lemma, a merchant came to him, to treat with him in secret from Archelaus, and to make him some proposals of an accommodation. He was so exceedingly rejoiced when this man had explained his commission, that he made all possible haste to have a conference with that general. They had an interview upon the banks of the sea, near the little city of Delium. Archelaus, who did not know how important it was to Sylla, to have it in his power to repass into Italy, proposed to him the uniting his interest with that of Mithridates; and added, that his master would supply him with money, troops, and ships, for a war against the faction of Cinna and Marius. Sylla, without seeming offended at first with such proposals, exhorted him, on his side, to withdraw himself from the slavery in which he lived, under an imperious and cruel prince. He added, that he might take upon him the title of king in his government, and offered to have him declared the ally and friend of the Roman people, if he would deliver up to him the fleet of Mithridates under his command. Archelaus rejected that proposal with indignation, and even expressed to the Roman general, how much he thought himself injured by the supposition of his being capable of such a treason. Upon which Sylla, assuming the air of grandeur and dignity so natural to the Romans, said to him, “if, being only a slave, and at best but an officer of a barbarian king, you look upon it as a baseness to quit the service of your master, how dare you to propose the abandoning the interests of the republic to such a Roman as me? Do you imagine our condition and affairs to be equal? Have you forgot my victories? Do you not remember that you are the self-same Archelaus whom I have defeated in two battles, and forced in the last to hide himself in the marshes of Orchomenos?" Archelaus, confounded by so haughty an answer, sustained himself no longer in the sequel of the negotiation. Sylla got the ascendant entirely; and, dictating the law as victor, proposed the following conditions: that Mithridates should renounce Asia and Paphlagonia: that he should restore Bithynia to Nicomedes, and Cappadocia to Ariobarzanes: that he should pay the Romans two thousand talents for the expenses of the war, and furnish him seventy armed galleys, with their whole equipage: and that Sylla, on his side, should secure to Mithridates the rest of his dominions, and cause him to be declared the friend and ally of the Roman people." Archelaus seemed to approve those conditions; and despatched a courier immediately to communicate them to Mithridates. Sylla set out for the Hellespont, carrying Archelaus with him, whom he treated with great honours. He received the ambassadors of Mithridates at Larissa, who came to declare to him, that their master accepted and ratified all the other articles, but that he desired he would not deprive him of Paphlagonia; and that as to the seventy galleys, he could by no means comply with that article. Sylla, offended at this refusal, answered them in an angry tone, "What say you? Would Mithridates keep possession of Paphlagonia; and does he refuse me the galleys I demanded? I expected to have seen him return me thanks upon his knees, for having only left him the hand with which he butchered a hundred thousand Romans. He will change his note when I go over to Asia; though at present, in the midst of his court at Pergamus, he meditates plans for a war he never saw." Such was the lofty style of Sylla, who gave Mithridates to understand at the same time, that he would not use such language, had he been present at the past battles. The ambassadors, terrified with this answer, made no reply. Archelaus endeavoured to soften Sylla, and promised him that Mithridates should consent to all the articles. He set out for that purpose; and Sylla, after having laid waste the country, returned into Macedonia. Archelaus, upon his return, joined him at the city of Philippi, and informed him, that Mithridates would accept the proposed conditions; but that he exeedingly desired to have a conference with him. What made him earnest for this interview, was his fear of Fimbria, who having killed Flaccus, of whom mention is made before, and put himself at the head of that consul's army, advanced by great marches against Mithridates; which determined that prince to make peace with Sylla. They had an interview at Dardania, a city of Troas. Mithridates had with him two hundred galleys, twenty thousand foot, six thousand horse, and a great number of chariots armed with scythes; and Sylla had only four cohorts, and two hundred horse in his company. When Mithridates advanced to meet him, and offered him his hand, Sylla asked him, whether he accepted the proposed conditions? As the king kept silence, Sylla continued, "Do you not know, Mithridates, that it is for supplicants to speak, and for the victorious to hear and be silent?" Upon this Mithridates began a long apology, endeavouring to ascribe the cause of the war partly to the gods, and partly to the Romans. Sylla interrupted him; and after having made a long detail of the violences and inhumanities he had committed, he demanded of him a second time, whether he would ratify the conditions Archelaus had laid before him. Mithridates, surprised at the haughtiness and steady air of the Roman general, having answered in the affirmative, Sylla then received his embraces; and afterwards presenting the kings Ariobarzanes and Nicomedes to him, he reconciled them to each other. Mithridates, after the delivery of the seventy galleys entirely equipped, and five hundred archers, re-embarked.