master. Meanwhile, Mithridates had yielded to the demands of Sulla, and the people of Cappadocia had been permitted to choose their own king, Ariobarzanes I., surnamed Philoromæus, who was, however, destined to be more than once expelled. Paphlagonia was also evacuated (B.c. 92).

On the death of Nicomedes II. in the following year, Mithridates again interfered in Bithynia, to support Socrates, the late king's younger son, against his elder brother Nicomedes III. Philopator, who was recognized by the Romans, while Tigranes again invaded Cappadocia, and drove out Ariobarzanes. Both kings went in person to Rome, and the consular Manius Aquillius, sent as a special envoy to Asia, with only the support of the small force in the province under Lucius Cassius, restored them to their precarious thrones. Mithridates not only offered no open resistance, but even put Socrates to death. His excessive caution at this juncture betrays the want of real genius; for Rome was just involved in the crisis of the Social War, and the Italians were eagerly soliciting his aid. Probably, from the known character of the Roman government of the day, he judged that their vacillating policy and their reluctance to appeal to arms gave him a fair chance of accomplishing his designs in Asia without the risk of an open conflict (B.C. 90). But he was not permitted thus to take his own course. At the instigation of Aquillius, Nicomedes declared war against Mithridates, closed the Bosporus to his vessels, and laid waste the fertile plains of western Pontus. Still Mithridates refrained from retaliation till he had applied to the Roman legate either to restrain the aggressor or to permit him to defend himself. Aquillius, who had resolved on war for his own profit and glory, intimated that resistance to Bithynia would be deemed hostility to Rome. With the courage of despair, the king exclaimed,-"Does not even he who must succumb at last defend himself against the robber?" The advance of his son into Cappadocia was followed by a declaration of war from the Roman envoy (B.c. 89).

The insurrection of the Italian allies, broken but still unsubdued, and the growing civil discords of Rome, gave Mithridates a breathing-space, which he used for immense preparations. His alliance with Tigranes was drawn into a league for the conquest of Asia Minor, of which Mithridates was to have the dominion and the Armenian the spoil. To the Greek cities Mithridates gave himself out as a liberator from the Roman yoke, nor did his envoys restrict their efforts to Asia. The Cretan league, the last remnant of free Hellas, furnished him with numerous recruits; and attempts

were made to rouse Macedonia and Thrace. The kingdoms of Syria, Egypt, and Numidia, were tempted with the opportunity of shaking off their vassalage to Rome; and the neutrality of Parthia was secured by the offence which had been given by Sulla. Mithridates took the field with an army of 250,000 infantry and 40,000 horse, which bore all the characters of an Asiatic host in the variety and splendour of its equipments and the want of unity in its organization. It was, however, commanded by experienced Greek generals, the chief of whom were the brothers Neoptolemus and Archelaus; and the Italian refugees formed the nucleus of a foreign legion, armed after the Roman fashion. A fleet of 300 decked and 100 open vessels rode upon the Euxine, whence innumerable corsairs issued forth to prey upon the commerce of the Mediterranean. To oppose these forces the Romans had only the small provincial army and the untrustworthy militia of the Greek cities, stationed on the frontiers of Bithynia, Galatia, and Cappadocia, under L. Cassius, M' Aquillius, and Q. Oppius; while the army of Nicomedes held an advanced position in Paphlagonia, and his fleet, in conjunction with a Roman squadron, blockaded the Bosporus.

At the very time when Rome was torn by the intestine conflict, to decide whether Sulla or Marius should have the command against Mithridates-in the spring of B.C. 88-the storm burst upon the undefended province. A brilliant victory over Nicomedes in Paphlagonia was followed by the successive defeats of the Roman generals, who shut themselves up in fortresses, while the conqueror overran the province of Asia. His policy in dismissing his Greek prisoners, and the news of the civil war at Rome, decided the subjects, both Hellenic and'Asiatic, to welcome Mithridates as a deliverer. Even the islands joined in the divine honours paid to him, and Mytilene delivered up Aquillius, who was paraded throughout Asia with every indignity, and finally brought to Pergamus and set before Mithridates, who ordered molten gold to be poured down his throat, a savage satire on the motive with which he had provoked the war. A far more savage deed of impolitic cruelty revealed the true character of the war and its leader. From Ephesus Mithridates issued an edict for the simultaneous massacre of all Italians, whether slaves or free, without distinction of age or sex; and the command was the more zealously obeyed as a means of wiping off the debts of the provincials. In one day 150,000, or, on the lowest computation, 80,000 persons were put to death, and their bodies cast out to the

dogs and birds of prey. Their property was swept into the treasury of the king, who now fixed his court at Pergamus, as the monarch of Asia, leaving his son Mithridates to reign as viceroy at his former capital of Sinope, and erecting Cappadocia, Phrygia, and Bithynia into satrapies. His followers were enriched with gifts of land and money, and the states which had submitted to him were rewarded with freedom from taxation for five years. Caria and Lycia were the only countries not overrun; Magnesia on the Mæander the only city that still held out. The Ægæan was in the full possession of the Pontic fleet, and nearly all the islands had submitted; but Rhodes afforded an asylum to the Romans who had escaped with the governor L. Cassius, and Mithridates was foiled in a great effort to take the city. But the schemes of Mithridates were not limited to the conquest of Asia; he had resolved, like Antiochus, to make Greece his battle-ground for empire. He had already for some time instigated the Thracian tribes to attack Macedonia, which was now entered by an army under his son Ariarathes, while his fleet-after perpetrating savage massacres in Delos and Euboea-began vigorous operations on the coast. Meanwhile his envoys were busy among the Greek states. At Athens, in particular, a creature of his, named Aristion, who had been first a slave and afterwards a teacher of philosophy, and whose skill in speaking was supported by the wildest fables concerning the great king's power and allies,* persuaded the Attic mob and their literary leaders to revolt from Rome, and to deliver up the Piræus to the fleet of Mithridates, while he himself exercised a sanguinary despotism by the aid of Pontic troops. The example of Athens was followed by the revolt of all Greece as far as Thessaly; and the Roman general Bruttius Sura had hard work to defend Macedonia. An embassy from the Italians who were still in arms now invited Mithridates to pass over into Italy; but he knew that the insurrection had been quelled, he had neither the inclination nor the ability to act the part of Hannibal, and he preferred to await the attack which Sulla was now ready to make upon his forces in Greece.

