No More Learning

It was not even possible to choose quarters in the region of Valentia, so important on account of the communication with Italy and the east, but fearfully devastated by friend and foe; Pompeius led his troops first intothe. writers‘012 . theXascoaesl (Biscay) and then spent the winter in the territory of the Vaccaei (about Valladolid), and Metellus even in Gaul.
For five “W Indefinite . v,v~w. . _. years the soerlgwrianwwar wthu“sbconwtinuedhapd
still there seemed no prospect of its termination. The state 2:210“, it beyond description. The flower of the character
rtalian youth perished amid the exhausting fatigues of these campaigns. The public treasuryv was not only deprived of war. the Spanishwgevenues, but had annually to send to Spain ror‘ui'éfiiy and maintenance of the Spanish armies very considerable‘ sums, which the government hardly knew how
to raise. Spain was devastated and impoverished, and the Roman civilization, which unfolded so fair a promise there, received a severe shock; as was naturally to be expected
in the case of an insurrectionary war waged with so much bitterness, and but too often occasioning the destruction of whole communities. Even the towns which adhered to
the dominant party in Rome had countless hardships to
1 In the recently found fragments of Sallust, which appear to belong
to the campaign of 679. the following words relate to this incident: 75. Romania [urn-Pita: (of Pompeius)frumenti g‘rn[tia rjmotur in Van-ant:
ei
m'o'ie'asmgeneral
i Aria: fer-ind:
. . . [itjemgue Serlan'u: man . . . e, cuiur mullum ne
[r'kr
e! Italiae in[lntr]at, inferdudcrdur].
an
298
MARCUS LEPIDUS AND BOOK v
endure; those situated on the coast had to be provided with necessaries by the Roman fleet, and the situation of the faithful communities in the interior was almost desperate. Gaul suffered hardly less, partly from the requisitions for contingents of infantry and cavalry, for grain and money, partly from the oppressive burden of the winter-quarters, which rose to an intolerable degree in consequence of the
14. bad harvest of 680 ; almost all the local treasuries were compelled to betake themselves to the Roman bankers, and to burden themselves with a crushing load of debt. Generals and soldiers carried on the war with reluctance. The‘genefalsmhad‘ encounteredan opponent far supeiiormm talent, a tough and protracted resistance, a warfare of very serious perils and of successes difficult to be attained and far from brilliant; it was asserted that Pompeius was scheming to get himself recalled from Spain. and entrusted with a more desirable command somewhere else. The soldiersdoq-foun‘d‘little satisfaction in ‘a campaign in which not only was there nothing to be got save hard blows and worthless booty, but their very pay was doled out to them with extreme irregularity. Pompeius reportedwttlthe senatg
76. at the end of 679, that the paymwas'two‘years infiarregraand that the army was threatening to break up. The Roman government might certainly have obviated a considerable portion of these evils, if they could have prevailed on them selves to carry on the Spanish war with less remissness, to say nothing of better will. In the main, however, it was neither their fault nor the fault of their generals that a genius so superior as that of Sertorius was able to carry on this petty warfare year after year, despite of all numerical and military superiority, on ground so thoroughly favourable to insurrectionary and piratical warfare. So little could its end be foreseen, that the Sertorian insurrection seemed rather as if it would become intermingled with other contemporary revolts and thereby add to its dangerous character.
Just
can. I QUINTUS SERTORIUS 299
at that time the Romans were contending on every sea with piratical fleets, in Italy with the revolted slaves, in Mace donia with the tribes on the lower Danube; and in the east Mithradates, partly induced by the successes of the Spanish insurrection, resolved once more to try the fortune of arms. That Sertorius had formed connections vLith the Italian and Macedonian enemies of Rome, cannot be distinctly affirmed,
he certainly was in constant intercourse with the Marians in Italy. With the pirates, on the other hand, he had previously formed an avowed league, and with the Pontic king—with whom he had long maintained relations through the medium of the Roman emigrants staying at his court—he now concluded a formal treaty of alliance, in which Sertorius ceded to the king the client-states of Asia Minor, but not the Roman province of Asia, and promised, moreover, to send him an oflicer qualified to lead his troops, and a number of soldiers, while the king, in turn, bound himself to transmit to Sertorius forty ships and 3000 talents (£720,000). The wise politicians in the capital were already recalling the time when Italy found itself threatened by Philip from the east and by Hannibal from the west; they conceived that the new Hannibal, just like his pre decessor, after having by himself subdued Spain, could easily arrive with the forces of Spain in Italy sooner than Pompeius, in order that, like the Phoenician formerly, he might summon the Etruscans and Samnites to arms against Rome.
But this comparison was more ingenious than accurate. Collapse
although
Sertorius was far from being strong enough to renew the of the power of
gigantic enterprise of Hannibal. He was lost if he left Spain, Sertorius. where all his successes were bound up with the peculiarities
of the country and the people ; and even there he was more
and more compelled to renounce the offensive. His admirable skill as a leader could not change the nature of
his troops. The Spanish militia retained its
. “cHha-rMacs,ter,
',s. _wa~ (“m““M wm-“fi-rwwi’amr . t, ‘. . . r. ("mess-w»
300
MARCUS LEPIDUS AND B001: v
untrustworthy as the wave or the wind; now collected in masses to the number of ' ' ow melting away again to a mere handful. e oman emigrants, likewise, continued insubordinate, arrogant, and stubborn. Those kinds of armed force which require that a corps should keep together for a considerable time, such as cavalry especially, were of course very inadequately represented in his army. The war gradually swept off his ablest officers and the flower of his veterans ; and even the most
trustworthy communities, weary of being harassed by the Romans and maltreated by the Sertorian officers, began to show
signs of impatience and wavering allegiance. It is re markable that vSe. 1;mr. ius, in this respect also like Hannibal, never deceived himself as to the hopelessness of his position; he allowed no opportunity for bringing about a compromise to pass, and would have 'been ready a533, 'in‘oi'nwéintitb lay down his staff of command on the assurance of being allowed to live peacefully in his native land. But political ortho doxy knows nothing of compromise and conciliation. Sertorius might not recede or step aside; he was compelled inevitably to move on along the path which he had once entered, however narrow and giddy it might become.
