Sulla

Having put to sea with all his ships from Ephesus, on the third day he came to anchor in Piraeus. He was now initiated into the mysteries, and seized for himself the library of Apellicon the Teian, in which were most of the treatises of Aristotle and Theophrastus, at that time not yet well known to the public. But it is said that after the library was carried to Rome, Tyrannio the grammarian arranged most of the works in it, and that Andronicus the Rhodian was furnished by him with copies of them, and published them, and drew up the lists now current.

The older Peripatetics were evidently of themselves accomplished and learned men, but they seem to have had neither a large nor an exact acquaintance with the writings of Aristotle and Theophrastus, because the estate of Neleus of Scepsis, to whom Theophrastus bequeathed his books, came into the hands of careless and illiterate people.[*](Cf. Strabo, xiii. 1, 54. Scepsis was a city of the Troad, and a centre of learning under the Attalid dynasty of Pergamum. The writings of Aristotle and Theophrastus were hidden in an underground cellar by their owners, to keep them from being taken to Pergamum, and came in a damaged condition into the possession of Apellicon.)

While Sulla was tarrying at Athens, his feet were attacked by numbness and a feeling of heaviness, which Strabo says[*](In some passage not now extant.) is premonitory gout. He therefore crossed the straits to Aedepsus and used the hot waters there, taking a holiday at the same time, and passing his time pleasantly with the theatrical artists. Once, as he was walking along the seashore, certain fishermen brought him some very fine fish. Being delighted with their gift, and learning that they were from Halae, What! said he, is any man of Halae still alive?

For when he was pursuing the enemy after his victory at Orchomenus, he had destroyed three cities of Boeotia together, Anthedon, Larymna, and Halae. The men were speechless with terror, but Sulla smiled and bade them depart in peace, since they had brought with them no mean or despicable intercessors. The men of Halae say that this gave them courage to go back again in a body to their city.

And now Sulla, having passed through Thessaly and Macedonia down to the sea, was preparing to cross from Dyrrhachium to Brundisium with twelve hundred ships.[*](His fleet had sailed round Peloponnesus from Piraeus. According to Appian (Bell. Civ. i. 79), Sulla crossed from Patras to Brundisium.) Near by is Apollonia, and in its vicinity is the Nymphaeum, a sacred precinct, which sends forth in various places from its green dell and meadows, streams of perpetually flowing fire.

Here, they say, a satyr was caught asleep, such an one as sculptors and painters represent, and brought to Sulla, where he was asked through many interpreters who he was. And when at last he uttered nothing intelligible, but with difficulty emitted a hoarse cry that was something between the neighing of a horse and the bleating of a goat, Sulla was horrified, and ordered him out of his sight.