Lucullus

Though many now advised Lucullus to suspend the war, he paid no heed to them, but threw his army into the king’s country by way of Bithynia and Galatia.[*](73 B.C.) At first he lacked the necessary supplies, so that thirty thousand Galatians followed in his train, each carrying a bushel of grain upon his shoulders; but as he advanced and mastered everything, he found himself in the midst of such plenty that an ox sold in his camp for a drachma, and a man-slave for four, while other booty had no value at all. Some abandoned it, and some destroyed it. There was no sale for anything to anybody when all had such abundance.

But when Lucullus merely wasted and ravaged the country with cavalry incursions, which penetrated to Themiscyra and the Illains of the river Thermodon, his soldiers found fault with him because he brought all the cities over to him by peaceable measures; he had not taken a single one by storm, they said, nor given them a chance to enrich themselves by plunder.

Nay, they said, at this very moment we are leaving Amisus, a rich and prosperous city, which it would be no great matter to take, if its siege were pressed, and are following our general into the desert of the Tibareni and the Chaldaeans to fight with Mithridates. But these grievances, not dreaming that they would bring the soldiers to such acts of madness as they afterwards performed, Lucullus overlooked and ignored.

He was, however, more ready to defend himself against those who denounced his slowness in lingering there long while, subduing worthless little villages and cities, and allowing Mithridates to recruit himself. That, he said, is the very thing I want, and I am sitting here to get it. I want the man to become powerful again, and to get together a force with which it is worth our while to fight, in order that he may stand his ground, and not fly when we approach.

Do you not see that he has a vast and trackless desert behind him? The Caucasus, too, is near, with its many hills and dells, which are sufficient to hide away in safety ten thousand kings who decline to fight. And it is only a few days’ journey from Cabira into Armenia and over Armenia there sits enthroned Tigranes, King of Kings, with forces which enable him to cut the Parthians off from Asia, transplant Greek cities into Media, sway Syria and Palestine, put to death the successors of Seleucus, and carry off their wives and daughters into captivity.

This king is a kinsman of Mithridates, his son-in-law. He will not he content to receive him as a suppliant, but will make war against us. If we strive, therefore, to eject Mithridates from his kingdom, we shall run the risk of drawing Tigranes down upon us. He has long wanted an excuse for coming against us, and could not get a better one than that of being compelled to aid a man who is his kinsman and a king. Why, then, should we bring this to pass, and teach Mithridates, when he does not know it, with what allies he must carry on war against us? Why help to drive him, against his wish and as a last resource, into the arms of Tigranes, instead of giving him time to equip himself from his own resources and get fresh courage? Then we shall fight with Colchians and Tibareni and Cappadocians, whom we have often overcome, rather than with Medes and Armenians.