The representations which Pompeius addressed to Rome, and which derived emphasis from the behaviour of Mithra dates in the east, were successful. He had the necessary supplies of money sent to him by the senate and was reinforced by two fresh legions. Thus the two generals went
74. to work again in the spring of 680 and'bricé‘ihb‘iét'r'iissed the Ebro. Eastern Spain was wrested from the Sertorians in consequencgof the battles on the Xucarand Guadalaviar; the struggle thenceforth became concentrated on the upper and middle Ebro around the chief strongholds of the Sertor. ians-—Calagurris, Osca, Ilerda. As Metellus had done best in the earlier campaigns, so too on this occasion he-gained
-
M-I-fl'
the most important successes. His old opponent Hirtuleius.
can. I QUINTUS SERTORIUS 30:
who again confronted him, was completely defeated and fell himself along with his brother—an irreparable loss for the Sertorians. Sertorius, whom the unfortunate news reached just as he was on the point of assailing the enemy opposed to him, out down the messenger, that the tidings might not discourage his troops; but the news could not be long concealed. One
aw. . . “ toi. wnv after MetelluLoficcupiedWthgugeltibegian
another surrendered,
tswris'fsegobrigiffiéiwé'éh Toledo and Cuenca) and Bilbilis (near Calatayud). Pompeius besieged. Pallantia (Palencia above Valladolid), but Sertorius relieved and compelled Pompeius to fall back upon Metellus; in front of Calagurris (Calahorra, on the upper Ebro), into which Sertorius had thrown himself, they both suffered severe losses. Nevertheless, when they went into winter-quarters -—Pompeius to Gaul, Metellus to his own province—they were able to look back on considerable results; great portion of the insurgents had submitted or had been subdued arms.
In similar way the campaign of the following year (681) 78.
ran its course vthis case was especially Pompeius who slowly but steadilywrestricted the. field of the insurrection.
m'l'lie'idiscomfiture sustained by the arms of the insurgents
failed not to react on the tone of feeling in their camp.
The military successes of Sertorius became like those of Hannibal, of necessity less and less considerable; people
began to call in question his military talent: he was no
longer, was alleged, what he had been; he spent the day
in feasting or over his cups, and squandered money as well
as time. The number of the deserters, and of communities Internal falling away, increased. Soon projects formed by the Egg): Roman emigrants against the life of the general were Sertorianl. reported to him they sounded credible enough, especially
as various officers of the insurgent army, and Perpenna in particular, had submitted with reluctance to the supremacy
;
in
it
a
by ;
it
a
it,
Assassina tion of Sertorius.
of Sertorius, and the Roman governors had for long promised amnesty and a high reward to any one who should kill him. Sertorius, on hearing such allegations, withdrew the charge of guarding his person from the Roman soldiers and entrusted it to select Spaniards. Against the suspected themselves he proceeded with fearful but necessary severity, and condemned various of the accused to death without resorting, as in other cases, to the advice of his council ; he was now more dangerous—it was thereupon aflirmed in the circles of the malcontents—to his friends than to his foes.
A second conspiracy was soon discovered, which had its seat in his own staff; whoever was denounced had to take flight or die; but all were not betrayed, and the remaining conspirators, including especially Perpenna, found in the
circumstances only a new incentive to make haste. They were in the headquarters at Osca. There, on the instiga tion of Perpenna, a brilliant victory was reported to the general as having been achieved by his troops ; and at the festal banquet arranged by Perpenna to celebrate this victory Sertorius accordingly appeared, attended, as was his wont, by his Spanish retinue. Contrary to former custom in the Sertorian headquarters, the feast soon became a revel ; wild words passed at table, and it seemed as if some of the guests sought opportunity to begin an altercation. Sertorius threw himself back on his couch, and seemed desirous not to hear the disturbance. Then a wine-cup was dashed on the floor; Perpenna had given the concerted sign. Marcus Antonius, Sertorius’ neighbour at table, dealt the first blow against him, and when Sertorius turned round and attempted to rise, the assassin flung himself upon him and held him down till the other guests at table, all of them implicated in the conspiracy, threw themselves on the struggling pair, and stabbed the defenceless general while his arms were pinioned (682). With him died his faithful
attendants. So ended one of the greatest men, if not the
302
MARCUS LEPIDUS AND B00x v
78.
can. I QUINTUS SERTORIUS
303
very greatest man, that Rome had hitherto produced—a man who under more fortunate circumstances would perhaps have become the regenerator of his country-—by the treason of the wretched band of emigrants whom he was condemned to lead against his native land. History loves not the Coriolani ; nor has she made any exception even in the case of this the most magnanimous, most gifted, most deserving to be regretted of them all.
The murderers thought to succeed to the heritage of the Perpenna murdered. After the death of Sertorius, Perpenna, as the sue-weds
Sertorius. highest among the Roman oflicers of the Spanish army, laid
claim to the chief command. The army submitted, but with mistrust and reluctance. However men had murmured against Sertorius in his lifetime, death reinstated the hero in his rights, and vehement was the indignation of the soldiers when, on the publication of his testament, the name of Perpenna was read forth among the heirs. A part of the soldiers, especially the Lusitanians, dispersed ; the remainder had a presentiment that with the death of Sertorius their spirit and their fortune had departed.
Accordingly, at the first encounter with Pompeius, the Pompeius
wretchedly led and despondent ranks of the insurgents puts an end to the
were utterly broken, and Perpenna, among other oflicers, insurrec was taken prisoner. The wretch sought to purchase his tion. life by delivering up the correspondence of Sertorius, which
would have compromised numerous men of standing in
Italy ; but Pompeius ordered the papers to be burnt unread, and handed him, as well as the other chiefs of the insurgents, over to the executioner. The emigrants who had escaped dispersed; and most of them went into the Mauretanian deserts or joined the pirates. Soon afterwards the Plotian law, which was zealously supported by the young Caesar in particular, opened up to a portion of them the opportunity of returning home; but all those who had taken part in the murder of Sertorius, with but
MARCUS LEPIDUS & QUINTUS SERTORIUS BOOK \
a single exception, died a violent death. Osca, and most of the towns which had still adhered to Sertorius in Hither Spain, now voluntarily opened their gates to Pompeius; Uxama (Osma), Clunia, and Calagurris alone had to be reduced by force. The two provinces were regulated anew; in the Further province, Metellus raised the annual tribute of the most guilty communities; in the Hither, Pompeius dispensed reward and punishment: Calagurris, for example, lost its independence and was placed under Osca. A band of Sertorian soldiers, which had collected in the Pyrenees, was induced by Pompeius to surrender, and was settled by him to the north of the Pyrenees near Lugudunum (St. Bertrand, in the department Haute
304
as the community of the “congregated” The Roman emblems of victory were erected at the summit of the pass of the Pyrenees; at the close 71. of 683, Metellus and Pompeius marched with their armies
through the streets of the capital, to present the thanks of the nation to Father Jovis at the Capitol for the conquest of the Spaniards. The good fortune of Sulla seemed still to be with his creation after he had been laid in the grave, and to protect it better than the incapable and negligent watchmen appointed to guard The opposition in Italy had broken down from the incapacity and precipitation of its leader, and that of the emigrants from dissension within their own ranks. These defeats, although far more the result of their own perverseness and discordance than of the exertions of their opponents, were yet so many victories for the oligarchy. The curule chairs were rendered once more secure.
