Sulla

He took Athens, as he says himself in his Memoirs, on the Calends of March,[*](86 B.C. Cf. the description of the capture of Athens given by Appian, Bell. Mith. xxx. ) a day which corresponds very nearly with the first of the month Anthesterion. In this month, as it happens, the Athenians perform many rites commemorating the destruction and devastation caused by the flood, believing that the ancient deluge[*](In the time of Deucalion, the Noah of Greek tradition. (Cf. Pausanias, i. 18, 7.)) occurred at about this time.

On the capture of the town, the tyrant took refuge in the acropolis, and was besieged there by Curio, who was appointed to this task. He held out for a considerable time, but was driven by the pangs of thirst to give himself up. And the Deity at once gave a manifest token in the matter; for at the very hour of the day when Curio brought his prisoner down, clouds gathered in an open sky, and a quantity of rain fell and filled the acropolis with water. Not long after, Sulla took the Piraeus also, and burnt most of it, including the arsenal of Philo,[*](It must have been finished in 330-329 B.C. See Frazer on Pausanias, i. 1, 2. ) a marvellous work.

Meanwhile Taxiles, the general of Mithridates had come down from Thrace and Macedonia with a hundred thousand footmen, ten thousand horse, and ninety scythe-bearing four-horse chariots, and summoned Archelaüs to join him. Archelaüs still lay with his fleet at Munychia,[*](One of the three harbours of the Piraeus.) and was neither willing to quit the sea, nor eager to join battle with the Romans, but planned to protract the war and cut off their supplies.

But Sulla understood the situation much better than Archelaüs did, and therefore transferred his forces into Boeotia, away from regions that were far from fertile, and unable to maintain a population even in time of peace. Most people thought that he had erred in his calculations, because he had abandoned Attica, which was a rough country and ill-suited for cavalry movements, and thrown himself into the plains and open districts of Boeotia, although he saw that the strength of the Barbarians consisted in chariots and cavalry.

But in flying from scarcity and famine, as has been said, he was compelled to pursue the danger arising from battle. And furthermore, he was anxious about Hortensius, a bold and capable general, who was leading a force from Thessaly to Sulla while the Barbarians were closely watching for him in the passes.[*](At Thermopylae.) For these reasons Sulla transferred his army into Boeotia. But Hortensius was rescued by Caphis, a countryman of mine, and conducted by different routes, of which the Barbarians were ignorant, past Parnassus to a spot just below Tithora.

This was not so large a city then as it is now, but a fortress surrounded on all sides by steep cliffs, into which those of the Phocians who in ancient times fled before the advance of Xerxes betook themselves and were saved.[*](Cf. Herodotus, viii. 32. ) Having encamped here, Hortensius repulsed the enemy by day, and at night descended to Patronis by difficult paths and made a junction with Sulla, who came to meet him with his army.

When they had thus united their forces, they occupied a hill which rose out of the midst of the plains of Elatea, a fertile hill, thickly grown with trees, and supplied with water at its base. Philoboeotus is its name, and its situation and natural advantages are most highly praised by Sulla. As they lay encamped here, they appeared to the enemy altogether few in numbers; for they were not more than fifteen hundred horse, and less than fifteen thousand foot.

Wherefore the rest of his generals overpowered the objections of Archelaüs and drew up for battle, filling the plain with their horses, chariots, shields, and bucklers. The air could not contain the shouts and clamour of so many nations forming in array. At the same time also the pomp and ostentation of their costly equipment was not without its effect and use in exciting terror; indeed, the flashing of their armour, which was magnificently embellished with gold and silver,

and the rich colours of their Median and Scythian vests, intermingled with bronze and flashing steel, presented a flaming and fearful sight as they surged to and fro, so that the Romans huddled together behind their trenches, and Sulla, unable by any reasoning to remove their fear, and unwilling to force them into a fight from which they wanted to run away, had to sit still and endure as best he could the sight of the Barbarians insulting him with boasts and laughter. This, however, was of service to him above all else.