Sulla landed in Epirus in the spring of B.c. 87, with five legions, amounting to not more than 6000 men,† with an empty military chest, and without a single ship of war. But the general knew

It is hardly credible that he promised aid from Carthage, as being still a flourishing state.

The Social War, by cutting off the auxiliary force of the Italian allies, had reduced the legions to about half their former strength.

how to make the war support itself. Before the enemy had time to take military possession of the revolted but helpless states of Central and Southern Greece, he marched across into Boeotia, and there defeated the only army that was in the field, under Archelaus and Aristion. The latter threw himself into Athens, and the former into Piræus, which were now separate fortresses since the demolition of the Long Walls. The siege of both was formed. by Sulla, and the Athenians saw the sacred trees of the Academy and the Lyceum, beneath which they had so long enjoyed the repose of a University, cut down to build the Roman engines. The defeat of a relieving army was balanced by Archelaus's complete command of the sea; and the attempt to storm Piræus failed, after a furious struggle. But the communication between the port and city was almost entirely cut off by the close blockade, and, by the end of winter, Athens was reduced to the extremity of famine. To the offers of capitulation, Sulla replied that he had not come there as a student, to hear the speeches of rhetoricians, but as a general, to enforce obedience to Rome. The city was taken by storm, on the 1st of March, B.C. 86, and given up to massacre and plunder. Aristion, who had retreated to the Acropolis, surrendered, and was put to death with the other ringleaders. After making this example of terror, Sulla restored to the city its freedom, and even allowed it to retain Delos, which it had received from Mithridates.

Still Piræus remained untaken, and a year had passed without the least impression being made on Asia, which seemed in fact beyond Sulla's reach, as he possessed no fleet. Meanwhile he might expect daily to have to meet in battle the consul Flaccus, who had been appointed to supersede him by the authorities at Rome. The impatience of Mithridates had already prepared his deliverance from these difficulties. An army of 100,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry appeared in Boeotia about the time of the fall of Athens, and Archelaus evacuated Piræus to join this force. A great battle, fought against his advice near Charonea, was gained by the superb generalship of Sulla against numbers thrice above his own; and Archelaus is said to have drawn off into Eubœa not more than a twelfth of his immense army. But he still commanded the sea, and we find him attacking the Ionian islands, while Sulla was called to meet Flaccus in Epirus. The consul had but two legions; and, when he found Sulla's soldiers proof The Long Walls had already fallen into decay in the time of Philip V., B.C. 200. Liv. XXXI. 26). Sulla used their materials in casting up his mounds against Piræus.

against his solicitations, he retired from Macedonia, and marched on through Thrace into Asia, unmolested by his rival. The danger of a civil war in presence of the common enemy was not only averted for the present, but the very jealousy of the two commanders led to those operations in Asia, which Sulla was not in a position to undertake. On this occasion, as when he decided to embark from Campania, he must not be refused the praise of at least postponing his personal ambition to the cause of the Republic. Whether he waited to see how Flaccus would fare in Asia, or whether his presence was necessary to settle the affairs of Greece, he seems to have spent a second winter at Athens (B.c.86-85); and in the spring he defeated another vast army, which Mithridates sent into Greece, with peremptory orders for Archelaus to fight. The battle, which took place near Orchomenus, was more obstinate than that of Chæronea, and the victory is ascribed to an act of personal bravery, like that of Bonaparte at the bridge of Lodi. Seeing the legions wavering beneath the furious charges of the Asiatic horse, Sulla seized a standard and rushed amongst the enemy, crying out to his soldiers that, when they were asked where they had left their general, they might answer

"at Orchomenus." The victory finally decided the fate of Greece. The remainder of this third campaign was spent in driving the enemy out of Macedonia; and Sulla wintered in Thessaly, while ships were building in its ports to carry him over to Asia in the ensuing spring.

Mithridates had meanwhile shown himself in the true colours of a savage Asiatic despot. The Greek cities were alienated by his tyranny; the Galatians were driven into open insurrection by the massacre of their chiefs; and no less than sixteen hundred men had been condemned to death for plots to assassinate the king. The provincials were far more prepared to receive the Romans as deliverers from their liberator, than if Sulla had been able at first to march into Asia. The energy of his legate, L. Licinius Lucullus-who afterwards commanded in the second Mithridatic War-had collected a fleet in the ports of Syria, Cyprus, Pamphylia, and Rhodes; and he had recovered several of the islands on the Carian and Ionian coasts. Meanwhile Flaccus had pursued his march through Thrace to Byzantium, and had crossed the Bosporus to Chalcedon, where he fell a victim to a military insurrection, headed by C. Flavius Fimbria, who, as one of the most violent of the Roman demagogues, and an active agent in the Marian massacres, had acquired popularity with the low class from