Garonne), (carwmae).
it.
can. u RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
305
CHAPTER II
RULE or me SULLAN zms'rom'nou
WHEN the suppression of the Cinnan revolution, which External threatened the very existence of the senate, rendered it "mm" possible for the restored senatorial government to devote
once more the requisite attention to the internal and
external security of the empire, there emerged affairs enough, the settlement of which could not be postponed without injuring the most important interests and allowing present inconveniences to grow into future dangers. Apart from the very serious complications in Spain, it was absolutely necessary effectually to check the barbarians in Thrace and the regions of the Danube, whom Sulla on his march through Macedonia had only been able superficially to chastise (p. 50), and to regulate, by military intervention,
. he disorderly state of things along the northern frontier of the Greek peninsula; thoroughly to suppress the bands
of pirates infesting the seas everywhere, but especially the eastern waters 5 and lastly to introduce better order into the unsettled relations of Asia Minor. The peace which Sulla had concluded in 670 with Mithradates, king of Pontus 84. (p. 49, 52), and of which the treaty with Murena in 673 81. (p. 9 5) was essentially a repetition,bore throughout the stamp
of a provisional arrangement to meet the exigencies of the moment; and the relations of the Romans with Tigranes, k'ng of Armenia, with whom they had defiuto waged war,
VOL IY 1'9
306
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION BOOK v
DalmatO Macedon in ex peditions.
remained wholly untouched in this peace. Tigranes had with right regarded this as a tacit permission to bring the Roman possessions in Asia under his power. If these were not to be abandoned, it was necessary to come to terms amicably or by force with the new great-king of
’
Asia.
In the preceding chapter we have described the move
ments in Italy and Spain connected with the proceedings of the democracy, and their subjugation by the senatorial government. In the present chapter we shall review the external government, as the authorities installed by Sulla conducted or failed to conduct
We still recognize the vigorous hand of Sulla in the energetic measures which, in the last period of his regency, the senate adopted almost simultaneously against the Sertorians, the Dalmatians and Thracians, and the Cilician pirates.
The expedition to the Graeco-Illyrian peninsula was designed partly to reduce to subjection or at least to tame the barbarous tribes who ranged over the whole interior from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, and of whom the Bessi (in the great Balkan) especially were, as was then said, notorious as robbers even among race of robbers
partly to destroy the corsairs in their haunts, especially along
the Dalmatian coast. As usual, the attack took place simultaneously from Dalmatia and from Macedonia, in which province an army of five legions was assembled for the purpose. In Dalmatia the former praetor Gaius Cosconius held the command, marched through the country in all directions, and took by storm the fortress of Salona after two years’ siege. In Macedonia the proconsul
78-76. Appius Claudius (676-678) first attempted along the Macedono-Thracian frontier to make himself master of the mountain districts on the left bank of the Karasu. Or. both sides the war was conducted with savage ferocity;
a
5
a
it.
it
CHAP. I! RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
307
the Thracians destroyed the townships which they took and massacred their captives, and the Romans returned like for like. But no results of importance were attained; the toilsome marches and the constant conflicts with the numerous and brave inhabitants of the mountains deci
mated the army to no purpose; the general himself sickened and died. His successor, Gaius Scribonius Curio
was induced by various obstacles, and par 75-78. ticularly by a not inconsiderable military revolt, to desist
from the diflicult expedition against the Thracians, and to
turn himself instead to the northern frontier of Macedonia, where he subdued the weaker Dardani (in Servia) and reached as far as the Danube. The brave and able
(679-681),
Marcus Lucullus (682, 683) was the first who again advanced eastward, defeated the Bessi in their mountains,
took their capital Uscudama (Adrianople), and compelled
them to submit to the Roman supremacy. Sadalas king subdued. of the Odrysians, and the Greek towns on the east coast
to the north and south of the Balkan chain-—Istropolis, Tomi, Callatis, Odessus (near Varna), Mesembria, and others—became dependent on the Romans. Thrace, of which the Romans had hitherto held little more than the
Attalic possessions on the Chersonese, now became a portion—though far from obedient—of the province of Macedonia.
But the predatory raids of the Thracians and Dardani, Piracy confined as they were to a small part of the empire, were
far less injurious to the state and to individuals than the
evil of piracy, which was continually spreading farther and acquiring more solid organization. The commerce of the
whole Mediterranean was in its power. Italy could neither
export its products nor import grain from the provinces ; in
the former the people were starving, in the latter the culti
vation of the corn-fields ceased for want of a vent for
the produce. No consignment of money, no traveller was
12, 11. Thrace
30:; RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION Boo]: v
longer safe: the public treasury suffered most serious losses ; a great many Romans of standing were captured by the corsairs, and compelled to pay heavy sums for their ransom, if it was not even the pleasure of the pirates to execute on individuals the sentence of death, which in that case was seasoned with a savage humour. The merchants, and even the divisions of Roman troops destined for the east, began to postpone their voyages chiefly to the un favourable season of the year, and to be less afraid of the winter storms than of the piratical vessels, which indeed even at this season did not wholly disappear from the sea. But severely as the closing of the sea was felt, it was more tolerable than the raids made on the islands and coasts of Greece and Asia Minor. Just as afterwards
in the time of the Normans, piratical squadrons ran up to the maritime towns, and either compelled them to buy themselves 06' with large sums, or besieged and took them by storm. When Samothrace, Clazomenae,
M. Samos, Iassus were pillaged by the pirates (670) under the eyes of Sulla after peace was concluded with Mithra dates, we may conceive how matters went where neither a Roman army nor a Roman fleet was at hand. All the old rich temples along the coasts of Greece and Asia Minor were plundered one after another; from Samo thrace alone a treasure of 1000 talents (£240,000) is said to have been carried off. Apollo, according to a
Roman poet of this period, was so impoverished by the pirates that, when the swallow paid him a visit, he could no longer produce to it out of all his treasures even a drachm of gold. More than four hundred townships were enumerated as having been taken or laid under contribu tion by the pirates, including cities like Cnidus, Samos, Colophon; from not a few places on islands or the coast, which were previously flourishing, the whole population migrated, that they might not be carried off by the pirates.