* Sylla saw plainly, that this treaty of peace was highly disagreeable to his troops. They could not bear that a prince, who of all kings was the most mortal enemy to Rome, and who in one day had caused one hundred thousand Roman citizens, dispersed in Asia to be put to the sword, should be treated with so much favour, and even honour, and declared the friend and ally of the Ro-mans, still reeking with their blood. Sylla, to justify his conduct, gave them to understand, that if he had rejected his proposals of peace, Mithridates, on his refusal, would not have failed to treat with Fimbria: and that if those two enemies had joined their forces, they would have obliged him either to abandon his conquests, or hazard a battle against troops superior in number, under the command of two great captains, who in one day might have deprived him of the fruits of all his victories. Thus ended the first war with Mithridates, which had lasted four years, and in which Sylla had destroyed more than one hundred and sixty thousand of the enemy; recovered Greece, Macedonia, Ionia, Asia, and many other provinces, of which Mithridates had possessed himself; and having deprived him of a great part of his fleet, obliged him to confine himself within the bounds of his hereditary doininions. But what is most to be admired in Sylla, is, that during three years, while the factions of Marius and Cinna had enslaved Italy, he did not dissemble his intentions, of turning his arms against them, and yet continued the war he had begun, convinced that it was necessary to conquer the foreign enemy, before he reduced and punished those at home. He was also highly laudable for his constancy, in not hearkening to any proposals from Mithridates, who offered him considerable aid against his enemies, till that prince had accepted the conditions of peace prescribed to him. Some days after, Sylla began his march against Fimbria, who was encamped under the walls of Thyatira in Lydia, and having marked out a camp near his, he began his intrenchments. Fimbria's soldiers, who came unarmed, ran out to salute and embrace those of Sylla, and assisted them with great pleasure in forming their lines. Fimbria seeing this change in his troops, and fearing Sylla as an irreconcilable enemy, from whom he could expect no mercy, after having in vain attempted to get him assassinated, killed himself. Sylla condemned Asia in general to pay twenty thousand talents, and besides that, injured individuals exceedingly, by abandoning their houses to the insolence and rapaciousness of his troops, whom he quartered upon them, and who liveđ * A. M. 3920. Ant. J. C. 84. † Vix quidquam in Syllæ operibus clarius duxerim, quam quod, cum per triennium Cinnanæ Mariana que partes Italiam obsiderent, neque illaturum se bellum iis dissimulavit, nec quod erat in manibus omisit; existimavitque ante frangendum hostem, quam ulciscendum civem; repulsoque externo metu, ubi quod alienum esset vicisset, superaret quod erat domesticum.-Vell. Paterc. 1. ii. c. 24. VOL. IV. 23 at discretion as in conquered cities. For he gave orders that every host should pay each soldier quartered upon him four drachmas a day, and entertain at table, himself, and as many of his friends as he should think fit to invite; that each captain should have fifty drachmas, and besides that, a robe for the house, and another when he went abroad. After having punished Asia, he set out from Ephesus with all his ships, and arrived the third day at Piræus. Having been initiated in the great mysteries, he took for his own use the library of Apellicon, in which were the works of Aristotle. That philosopher at his death had left his writings to Theophrastes, one of his most illustrious disciples. The latter had transferred them to Neleus of Scepsis, a city in the neighbourhood of Pergamus in Asia; after whose death, those works fell into the hands of his heirs, ignorant persons, who kept them shut up in a chest. When the kings of Pergamus began to collect industriously all sorts of books for their library, as the city of Scepsis was in their dependence, those heirs, apprehending that these works would be taken from them, thought proper to hide them in a vault under ground, where they remained almost one hundred and thirty years; till the heirs of Neleus's family, which, after several generations, were fallen into extreme poverty, brought them out to sell them to Apellicon, a rich Athenian, who sought every where for the most curious books for his library. As they were very much damaged by the length of time, and the damp place where they had lain, Apellicon had copies immediately taken of them, in which there were many chasms; because the originals were either rotten in many places, or worm-eaten and obliterated. Those blanks, words, and letters, were filled up as well as they could be by conjecture, and in some places with great want of judgment. From hence arose the many difficulties in these works, which have ever since divided the learned world. Apellicon having died a short time before Sylla's arrival at Athens, he seized upon his library, and with these works of Aristotle, which he found in it, enriched his own at Rome. A famous grammarian of those times, named Tyrannion, who lived then at Rome, having a great desire for these works of Aristotle, obtained permission from Sylla's librarian to take a copy of them. That copy was communicated to Andronicus the Rhodian, who afterwards imparted it to the public, and to whom the world is indebted for the works of that great philosopher.