought badly because they were in terror of the enemy's cavalry. Sulla rode hither and thither a long time, encouraging and threatening his men. Failing to bring them up to their duty in this way, he leaped from his horse, seized a standard, ran out between the two armies with his shield-bearers, exclaiming, "If you are ever asked, Romans, where you abandoned Sulla, your general, say that it was at the battle of Orchomenus." When the officers saw his peril they darted from their own ranks to his aid, and the troops, moved by the sense of shame, followed and drove the enemy back in their turn. This was the beginning of the victory. Sulla again leaped upon his horse and rode among his troops praising and encouraging them until the end of the battle. The enemy lost 15,000 men, about 10,000 of whom were cavalry, and among them Diogenes, the son of Archelaus. The infantry fled to their camps.

Sulla feared lest Archelaus should escape him again, because he had no ships, and take refuge in Chalcis as before. Accordingly he stationed night watchmen at intervals over the whole plain, and the next day he enclosed Archelaus with a ditch at a distance of less than 600 feet from his camp, to prevent his escape. Then he appealed to his army to finish the small remainder of the war, since the enemy were no longer even making show of resistance; and so he led them against the camp of Archelaus. Like scenes transpired among the enemy, with a change of feeling necessarily, the officers hurrying hither and thither, representing the imminent danger, and upbraiding the men if they should not be able to defend the camp against assailants inferior in numbers. There was a rush and a shout on each side, followed by many valiant deeds on the part of both. The Romans, protected by their shields, were demolishing a certain angle of the camp when the barbarians leaped down from the parapet inside and took their stand around this corner with drawn swords to ward off the invaders. No one dared to enter until the military tribune, Basillus, first leaped over and killed the man in front of him. Then the whole army dashed after him. The flight and slaughter of the barbarians followed. Some were captured and others driven into the neighboring lake, and, not knowing how to swim, perished while begging for mercy in barbarian speech, not understood by their slayers. Archelaus hid in a marsh, where he found a small boat by which he reached Chalcis. Whatever remained of the Mithridatean forces in separate detachments he summoned thither with all speed.

The next day Sulla decorated the tribune, Basillus, and gave rewards for valor to others. He ravaged Boeotia which was continually changing from one side to the other, and then moved to Thessaly and went into winter quarters, and waited for Lucullus and his fleet. As he had no tidings of Lucullus he began to build ships for himself. At this juncture Cornelius Cinna and Gaius Marius, his rivals at home, caused him to be declared an enemy of the Roman people, destroyed his houses in the city and the country, and murdered his friends. This, however, did not weaken him in the least, since he had a zealous and devoted army. Cinna sent Flaccus, whom he had caused to be chosen as his colleague in the consulship, to Asia with two legions to take charge of that province and of the Mithridatic war in place of Sulla, who was now declared a public enemy. As Flaccus was inexperienced in the art of war, a man of senatorial rank named Fimbria, who was skilled in military affairs, accompanied him as a volunteer. As they were sailing from Brundusium many of their ships were destroyed by a tempest, and some that had gone in advance were burned by a new army that had been sent forward by Mithridates. Moreover, Flaccus was a rascal, and, being severe in punishments and greedy of gain, was hated by the whole army. Accordingly, a part of them who had been sent ahead into Thessaly went over to Sulla, but Fimbria kept the rest of them from deserting, because they considered him more humane and a better general than Flaccus. [*](Y.R. 669)