CHAP. I! RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
309
Even inland districts were no longer safe from their attacks; there were instances of their assailing townships distant one or two days’ march from the coast. The fearful debt, under which subsequently all the communities of the Greek east succumbed, proceeded in great part from these fatal times.
Piracy had totally changed its character. The pirates
Organisa were no longer bold freebooters, who levied their tribute tion of
piracy. from the large Italo-Oriental traflic in slaves and luxuries,
as it passed through the Cretan waters between Cyrene and the Peloponnesus—in the language of the pirates the
sea”; no longer even armed slave-catchers, who prosecuted “war, trade, and piracy” equally side by side; they formed now a piratical state, with a peculiar esprit de corpr, with a solid and very respectable organization, with a home of their own and the germs of a symmachy, and doubtless also with definite political designs. The
called themselves Cilicians; in fact their vessels were the rendezvous of desperadoes and adventurers from all countries-—discharged mercenaries from the recruiting grounds of Crete, burgesses from the destroyed townships of Italy, Spain, and Asia, soldiers and oflicers from the armies of Fimbria and Sertorius, in a word the ruined men of all nations, the hunted refugees of all vanquished parties, every one that was wretched and daring—and where was there not misery and outrage in this unhappy age? It was no longer a gang of robbers who had flocked together, but
“golden
pirates
soldier-state, in which the freemasonry of exile and crime took the place of nationality, and within which crime redeemed itself, as it so often does in its own eyes,
a compact
the most generous public spirit. In an abandoned age, when cowardice and insubordination had
relaxed all the bonds of social order, the legitimate common wealths might have taken a pattern from this state-—the mongrel offspring of distress and violence—within which
by displaying
310
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION BOOK v
military political power.
alone the inviolable determination to stand side by side, the sense of comradeship, respect for the pledged word and the self-chosen chiefs, valour and adroitness seemed to have taken refuge. If the banner of this state was inscribed with vengeance against the civil society which, rightly or wrongly, had ejected its members, it might be a question whether this device was much worse than those of the Italian oligarchy and the Oriental sultanship which seemed in the fair way of dividing the world between them. The corsairs at least felt themselves on a level with any legitimate state ; their robber-pride, their robber-pomp, and their robber humour are attested by many a genuine pirate’s tale of mad merriment and chivalrous bandittism: they professed, and made it their boast, to live at righteous war with all the world : what they gained in that warfare was designated not as plunder, but as military spoil; and, while the captured corsair was sure of the cross in every Roman seaport, they too claimed the right of executing any of their captives.
Their military-political organization, especially since the Mithradatic war, was compact. Their ships, for the most
that small open swift-sailing barks, with smaller proportion of biremes and triremes, now regularly sailed associated in squadrons and under admirals, whose
barges were wont to glitter in gold and purple. To comrade in peril, though he might be totally unknown, no pirate captain refused the requested aid an agreement concluded with any one of them was absolutely recognized by the whole society, and any injury inflicted on one was
avenged by all. Their true home was the sea from the pillars of Hercules to the Syrian and Egyptian waters; the refuges which they needed for themselves and their floating
houses on the mainland were readily furnished to them by the Mauretanian and Dalmatian coasts, by the island of Crete, and, above all, by the southern coast of Asia Minor, which abounded in headlands and lurking-places, com
part myoparaner,
;
a
a
is,
CHAP. II RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
311
manded the chief thoroughfare of the maritime commerce
of that age, and was virtually without a master. The league
of Lycian cities there, and the Pamphylian communities,
were of little importance; the Roman station, which had existed in Cilicia since 652, was far from adequate to 10! . command the extensive coast; the Syrian dominion over Cilicia had always been but nominal, and had recently been superseded by the Armenian, the holder of which, as a true great-king, gave himself no concern at all about the sea and readily abandoned it to the pillage of the Cilicians. It was
nothing wonderful, therefore, that the corsairs flourished there as they had never done anywhere else. Not only did they possess everywhere along the coast signal-places and stations, but further inland—in the most remote recesses of the impassable and mountainous interior of Lycia, Pamphylia, and Cilicia—they had built their rock castles, in which they concealed their wives, children, and treasures during their own absence at sea, and, doubtless, in times of danger found an asylum themselves. Great numbers of such corsair-castles existed especially in the Rough Cilicia, the forests of which at the same time furnished the pirates with the most excellent timber for shipbuilding; and there, accordingly, their principal dock yards and arsenals were situated. It was not to be wondered at that this organized military state gained a firm body of clients among the Greek maritime cities, which were more or less left to themselves and managed their own affairs: these cities entered into traflic with the pirates as with a friendly power on the basis of definite treaties, and did not
comply with the summons of the Roman governors to furnish vessels against them. The not inconsiderable town of Side in Pamphylia, for instance, allowed the pirates to build ships on its quays, and to sell the free men whom they had captured in its market.
Such a society of pirates was a political power; and al
312
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION BOOK 1
a. political power it gave itself out and was accepted from the time when the Syrian king Tryphon first employed it as such and rested his throne on its support (iii. 292). We find the pirates as allies of king Mithradates of Pontus as well as of the Roman democratic emigrants; we find them giving battle to the fleets of Sulla in the eastern and in the western waters; we find individual pirate princes ruling over a series of considerable coast towns. We cannot tell how far the internal political development of this floating state had already advanced; but its arrangements undeniably con tained the germ of a sea-kingdom, which was already beginning to establish itself, and out of which, under favourable circumstances, a permanent state might have been developed.
This state of matters clearly shows, as we have partly
Nnlllty of
the Roman indicated already 290), how the Romans kept—or rather
marine police.
(iii.
did not keep—order on “their sea. ” The protectorate of
Rome over the provinces consisted essentially in military guardianship; the provincials paid tax or tribute to the Romans for their defence by sea and land, which was con centrated in Roman hands. But never, perhaps, did a guardian‘ more shamelessly defraud his ward than the Roman oligarchy defrauded the subject communities. In stead of Rome equipping a general fleet for the empire and centralizing her marine police, the senate permitted the unity of her maritime superintendence—without which in this matter nothing could at all be done—to fall into abeyance, and left it to each governor and each client state to defend themselves against the pirates as each chose and was able. Instead of Rome providing for the fleet, as she had bound herself to do, exclusively with her own blood and treasure and with those of the client states which had remained formally sovereign, the senate allowed the Italian war-marine
to fall into decay, and learned to make shift with the vessels which the several mercantile towns were required to furnish,
CHAP. ll RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
313
or still more frequently with the coast-guards everywhere organized—all the cost and burden falling, in either case,
on the subjects. The provincials might deem themselves fortunate, if their Roman governor applied the requisitions which he raised for the defence of the coast in reality solely
to that object, and did not intercept them for himself; or if they were not, as very frequently happened, called on to pay ransom for some Roman of rank captured by the buccaneers. Measures undertaken perhaps with judgment, such as the occupation of Cilicia in 652, were sure to be spoilt in the 102. execution. Any Roman of this period, who was not wholly carried away by the current intoxicating idea of the national greatness, must have wished that the ships’ beaks might be
torn down from the orator’s platform in the Forum, that at least he might not be constantly reminded by them of the naval victories achieved in better times.
