Lucullus

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.

Now there were some who urged Lucullus to ignore Cotta and march on into the kingdom of Mithridates, assured of capturing it in its defenceless condition. This was the reasoning of the soldiers especially, who were indignant that Cotta, by his evil counsels, should not only be the undoing of himself and his army, but also block their own way to a victory which they could have won without a battle.

But Lucullus, in a harangue which he made them, said that he would rather save one Roman from the enemy than take all that enemy’s possessions. And when Archelaüs, who had held command for Mithridates in Boeotia, and then had abandoned his cause, and was now in the Roman army, stoutly maintained that if Lucullus were once seen in Pontus, he would master everything at once, Lucullus declared that he was at least as courageous as the hunter; he would not give the wild beasts the slip and stalk their empty lairs.