Sertorius

When he learned that Sulla was master of Rome,[*](In 82 B.C.) and that the party of Marius and Carbo was on the way to ruin, he expected that an army with a commander would come at once to fight the issue out with him. He therefore sent Julius Salinator with six thousand men-at-arms to bar the passage of the Pyrenees. And not long afterwards Caius Annius was sent out by Sulla, and seeing that Julius could not be assailed, he knew not what to do, and sat idly down at the base of the mountains.

But a certain Calpurnius, surnamed Lanarius, treacherously killed Julius, whose soldiers then abandoned the heights of the Pyrenees; whereupon Annius crossed over and advanced with a large force, routing all opposition. Sertorius, not being able to cope with him, took refuge with three thousand men in New Carthage; there he embarked his forces, crossed the sea, and handed in the country of the Maurusii, in Africa.

But while his soldiers were getting water and were off their guard, the Barbarians fell upon them, and after losing many men, Sertorius sailed back again to Spain. From this shore too he was repulsed, but after being joined by some Cilician piratical vessels he attacked the island of Pityussa, overpowered the guard which Annius had set there, and effected a landing. After a short time, however, Annius came with numerous ships and five thousand men-at-arms, and with him Sertorius attempted to fight a decisive naval battle, although the vessels which he had were light and built for speed rather than for fighting.

But the sea ran high with a strong west wind, and the greater part of the vessels of Sertorius, owing to their lightness, were driven aslant upon the rocky shore, while he himself, with a few ships, excluded from the open sea by the storm, and from the land by the enemy, was tossed about for ten days in a battle with adverse waves and fierce surges, and with difficulty held his own.