Nevertheless Sulla, who in the war against Mithradates Expedition had the opportunity of acquiring an adequate conviction of £2,131” com the dangers which the neglect of the fleet involved, took ofvAsia various steps seriously to check the evil. It is true that Mm"
the instructions which he had left to the governors whom
he appointed in Asia, to equip in the maritime towns a fleet
against the pirates, had borne little fruit, for Murena pre
ferred to begin war with Mithradates, and Gnaeus Dola
bella, the governor of Cilicia, proved wholly incapable. Accordingly the senate resolved in 675 to send one of the 79. consuls to Cilicia ; the lot fell on the capable Publius Publius Servilius. He defeated the piratical fleet in a bloody engagement, and then applied himself to destroy those towns
on the south coast of Asia Minor which served them as
and trading stations. The fortresses of the maritime prince Zenicetes—Olympus, Corycus, Zenlcetq
anchorages
powerful
Phaselis in eastern Lycia, Attalia in Pamphylia—were 2gb“. reduced, and the prince himself met his death in the flames
of his stronghold Olympus. A movement was next made
The Isaurians subdued.
against the Isaurians, who in the north-west corner of the Rough Cilicia, on the northern slope of Mount Taurus, inhabited a labyrinth of steep mountain ridges, jagged rocks, and deeply-cut valleys, covered with magnificent oak forests—a region which is even at the present day filled with reminiscences of the old robber times. To reduce these Isaurian fastnesses, the last and most secure retreats of the freebooters, Servilius led the first Roman army over
the Taurus, and broke up the strongholds of the enemy, Oroanda, and above all Isaura itself—the ideal of a robber town, situated on the summit of a scarcely accessible moun tain-ridge, and completely overlooking and commanding the wide plain of Iconium. The war, not ended till 679, from which Publius Servilius acquired for himself and his descendants the surname of Isauricus, was not without fruit 3 a great number of pirates and piratical vessels fell in consequence of it into the power of the Romans; Lycia, Pamphylia, West Cilicia were severely devastated, the territories of the destroyed towns were confiscated, and the province of Cilicia was enlarged by their addition to it. But, in the nature of the case, piracy was far from being suppressed by these measures; on the contrary, it simply betook itself for the time to other regions, and particularly
to Crete, the oldest harbour for the corsairs of the Medi terranean (iii. 291). Nothing but repressive measures carried
out on a large scale and with unity of purpose-—nothing, in fact, but the establishment of a standing maritime police —could in such a case afford thorough relief.
The affairs of the mainland of Asia Minor were con nected by various relations with this maritime war. The variance which existed between Rome and the kings of Pontus and Armenia did not abate, but increased more and more. On the one hand Tigranes, king of Armenia, pursued his aggressive conquests in the most reckless
75.
314
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION BOOK v
Asiatic relations.
Tigranes and the new great
kinsdom of manner. The Parthians, whose state was at this period Armenia.
CHAP- n RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
315
torn by internal dissensions and enfeebled, were by constant hostilities driven farther and farther back into the interior of Asia Of the countries between Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Iran, the kingdoms of Corduene (northern Kurdistan), and Media Atropatene (Azerbijan), were converted from Parthian into Armenian fiefs, and the kingdom of Nineveh
or Adiabene, was likewise compelled, at least
(Mosul),
temporarily,
Mesopotamia, too, particularly in and around Nisibis, the Armenian rule was established; but the southern half, which was in great part desert, seems not to have passed into the firm possession of the new great-king, and Seleucia, on the Tigris, in particular, appears not to have become subject to him. The kingdom of Edessa or Osrhoene he handed over to a tribe of wandering Arabs, which he transplanted from southern Mesopotamia and settled in this region, with the view of commanding by its means the passage of the Euphrates and the great route of traflic. 1
But Tigranes by no means confined his conquests to Cappe the eastern bank of the Euphrates. Cappadocia especially men,“ was the object of his attacks, and, defenceless as it was,
suffered destructive blows from its too potent neighbour.
Tigranes wrested the eastern province Melitene from
1 The foundation of the kingdom of Edessa. is placed by native chronicles
in 620 (iii. 287), but it was not till some time after its rise that it passed 18L into the hands of the Arabic dynasty bearing the names of Abgarus and Mannus, which we afterwards find there. This dynasty is obviously con nected with the settlement of many Arabs by Tigranes the Great in the region of Edessa, Callirrhoe, Can-hale (Plin. H. N. v. 20. 85; 21. 86:
vi. 28, 14a) ; respecting which Plutarch also (Lu. 21) states that Tigranes, changing the habits of the tent-Arabs, settled them nearer to
his kingdom in order by their means to possess himself of the trade. We
may presumably take this to mean that the Bedouins, who were accustomed
to open routes for traflic through their territory and to levy on these routes
fixed transit-dues (Strabo, xvi. 748), were to serve the great-king as a
sort of toll-supervisors, and to levy tolls for him and themselves at the passage of the Euphrates. These "Osrhoenian Arabs" (Orei Amber),
as Pliny calls them, must also be the Arabs on Mount Amanus, whom Afranius subdued (Plut. Pomp. 39).
to become a dependency of Armenia. In
lyrla undel
Cappadocia, and united it with the opposite Armenian province Sophene, by which means he obtained command of the passage of the Euphrates with the great thoroughfare of traflic between Asia Minor and Armenia After the death of Sulla the Armenians even advanced into Cappa docia proper, and carried 06' to Armenia the inhabitants of the capital Mazaca (afterwards Caesarea) and eleven other towns of Greek organization.
