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.

Then he set out from thence against Fimbria, who was encamped near Thyateira, and halting his army near by, began to fortify his camp. But the soldiers of Fimbria came forth from their camp without any armour on, and welcomed Sulla’s soldiers, and joined them eagerly in their labours, and when Fimbria saw this change in their allegiance, fearing that Sulla was irreconcileable, he laid violent hands on himself in the camp.

Sulla now laid a public fine upon Asia of twenty thousand talents,[*](Cf. Lucullus, iv. 1. ) and utterly ruined individual families by the insolent outrages of the soldiers quartered on them. For orders were given that the host should give his guest four tetradrachms every day, and furnish him, and as many friends as he might wish to invite, with a supper; and that a military tribune should receive fifty drachmas a day, and two suits of clothing, one to wear when he was at home, and another when he went abroad.