Sulla

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.

When these agreements had been made, Sulla turned back and proceeded by way of Thessaly and Macedonia towards the Hellespont, having Archelaüs with him, and in honour. And when Archelaüs fell dangerously ill at Larissa, Sulla stopped his march, and cared for him as if he had been one of his own commanding officers.

This raised the suspicion that the action at Chaeroneia had not been fairly fought, as well as the fact that Sulla released the other friends of Mithridates whom he had taken captive, but put to death Aristion the tyrant alone, by poison, who was at enmity with Archelaüs; the strongest ground for the suspicion, however, was his gift to the Cappadocian of about two thousand acres of land in Euboea, and his bestowing upon him the title of friend and ally of the Romans. At any rate, on these points Sulla defends himself in his Memoirs.

At this time also ambassadors from Mithridates arrived, and when they declared that he accepted the other terms, but demanded that Paphlagonia be not taken away from him, and that as to the ships no agreement whatsoever should be made, Sulla flew into a passion and said: What say ye? Mithridates maintains his claim to Paphlagonia, and refuses to give the ships, when I thought he would prostrate himself humbly before me if I should leave him but that right hand of his, with which he took the lives of so many Romans?