Nor could the kingdom of the Seleucids, already in full course of dissolution, oppose greater resistance to the new great-king. Here the south from the Egyptian frontier to Straton’s Tower (Caesarea) was under the rule of the
prince Alexander Jannaeus, who extended and strengthened his dominion step by step in conflict with his Syrian, Egyptian, and Arabic neighbours and with the imperial cities. The larger towns of Syria—Gaza, Straton’s Tower, Ptolemais, Beroea-—attempted to maintain them selves on their own footing, sometimes as free communities, sometimes under so-called tyrants; the capital, Antioch, in particular, was virtually independent. Damascus and the valleys of Lebanon had submitted to the Nabataean prince, Aretas of Petra. Lastly, in Cilicia the pirates or the Romans bore sway. And for this crown breaking into a thousand fragments the Seleucid princes continued per severingly to quarrel with each other, as though it were their object to make royalty a jest and an offence to all; nay more, while this family, doomed like the house of Laius to perpetual discord, had its own subjects all in revolt, it even raised claims to the throne of Egypt vacant by the decease of king Alexander II. without heirs. Accordingly king Tigranes set to work there without
316
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION noox v
Jewish
Eastern Cilicia was easily subdued by him, and the citizens of Soli and other towns were carried off, just like the Cappadocians, to Armenia In like manner the province of Upper Syria, with the exception of the
ceremony.
can. It RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
311
bravely-defended town of Seleucia at the mouth of the Orontes, and the greater part of Phoenicia were reduced
by force; Ptolemais was occupied by the Armenians about 68o, and the Jewish state was already seriously threatened 74. by them. Antioch, the old capital of the Seleucids, became one of the residences of the great-king. Already from 67 r, the year following the peace between Sulla and 88.
Mithradates, Tigranes is designated in the Syrian annals as the sovereign of the country, and Cilicia and Syria appear as an Armenian satrapy under Magadates, the lieutenant of the great-king. The age of the kings of Nineveh, of the Salmanezers and Sennacheribs, seemed to be renewed; again oriental despotism pressed heavily on the trading population of the Syrian coast, as it did formerly on Tyre and Sidon ; again great states of the interior threw themselves on the provinces along the Mediterranean; again Asiatic hosts, said to number half a million com
batants, appeared on the Cilician and Syrian coasts. As Salmanezer and Nebuchadnezzar had formerly carried the Jews to Babylon, so now from all the frontier provinces of the new kingdom—from Corduene, Adiabene, Assyria, Cilicia, Cappadocia—the inhabitants, especially the Greek or half-Greek citizens of the towns, were compelled to settle with their whole goods and chattels (under penalty of the confiscation of everything that they left behind) in the new capital, one of those gigantic cities proclaiming rather the nothingness of the people than the greatness of the rulers, which sprang up in the countries of the Euphrates on every change in the supreme sovereignty at the fiat of the
new grand sultan. The new “city of Tigranes,” Tigrano certa, founded on the borders of Armenia and Mesopo tamia, and destined as the capital of the territories newly acquired for Armenia, became a city like Nineveh and Babylon, with walls fifty yards high, and the appendages of
palace, garden, and park that were appropriate to sultanism.
Mithra dates.
In other respects, too, the new great-king proved faithful to his part. As amidst the perpetual childhood of the east the childlike conceptions of kings with real crowns on their heads have never disappeared, Tigranes, when he showed himself in public, appeared in the state and the costume of a successor of Darius and Xerxes, with the purple caftan, the half-white half-purple tunic, the long plaited trousers, the high turban, and the royal diadem attended moreover and served in slavish fashion, wherever he went or stood, by four “ kings. "
King Mithradates acted with greater moderation. He refrained from aggressions in Asia Minor, and contented himself with—what no treaty forbade-—placing his dominion along the Black Sea on a firmer basis, and gradually bring ing into more definite dependence the regions which sepa rated the Bosporan kingdom, now ruled under his supremacy by his son Machares, from that of Pontus. But he too applied every effort to render his fleet and army efficient, and especially to arm and organize the latter after the Roman model; in which the Roman emigrants, who sojourned in great numbers at his court, rendered essential service.
The Romans had no desire to become further involved in Oriental affairs than they were already. This appears with striking clearness in the fact, that the opportunity, which at this time presented itself, of peacefully bringing the kingdom of Egypt under the immediate dominion of
318
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION BOOK \'
our of the Romans in
Egypt not Rome was spurned by the senate. The legitimate de
annexed.
scendants of Ptolemaeus son of Lagus had come to an end, when the king installed by Sulla after the death of Ptolemaeus Soter II. Lathyrus—Alexander IL, a son of Alexander I. —was killed, a few days after he had ascended the throne,
ll. on occasion of a tumult in the capital (67 This Alex ander had in his testament1 appointed the Roman com
The disputed question, whether this alleged or real testament pro 81. ceeded from Alexander 666) or Alexander Ii. 673). usually
I. (1'
1
3). is
(1'
CHAP- lI RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
3X9
munity his heir. The genuineness of this document was no doubt disputed; but the senate acknowledged it by
in virtue of it the sums deposited in Tyre on account of the deceased king. Nevertheless it allowed two notoriously illegitimate sons of king Lathyrus, Ptolemaeus XL, who was styled the new Dionysos or the Flute-blower
and Ptolemaeus the Cyprian, to take practical possession of Egypt and Cyprus respectively. They were not indeed expressly recognized by the senate, but no distinct summons to surrender their kingdoms was ad dressed to them. The reason why the senate allowed this state of uncertainty to continue, and did not commit itself to a definite renunciation of Egypt and Cyprus, was undoubtedly the considerable rent which these kings, ruling as it were on sufferance, regularly paid for the continuance of the uncertainty to the heads of the Roman coteries. But the motive for waiving that attractive acquisition alto gether was different. Egypt, by its peculiar position and its financial organization, placed in the hands of any
governor commanding it a pecuniary and naval power and generally an independent authority, which were absolutely
decided in favour of the former alternative. But the reasons are in adequate; for Cicero (de L. Agr. i. 4, 12; 15, 38; r6, 41) does not
say that Egypt fell to Rome in 666, but that it did so in or after this year ; 8L and while the circumstance that Alexander I. died abroad. and Alexander
11. in Alexandria, has led some to infer that the treasures mentioned in the testament in question as lying in Tyre must have belonged to the former,
they have overlooked that Alexander II. was killed nineteen days after his arrival in Egypt (Letronne, lnrcr. dc I'Egypk, ii. 20), when his treasure might still very well be in Tyre. On the other hand the circumstance that
the second Alexander was the last genuine Lagid is decisive, for in the similar acquisitions of Pergarnus, Cyrene, and Bithynia it was always by
the last scion of the legitimate ruling family that Rome was appointed heir.
The ancient constitutional law, as it applied at least to the Roman client statel, seems to have given to the reigning prince the right of ultimate disposal of his kingdom not absolutely, but only in the absence of agnah' entitled to succeed. Comp. Gutsehmitl's remark in the German translation
of S. Sharpe's Hinwjy qfEgypl, 17.