* SECTION II.-SECOND AND THIRD WARS WITH MITHRIDATES. TRAGICAL END OF HIS SISTERS AND WIVES. SYLLA, on setting out for Rome, had left the government of Asia to Murena, with the two legions that had served under Fimbria, to keep the province in obedience. This Murena is the father of him for whom Cicero made the fine oration which bears his name. His son at this time made his first campaign under him.t After Sylla's departure, Mithridates having returned into Pontus, marched his army against the people of Colchis and the Bosphorus, who had revolted against him. They first demanded his son Mithridates for their king; and having obtained him, immediately returned to their duty. The king imagining their conduct to proceed from his son's intrigues, took umbrage at it; and having caused him to come to him, he ordered him to be bound with chains of gold, and soon after put him to death. That son had done him great service in the war against Fimbria. We see here a new instance of the jealousy which an excessive love of power is apt to excite, and to what a height the prince who abandons himself to it, is capable of carrying his suspicions against his own blood; always ready to proceed to the most fatal extremities, and to sacrifice whatever is dearest to him to the slighest distrust. As for the inhabitants of the Bosphorus, be prepared a great fleet and a numerous army, which gave reason to believe his designs were against the Romans. He had not indeed restored all Cappadocia to *Plut. in Sylla, p. 468. Strab. Į. xiii. p. 609. Athen. 1. vii. p. 214. Laert. in Theoph. Ariobarzanes, but reserved part of it in his own hands; and he began to suspect Archelaus of having engaged him in a peace equally shameful and disadvantageous. When Archelaus perceived it, well knowing the master he had to deal with, he took refuge with Murena, and solicited him warmly to turn his arms against Mithridates. Murena, who passionately desired to obtain the honour of a triumph, suffered himself to be easily persuaded. He made an irruption into Cappadocia, and made himself master of Comana, the most powerful city of that kingdom. Mithridates sent ambassadors to him, to complain of his violating the treaty the Romans had made with him. Murena replied, that he knew of no treaty made with their master. There was in reality nothing reduced to writing on Sylla's part, the whole having passed by verbal agreement. He therefore continued to ravage the country, and took up his winter quarters in it. Mithridates sent ambassadors to Rome, to make his complaints to Sylla and the senate. There came a commissioner from Rome, but without a decree of the senate, who publicly ordered Murena not to molest the king of Pontus. But as they conferred together in private, this was looked upon as a mere collusion; and indeed Murena persisted in ravaging his country. Mithridates therefore took the field; and having passed the river Halys, gave Murena battle, defeated him, and obliged him to retire into Phrygia with very great loss.* Sylla, who had been appointed dictator, not being able to suffer any longer that Mithridates, contrary to the treaty he had granted him, should be disquieted, sent Gabinius to Murena, to order him in reality to desist from making war with that prince, and to reconcile him with Ariobarzanes. He obeyed. Mithridates, having put one of his sons of only four years old into the hands of Ariobarzanes as a hostage, under that pretext retained the cities in which he had garrisons, promising, no doubt, to restore them in time. He then gave a feast, in which he proposed prizes for such as should excel in drinking, eating, singing, and rallying; fit objects of emulation! Gabinius was the only one who did not think proper to enter these lists. Thus ended the second war with Mithridates, which lasted only three years. Murena, at his return to Rome, received the honour of a triumph, to which his pretensions were but indifferent.t Mithridates at length restored Cappadocia to Ariobarzanes, being compelled to do so by Sylla, who died the same year. But he contrived a stratagem to deprive him entirely of it. Tigranes had lately built a great city in Arinenia, which, from his own name, he called Tigranocerta. Mithridates persuaded his son-in-law to conquer Cappadocia, and to transport the inhabitants into the new city, and the other parts of his dominions that were not well peopled. He did so; and took away three hundred thousand souls. From thenceforth, wherever he carried his victorious arms, he acted in the same manner, for the better peopling of his dominions. The extraordinary reputation of Sertorious, who had given the Romans terrible employment in Spain, made Mithridates conceive the thought of sending an embassy to him, in order to engage him to join forces against the common enemy The flatterers, who compared him to Pyrrhus, and Sertorious to Hannibal, insinuated, that the Romans, attacked at the same time on different sides, could never be able to oppose two such formidable powers, when the most able and experienced generals should act in concert with the greatest of kings. He therefore sent ambassadors to Spain, with letters and instructions for treating with Sertorious, to whom they offered, in his name, a fleet and money to carry on the war, upon condition that he would suffer that prince to recover the provinces of Asia, which the necessity of his affairs had induced him to abandon by the treaty he had made with Sylla.