Sulla

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. IV. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1916.

Then Sulla threw himself from his horse, seized an ensign, and pushed his way through the fugitives against the enemy, crying: For me, O Romans, an honourable death here; but you, when men ask you where you betrayed your commander, remember to tell them, at Orchomenus. The fugitives rallied at these words, and two of the cohorts on his right wing came to his aid; these he led against the enemy and routed them.

Then he fell back a little distance, and after giving his men breakfast, again proceeded to fence the enemy’s entrenchments off with his ditches. But they attacked him again in better order than before, Diogenes, the step-son of Archelaüs, fought gallantly on their right wing, and fell gloriously, and their archers, being hard pressed by the Romans, so that they had no room to draw their bows, took their arrows by handfuls, struck with them as with swords, at close quarters, and tried to beat back their foes, but were finally shut up in their entrenchments, and had a miserable night of it with their slain and wounded. Next day Sulla again led his soldiers up to the enemy’s fortifications and continued trenching them off,