Whether the testament was genuine or spurious, cannot be ascertained, and of no great moment; there are no special reasons for assuming a forgery.
assuming
(Auletes),
is
ii.
320
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION BOOK V
incompatible with the suspicious and feeble government of the oligarchy: in this point of view it was judicious to forgo the direct possession of the country of the Nile.
Less justifiable was the failure of the senate to interfere directly in the afi’airs of Asia Minor and Syria. The Roman and Syria. government did not indeed recognize the Armenian con
queror as king of Cappadocia and Syria ; but it did nothing
to drive him back, although the war, which under pressure 78. of necessity it began in 676 against the pirates in Cilicia, naturally suggested its interference more especially in Syria. In fact, by tolerating the loss of Cappadocia and Syria with out declaring war, the government abandoned not merely
those committed to its protection, but the most important foundations of its own powerful position. It adopted already a hazardous course, when it sacrificed the outworks of its dominion in the Greek settlements and kingdoms on the Euphrates and Tigris ; but, when it allowed the Asiatics to establish themselves on the Mediterranean which was the political basis of its empire, this was not a proof of love of peace, but a confession that the oligarchy had been rendered by the Sullan restoration more oligarchical doubtless, but neither wiser nor more energetic, and it was for Rome’s place as a power in the world the beginning of the end.
On the other side, too, there was no desire for war. Tigranes had no reason to wish when Rome even without war abandoned to him all its allies. Mithradates, who was no mere sultan and had enjoyed opportunity enough, amidst good and bad fortune, of gaining experience re
friends and foes, knew very well that in second Roman war he would very probably stand quite as much alone as in the first, and that he could follow no more prudent course than to keep quiet and to strengthen his kingdom in the interior. That he was in earnest with his peaceful declarations, he had sufficiently proved in the conference with Murena 95). He continued to avoid
Non-inter vention in Asia Minor
garding
(p.
a
it,
CRAP. I1 RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION 32!
everything which would compel the Roman government to abandon its passive attitude.
But as the first Mithradatic war had arisen without any Apprehen of the parties properly desiring so now there grew out 3312;” of the opposition of interests mutual suspicion, and out of
this suspicion mutual preparations for defence; and these,
by their very gravity, ultimately led to an open breach.
That distrust of her own readiness to fight and preparation
for fighting, which had for long governed the policy of Rome
—a distrust, which the want of standing armies and the far
from exemplary character of the collegiate rule render sufl'iciently intelligible—made as were, an axiom of her
policy to pursue every war not merely to the vanquishing,
but to the annihilation of her opponent; in this point of
view the Romans were from the outset as little content with
the peace of Sulla, as they had formerly been with the
terms which Scipio Africanus had granted to the Cartha
ginians. The apprehension often expressed that second
attack by the Pontic king was imminent, was in some measure justified by the singular resemblance between the
present circumstances and those which existed twelve years
before. Once more dangerous civil war coincided with
serious armaments of Mithradates once more the Thracians
overran Macedonia, and piratical fleets covered the Mediter
ranean emissaries were coming and going—as formerly
between Mithradates and the Italians—50 now between the
Roman emigrants in Spain and those at the court of
As early as the beginning of 677 was declared 77. in the senate that the king was only waiting for the opportunity of falling upon Roman Asia during the Italian civil war the Roman armies in Asia and Cilicia were reinforced to meet possible emergencies.
Mithradates on his part followed with growing apprehen- Apprehen sion the development of the Roman policy. He could not
but feel that war between the Romans and Tigranes, how- dates.
VOL. iv 12:
Sinope.
a
;
it
;
;
it, it
it,
a
a
Bithynia Roman.
Bithynia, died, and as the last of his race-—-for son borne by Nysa was, or was said to be, illegitimate-left his kingdom by testament to the Romans, who delayed not to take possession of this region bordering on the Roman
332
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION BOOK v
ever much the feeble senate might dread was in the long run almost inevitable, and that he would not be able to avoid taking part in it. His attempt to obtain from the Roman senate the documentary record of the terms of peace, which was still wanting, had fallen amidst the disturbances attending the revolution of Lepidus and remained without result; Mithradates found in this an indication of the im pending renewal of the conflict. The expedition against the pirates, which indirectly concerned also the kings of the east whose allies they were, seemed the preliminary to such
war. Still more suspicious were the claims which Rome held in suspense over Egypt and Cyprus: significant that the king of Pontus betrothed his two daughters Mithradatis and Nyssa to the two Ptolemies, to whom the senate continued to refuse recognition. The emigrants urged him to strike: the position of Sertorius in Spain, as to which Mithradates despatched envoys under convenient pretexts to the headquarters of Pompeius to obtain in formation, and which was about this very time really im posing, opened up to the king the prospect of fighting not, as the first Roman war, against both the Roman parties, but in concert with the one against the other. A more favourable moment could hardly be hoped for, and after all
was always better to declare war than to let be declared 75. against him. In 679 Nicomedes III. Philopator king of
and long ago filled with Roman oflicials and merchants. At the same time Cyrene, which had been already bequeathed to the Romans in 658 (p. 4), was at
- length constituted province, and Roman governor was sent thither (679). These measures, in connection with the attacks carried out about the same time against the pirates
province
a
a
it a
it is
it
in
a
it,
CHAP. n RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
323
on the south coast of Asia Minor, must have excited appre
hensions in the king; the annexation of Bithynia in particular made the Romans immediate neighbours of the Outbreak Pontic kingdom; and this, it may be presumed, turned of the
Mithra the scale. The king took the decisive step and declared datic war.
war against the Romans in the winter of 679-680.
75-74.
Gladly would Mithradates have avoided undertaking so Prepara
arduous a work singlehanded. His nearest and natural ally was the great-king Tigranes ; but that shortsighted man declined the proposal of his father-in-law. So there re mained only the insurgents and the pirates. Mithradates was careful to place himself in communication with both, by despatching strong squadrons to Spain and to Crete. A formal treaty was concluded with Sertorius 299), by which Rome ceded to the king Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Galatia, and Cappadocia—all of them, true, acquisitions which needed to be ratified on the field of battle. More important was the support which the Spanish general gave to the king, by sending Roman oflicers to lead his armies and fleets. The most active of the emigrants in the east, Lucius Magius and Lucius Fannius, were appointed by Sertorius as his representatives at the court of Sinope. From the pirates also came help they flocked largely to the kingdom of Pontus, and their means especially the king seems to have succeeded in forming naval force imposing the number as well as the quality of the ships. His main support still lay in his own forces, with which the king
hoped, before the Romans should arrive in Asia, to make himself master of their possessions there especially as the financial distress produced in the province of Asia the Sullan war-tribute, the aversion of Bithynia towards the new Roman government, and the elements of combustion left behind by the desolating war recently brought to close in Cilicia and Pamphylia, opened up favourable prospects to Pontic invasion. There was no lack of stores; 2,000,000
tions of Mithra dates.
a
a
by
by
;
by by
; a
it is
(p.