Once while he was at an inn he had a dispute with the quæstor about their lodgings. Flaccus, who acted as arbiter between them, showed little consideration for Fimbria, and the latter was vexed and threatened to go back to Rome. Accordingly Flaccus appointed a successor to perform the duties which he then had charge of. Fimbria watched his opportunity, and when Flaccus had sailed for Chalcedon he first took the fasces away from Thermus, whom Flaccus had left as his prætor, as though the army had conferred the command upon himself, and when Flaccus returned soon afterward and was angry with him, Fimbria compelled him to fly. Flaccus took refuge in a certain house and in the night-time climbed over the wall and fled first to Chalcedon and afterward to Nicomedia, and closed the gates of the city. Fimbria overcame the place, found him concealed in a well, and killed him, although he was a Roman consul and the commanding officer of this war, and Fimbria himself was only a private citizen who had [*](B.C. 85) gone with him as an invited friend. Fimbria cut off his head and flung it into the sea, and left the remainder of his body unburied. Then he appointed himself commander of the army and fought several successful battles with the son of Mithridates. He drove the king himself into Pergamus. The latter escaped from Pergamus to Pitane. Fimbria followed him and began to enclose the place with a ditch. Then the king fled to Mitylene on a ship.

Fimbria traversed the province of Asia, punished the Cappadocian faction, and devasted the territory of the towns that did not open their gates to him. The inhabitants of Ilium, who were besieged by Fimbria, appealed to Sulla for aid. The latter said that he would come, and told them to say to Fimbria meanwhile that they had intrusted themselves to Sulla. Fimbria, when he heard this, congratulated them on being already friends of the Roman people, and ordered them to admit him within their walls because he also was a Roman. He spoke in an ironical way also of the relationship existing between Ilium and Rome. When he was admitted he made an indiscriminate slaughter and burned the whole town. Those who had been in communication with Sulla he tortured in various ways. He spared neither the sacred objects nor the persons who had fled to the temple of Athena, but burned them with the temple itself. He demolished the walls, and the next day made a search to see whether anything of the place was left standing. So much worse was the city now treated by one of its relations than it had been by Agamemnon, that not a house, not a temple, not a statue was left. Some say that the image of Athena, called the Palladium, which was supposed to have fallen from heaven, was then found unbroken, the falling walls having formed an arch over it; and this may be true unless Diomedes and Ulysses carried it away from Ilium during the Trojan war. Thus was Ilium destroyed by Fimbria at the close of the 173d Olympiad. Some people think that 1050 years had intervened between this calamity and that which it suffered at the hands of Agamnemnon.

When Mithridates heard of his defeat at Orchomenus he reflected on the immense number of men he had sent into Greece from the beginning, and the continual and swift disaster that had overtaken them. Accordingly, he sent word to Archelaus to make peace on the best terms possible. The latter had an interview with Sulla in which he said, "King Mithridates was your father's friend, O Sulla. He became involved in this war through the rapacity of other Roman generals. He will avail himself of your virtuous character to make peace, if you will grant him fair terms." As Sulla had no ships; as his enemies at Rome had sent him no money, nor anything else, but had declared him an outlaw; as he had already spent the money which he had taken from the Pythian, Olympian, and Epidauric temples, in return for which he had assigned to them half of the territory of Thebes on account of its frequent defections; and because he was in a hurry to lead his army fresh and unimpaired against the hostile faction at home, he assented to the proposal, and said," If injustice was done to Mithridates, O Archelaus, he ought to have sent an embassy to show how he was wronged, instead of which he put himself in the wrong by overrunning such a vast territory belonging to others, killing such a vast number of people, seizing the public and sacred funds of cities, and confiscating the private property of those whom he destroyed. He has been just as perfidious to his own friends as to us, many of whom he has put to death, including the tetrarchs whom he had brought together at a banquet, and their wives and children, although they had committed no hostile act. Toward us he was moved by an inborn enmity rather than by any necessity for war, visiting every possible calamity upon the Italians throughout Asia, torturing and murdering all of our race, together with their wives, children, and servants. Such hatred did this man bear toward Italy, who now pretends friendship for my father!--a friendship which ye did not call to mind until I had destroyed 160,000 of your troops.

