Lucullus

But they rejected his advances, and threw their empty purses down before him, bidding him fight the enemy alone, since he alone knew how to get rich from them. However, at the request of the other soldiers, the Fimbrians were constrained to agree to remain during the summer; but if, in the meantime, no enemy should come down to fight them, they were to be dismissed. Lucullus was obliged to content himself with these terms, or else to be deserted and give up the country to the Barbarians.

He therefore simply held his soldiers together, without forcing them any more, or leading them out to battle. Their remaining with him was all he could expect, and he looked on helplessly while Tigranes ravaged Cappadocia and Mithridates resumed his insolent ways,—a monarch whom he had reported by letter to the Senate as completely subdued. Besides, the commissioners were now with him, who had been sent out to regulate the affairs of Pontus, on the supposition that it was a secure Roman possession.

And lo, when they came, they saw that Lucullus was not even his own master, but was mocked and insulted by his soldiers. These went so far in their outrageous treatment of their general, that, at the close of the summer, they donned their armour, drew their swords, and challenged to battle an enemy who was nowhere near, but had already withdrawn. Then they shouted their war cries, brandished their weapons in the air, and departed from the camp, calling men to witness that the time had expired during which they had agreed to remain with Lucullus.

The rest of the soldiers Pompey summoned by letter, for he had already been appointed to conduct the war against Mithridates and Tigranes,[*](66 B.C.) because he won the favour of the people and flattered their leaders. But the Senate and the nobility considered Lucullus a wronged man. He had been superseded, they said, not in a war, but in a triumph, and had been forced to relinquish and turn over to others, not his campaign, but the prizes of victory in his campaign.

But to those who were on the spot, what happened there seemed still greater matter for wrath and indignation. For Lucullus was not allowed to bestow rewards or punishments for what had been done in the war, nor would Pompey even suffer any one to visit him, or to pay any heed to the edicts and regulations which he made in concert with the ten commissioners, but prevented it by issuing counter-edicts, and by the terror which his presence with a larger force inspired.