Roman prepara tions.
medimm' of grain lay in the royal granaries. The fleet and the men were numerous and well exercised, particularly the Bastarnian mercenaries, a select corps which was a match even for Italian legionaries. On this occasion also it was the king who took the offensive. A corps under Diophantus advanced into Cappadocia, to occupy the fortresses there and to close the way to the kingdom of Pontus against the Romans; the leader sent by Sertorius, the propraetor Marcus Marius, went in company with the Pontic oflicer Eumachus to Phrygia, with a view to rouse the Roman province and the Taurus mountains to revolt; the main army, above
100,000 men with 16,000 cavalry and 100 scythe-chariots, led by Taxiles and Hermocrates under the personal super intendence of the king, and the war-fleet of 400 sail com manded by Aristonicus, moved along the north coast of Asia Minor to occupy Paphlagonia and Bithynia.
On the Roman side there was selected for the conduct of the war in the first rank the consul of 680, Lucius
74. Lucullus, who as governor of Asia and Cilicia was placed at the head of the four legions stationed in Asia Minor and of a fifth brought by him from Italy, and was directed to penetrate with this army, amounting to 30,000 infantry and 1600 cavalry, through Phrygia into the kingdom of Pontus. His colleague Marcus Cotta proceeded with the fleet and another Roman corps to the Propontis, to cover Asia and Bithynia. Lastly, a general arming of the coasts and particularly of the Thracian coast more immediately threatened by the Pontic fleet, was enjoined; and the task of clearing all the seas and coasts from the pirates and their Pontic allies was, by extraordinary decree, entrusted to a single magistrate, the choice falling on the praetor Marcus Antonius, the son of the man who thirty years before had first chastised the Cilician corsairs (iii. 381). Moreover, the senate placed at the disposal of Lucullus a sum of 72,000,000 sesterces (£700,000), in order to build
324
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION BOOK I
CHAP. ll RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
325
a fleet ; which, however, Lucullus declined. From all this we see that the Roman government recognized the
root of the evil in the neglect of their marine, and showed earnestness in the matter at least so far as their decrees reached.
Thus the war began in 680 at all points. It was a
Beginning
misfortune for Mithradates, that at the very moment of his of the war. 74.
declaring war the Sertorian struggle reached its crisis, by which one of his principal hopes was from the outset destroyed, and the Roman government was enabled to apply its whole power to the maritime and Asiatic contest.
In Asia Minor on the other hand Mithradates reaped the advantages of the offensive, and of the great distance of the Romans from the immediate seat of war. A consider able number of cities in Asia Minor opened their gates to the Sertorian propraetor who was placed at the head of the Roman province, and they massacred, as in 666, the 88. Roman families settled among them: the Pisidians, Isaur- ians, and Cilicians took up arms against Rome. The Romans for the moment had no troops at the points threatened. Individual energetic men attempted no doubt
at their own hand to check this mutiny of the provincials ; thus on receiving accounts of these events the young Gaius Caesar left Rhodes where he was staying on account of his studies, and with a hastily-collected band opposed him self to the insurgents; but not much could be effected by such volunteer corps. Had not Deiotarus, the brave tetrarch of the Tolistobogii—a Celtic tribe settled around Pessinus—embraced the side of the Romans and fought with success against the Pontic generals, Lucullus would have had to begin with recapturing the interior of the Roman province from the enemy. But even as it was, he lost in pacifying the province and driving back the enemy precious time, for which the slight successes achieved by his cavalry were far from affording compensation Still
The Romans
more unfavourable than in Phrygia was the aspect of things for the Romans on the north coast of Asia Minor. Here the great Pontic army and the fleet had completely mastered Bithynia, and compelled the Roman consul Cotta to take shelter with his far from numerous force and his ships within the walls and port of Chalcedon, where Mithradates kept them blockaded.
This blockade, however, was so far a favourable event for the Romans, as, if Cotta detained the Pontic army before Chalcedon and Lucullus proceeded also thither, the whole Roman forces might unite at Chalcedon and compel the decision of arms there rather than in the distant and impassable region of Pontus. Lucullus did take the route for Chalcedon ; but Cotta, with the view of executing a great feat at his own hand before the arrival of his colleague, ordered his admiral Publius Rutilius Nudus to make a sally, which not only ended in a bloody defeat of the Romans, but also enabled the Pontic force to attack the harbour, to break the chain which closed and to burn all the Roman vessels of war which were there, nearly seventy in number. On the news of these mis fortunes reaching Lucullus at the river Sangarius, he ac celerated his march to the great discontent of his soldiers, in whose opinion Cotta was of no moment, and who would far rather have plundered an undefended country than have taught their comrades to conquer. His arrival made up in part for the misfortunes sustained: the king raised the siege of Chalcedon, but did not retreat to Pontus he went southward into the old Roman province, where he spread his army along the Propontis and the Hellespont,
defeated at Chalcedon.
326
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION BOOK v
and began to besiege the large and wealthy town of Cyzicus. He thus entangled himself more and more deeply in the blind alley which he had chosen to
enter, instead of—which alone promised success for him bringing the wide distances into play against the Romans.
occupied Lampsacus,
;
it,
CHAP- n RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
327
In few places had the old Hellenic adroitness and aptitude preserved themselves so pure as in Cyzicus ; its citizens, although they had suffered great loss of ships and men in the unfortunate double battle of Chalcedon, made the most resolute resistance. Cyzicus lay on an island directly opposite the mainland and connected with it by a bridge. The besiegers possessed themselves not only of the line of heights on the mainland terminating at the bridge and of the suburb situated there, but also of the celebrated Dindymene heights on the island itself; and alike on the mainland and on the island the Greek en gineers put forth all their art to pave the way for an assault.
But the breach which they at length made was closed again during the night by the besieged, and the exertions of the royal army remained as fruitless as did the barbarous threat of the king to put to death the captured Cyzicenes before the walls, if the citizens still refused to surrender. The Cyzicenes continued the defence with courage and success; they fell little short of capturing the king himself in the course of the siege.