Lucullus

On the enemy’s side, matters stood as follows. Mithridates, boastful and pompous at the outset, like most of the Sophists, had first opposed the Romans with forces which were really unsubstantial, though brilliant and ostentatious to look upon. With these he had made a ridiculous fiasco and learned a salutary lesson. When therefore, he thought to go to war the second time, he organized his forces into a genuinely effective armament.

He did away with Barbarous hordes from every clime, and all their discordant and threatening cries; he provided more armour inlaid with gold and set with precious stones, for he saw that these made rich booty for the victors, but gave no strength whatever to their wearers; instead, he had swords forged in the Roman fashion, and heavy shields welded; he collected horses that were well trained rather than richly caparisoned, and a hundred and twenty thousand footmen drilled in the Roman phalanx formation, and sixteen thousand horsemen, not counting the scythe-bearing, four-horse chariots, which were a hundred in number:

and further, he put in readiness ships which were not tricked out with gilded canopies, or baths for concubines, and luxurious apartments for women, but which were rather loaded down with armour and missiles and munitions of war. Then he burst into Bithynia, and not only did the cities there receive him again with gladness, but all Asia suffered a relapse into its former distempered condition, afflicted, as it was, past bearing by Roman money-lenders and tax-gatherers.

These were afterwards driven off by Lucullus,—harpies that they were, snatching the people’s food; but then he merely tried, by admonishing them, to make them more moderate in their demands, and laboured to stop the uprisings of the towns, hardly one of which was in a quiet state.

While Lucullus was thus occupied, Cotta, thinking that his own golden opportunity had come, was getting ready to give battle to Mithridates. And when tidings came from many sources that Lucullus was coming up, and was already encamped in Phrygia, thinking that a triumph was all but in his grasp, and desiring that Lucullus have no share in it, he hastened to engage the king.

But he was defeated by sea and land, lost sixty vessels, crews and all, and four thousand foot-soldiers, while he himself was shut up in Chalcedon and besieged there, looking for relief at the hands of Lucullus.