Sertorius

Accordingly, a general was sent to Asia by Sertorius, one of the senators who had taken refuge with him, Marcus Marius.[*](Cf. the Lucullus, viii. 5.) He was assisted by Mithridates in the capture of certain cities of Asia, and when he entered them with fasces and axes, Mithridates would follow him in person, voluntarily assuming second rank and the position of a vassal.

Marius gave some of the cities their freedom, and wrote to others announcing their exemption from taxation by grace of Sertorius, so that Asia, which was once more harassed by the revenue-farmers and oppressed by the rapacity and arrogance of the soldiers quartered there, was all of a flutter with new hopes and yearned for the expected change of supremacy.

But in Spain, as soon as the senators and men of equal rank about Sertorius felt confident that they were a match for their enemies and dismissed their fears, they were seized with envy and foolish jealousy of their leader. They were encouraged in these feelings by Perpenna, whose high birth filled him with vain aspirations for the chief command, and he would hold malevolent discourses in secret among his associates:

What evil genius, pray, has seized us and is hurrying us from bad to worse? We would not consent to remain at home and do the bidding of Sulla when he was lord of all the earth and sea together, but we came to this land of destruction with the idea of living like freemen, and are now voluntarily slaves in the body-guard or Sertorius the exile, being a senate, a name jeered at by all who hear it, and submitting to no lesser insults, injunctions, and toils than Iberians and Lusitanians.

Most of his hearers, their minds infected with such sentiments as these, did not, indeed, openly desert Sertorius, because they were in fear of his power; but they secretly tried to vitiate his enterprises, and abused the Barbarians with severe punishments and exactions, on the plea that Sertorius thus ordered. Consequently there were revolts and disturbances among the cities.

And those who were sent to assuage and cure these disorders brought more wars to pass before they returned, and increased the existing insubordination, so that Sertorius laid aside his former clemency and mildness and wrought injustice upon the sons of the Iberians who were being educated at Osca,[*](Cf. chapter xiv. 2 f.) killing some, and selling others into slavery.

Perpenna, accordingly, having now more accomplices in his attempt upon Sertorius, brought into their number Manlius also, one of those in high command. This Manlius was enamoured of a beautiful boy, and as a mark of his affection for him told him of the conspiracy, bidding him neglect his other lovers and devote himself to him alone, since within a few days he was to be a great personage. But the boy carried the tale to another one of his lovers, Aufidius, to whom he was more devoted.