§ As soon as those ambassadors arrived in Spain, and had opened their commission to Sertorious, he assembled his council, which he called the senate. They * A. M. 3922. Ant. J. C. 82. A. M. 3928. Ant, J. C. 76. †A. M. 3923. Appian. p. 216, 217. Ant. J. C. 81. were unanimously agreed to accept that prince's offers with joy; especially as so immediate and effective an aid, as the offered fleet and money, would cost only a vain consent to an enterprise, which did not in any manner depend upon him to prevent. But Sertorious, with a truly Roman greatness of soul, protested, that he would never consent to any treaty injurious to the glory or interest of his country; and that he could desire no victory from his own enemies, that was not acquired by just and honourable means. Having directed the ambassadors of Mithridates to come into the assembly, he declared to them, that he would suffer their master to keep Bithynia and Cappadocia, which were accustomed to be governed by kings, and of which the Romans could pretend to no just right to dispose; but he would never consent that he should have any footing in Asia Minor, which appertained to the republic, and which he had renounced by a solemn treaty. When this answer was related to Mithridates, it struck him with amazement; and he is affirmed to have said to his friends, "what orders may we not expect from Sertorius, when he shall sit in the senate in the midst of Rome, who, even now, confined upon the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, dictates bounds to our dominions and declares war against us if we undertake any thing against Asia?" A treaty was however concluded and sworn between them to this effect: that Mithridates should have Bithynia and Cappadocia; that Sertorius should send him troops for that purpose, and one of his captains to command them; and that Mithridates, on his side, should pay Sertorius three thousand talents down, and give him forty galleys. The captain sent by Sertorious into Asia, was a banished senator of Rome who had taken refuge with him, named Marcus Marius, to whom Mithridates paid great honours; for when Marius entered the cities, preceded by the fasces and axes, Mithridates followed him, well satisfied with the second place and with only making the figure of a powerful, but inferior ally, in this proconsul's company. Such was at that time the Roman greatness, that the name alone of that potent republic, obscured the splendour and power of the greatest kings Mithridates, however, found his interest in this conduct. Marius, as authorized by the Roman people and senate, discharged most of the cities from paying the exorbitant taxes which Sylla had imposed upon them; expressly declaring, that it was from Sertorius that they received, and to whom they were indebted for that favour. So moderate and polite a conduct opened the gates of the cities to him without the help of arms, and the name of Sertorius alone made more conquests than all the forces of Mithridates. Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, died this year, and made the Roman people his heirs. His country became thereby, as I have observed elsewhere, a province of the Roman empire. Mithridates immediately formed a resolution to renew the war against them upon this occasion, and employed the greatest part of the year in making the necessary preparations for carrying it on with vigour. He believed, that after the death of Sylla, and during the troubles by which the republic was agitated, the conjuncture was favourable for re-entering upon the conquests he had given up.* Instructed by his misfortunes and experience, he banished from his army all armour adorned with gold and jewels, which he began to consider as the allurement of the victor, and not as the strength of those who wore them. He caused swords to be forged after the Roman fashion, with solid and weighty bucklers; he collected horses, rather well made and broke, than magnificently adorned; assembled one hundred and twenty thousand foot, armed and disciplined like the Roman infantry, and sixteen thousand horse well equipped for service, besides one hundred chariots armed with long scythes, and drawn by four horses. He also fitted out a considerable number of galleys, which glittered no longer as before, with gilt pavilions, but were filled with all sorts of arms, offensive and defensive, and well provided with sums of money for the pay and subsistence of the troops.† * A. M. 3929. Ant. J. C. 75. Appian. de Bello Mithrid p. 175. Plut in Lucul. p. 496. |