"Instead of treating for peace we ought to be absolutely implacable toward him, but for your sake I will undertake to obtain his pardon from Rome if he actually repents. But if he is playing the hypocrite again, I advise you, Archelaus, to look out for yourself. Consider how matters stand at present between you and him. Bear in mind how he has treated his other friends and how we treated Eumenes and Masinissa." While he was yet speaking, Archelaus rejected the offer with indignation, saying that he would never betray one who had put an army under his command. "I hope," he said, "to come to an agreement with you if you offer moderate terms." After a short interval Sulla said, "If Mithridates will deliver to us the entire fleet in your possession; if he will surrender our generals and ambassadors and all prisoners, deserters, and runaway slaves, and send back to their homes the people of Chios and all others whom he has dragged off to Pontus; if he will remove his garrison from all places except those that he held before the outbreak of hostilities; if he will pay the cost of the war incurred on his account, and remain content with his ancestral dominions,--I shall hope to persuade the Romans not to remember the injuries he has done them." Such were the terms which he offered. Archelaus at once withdrew his garrison from all the places he held and referred the other conditions to the king. In order to make use of his leisure in the meantime, Sulla marched against the Eneti, the Dardani, and the Sinti, tribes on the border of Macedonia, who were continually invading that country, and devasted their territory. In this way he exercised his soldiers and enriched them at the same time. [*](Y.R. 670)

The ambassadors of Mithridates returned with ratifications of all the terms except those relating to Paphlagonia, and they added that Mithridates could obtain better conditions, "if he should negotiate with your other general, Fimbria." Sulla was indignant that he should be brought into such comparison and said that he would bring Fimbria to punishment, and would go himself to Asia and see whether Mithridates wanted peace or war. Having spoken thus he marched through Thrace to Cypsella after having sent Lucullus forward to Abydus, for Lucullus had arrived at last, having run the risk of capture by pirates several times. He had collected a sort of a fleet composed of ships from Cyprus, Phoenicia, Rhodes, and Pamphylia, and had ravaged much of the enemy's coast, and had skirmished with the ships of Mithridates on the way. Then Sulla advanced from Cypsella and Mithridates from Pergamus, and [*](B.C. 84) they met in a conference. Each went with a small force to a plain in sight of the two armies. Mithridates began by discoursing of his own and his father's friendship and alliance with the Romans. Then he accused the Roman ambassadors, committeemen, and generals of doing him injuries by putting Ariobarzanes on the throne of Cappadocia, depriving him of Phrygia, and allowing Nicomedes to wrong him. "And all this," he said, "they did for money, taking it from me and from them by turns; for there is nothing of which most of you are so liable to accusation, 0 Romans, as the love of lucre. When war had broken out through the acts of your generals all that I did was in self-defence, and was the result of necessity rather than of intention."

When Mithridates had ceased speaking Sulla replied: "Although you called us here," he said, "for a different purpose, namely, to accept our terms of peace, I shall not refuse to speak briefly of those matters. I restored Ariobarzanes to the throne of Cappadocia by decree of the Senate when I was governor in Cilicia, and you obeyed the decree. You ought to have opposed it and given your reasons then, or forever after held your peace. Manius gave Phrygia to you for a bribe, which was a crime on the part of both of you. By the very fact of your getting it by bribery you confess that you had no right to it. Manius was tried at Rome for other acts that he had done for money and the Senate annulled them all. For this reason they decided, not that Phyrgia, which had been given to you wrongfully, should be made tributary to Rome, but should be free. If we who had taken it by war did not think best to govern it, by what right could you hold it? Nicomedes charges that you sent against him an assassin named Alexander, and then Socrates Chrestus, a rival claimant of the kingdom, and that it was to avenge these wrongs that he invaded your territory. However, if he wronged you, you ought to have sent an embassy to Rome and waited for an answer. But although you took swift vengeance on Nicomedes, why did you attack Ariobarzanes, who had not harmed you? When you drove him out of his kingdom you imposed upon the Romans, who were there, the necessity of putting him back. By preventing them from doing so you brought on the war. You had meditated war a long time, because you hoped to rule the whole world if you could conquer the Romans, and the reasons you tell of were mere pretexts to cover your real intent. The proof of this is that you, although not yet at war with any nation, sought the alliance of the Thracians, Sarmatians, and Scythians, sought aid from the neighboring kings, built a navy, and enlisted pilots and helmsmen.