be buried with him. Among other honours which were paid to Lysander after death, the Spartans fined the suitors of his daughters, because when after his death his poverty was discovered, they refused to marry them, thus showing that they had paid their court to him when they believed him to be rich, and neglected him when his poverty proved him to have been just and honourable. It appears that in Sparta there were actions at law against men who did not marry, or who married too late in life or unbecomingly: under which last head came those who tried to marry into rich families, instead of marrying persons of good birth and their own friends. This is what we have found to tell about the life of Lysander.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 146: A Persian gold coin, first coined by Darius the son of Hystaspes, worth £1 1s. 10d. English money.]
[Footnote 147: All ancient ships were managed with two rudders.]
[Footnote 148: Alluding to the cruelties practised by Philokles on the Andrians and Corinthians, and the decree for the mutilation of the captives, of which Philokles was the author.]
[Footnote 149: Golden crowns, at this period of Greek history, was the name applied to large sums of money voted by cities to men whose favour they hoped to gain.]
[Footnote 150: A spit is called obelus in Greek.]
[Footnote 151: Probably of each of the Spartan admirals who had commanded during the war. It should be remembered that Lysander was nominally admiral when he won the battle of Ægospotami.]
[Footnote 152: The Greek word probably means papyrus. Clough translates it "parchment."--cf. Aulus Gellius, xvii. 9.]
[Footnote 153: Ulysses.]
[Footnote 154: An Egyptian divinity, represented with ram's horns, and identified by the Romans with Jupiter, and by the Greeks with Zeus. He possessed a celebrated temple and oracle in the oasis of Ammonium [Footnote 155: Megara was always treated by the Greeks with the utmost contempt, as possessing no importance, political or otherwise.]
[Footnote 156: Agesilaus offered sacrifice at Aulis, in imitation of Agamemnon, before starting for Asia. But before he had completed the rite, the Bœotarchs sent a party of horse to enjoin him to desist, and the men did not merely deliver the message, but scattered the parts of the victim which they found on the altar.--Thirlwall's _History of Greece_, ch. xxxv.]
[Footnote 157: The name of this fountain should probably be corrected from Strabo and Pausanias, and read Tilphusa, or [Footnote 158: Strabo tells us, Haliartus was destroyed by the Romans in the war with Perseus. He also mentions a lake near it, which produces canes or reeds, not for shafts of javelins, but for pipes or flutes. Compare Plutarch's Life of Sulla, ch. xx. _ad fin_.]
[Footnote 159: The Greeks attached great importance to the burial of the dead, and after a battle, that party which demanded a truce for collecting and burying its dead was thought to have admitted itself to have been defeated. Naturally, therefore, the proposal was regarded as humiliating by the Spartans of 395 B.C.]
[Footnote 160: It should be remembered that Chæronea was Plutarch's own city, and that he was a priest at Delphi, and, consequently, was especially familiar with the country here described.]
[Footnote 161: _Hoplites_, in Greek, usually means a warrior fully armed.]
LIFE OF SULLA.
I. Lucius Cornelius Sulla,[162] by birth, belonged to the Patricians, whom we may consider as corresponding to the Eupatridæ. Among his ancestors is enumerated Rufinus,[163] who became consul; but is less noted for attaining this honour than for the infamy which befell him.
He was detected in possessing above ten pounds' weight of silver plate, which amount the law did not permit, and he was ejected from the Senate. His immediate descendants continued in a mean condition, and Sulla himself was brought up with no great paternal property. When he was a young man he lived in lodgings, for which he paid some moderate sum, which he was afterwards reproached with, when he was prospering beyond his deserts, as some thought. It was after the Libyan expedition, when he was assuming airs of importance and a haughty tone, that a man of high rank and character said to him, How can you be an honest man who are now so rich, and yet your father left you nothing? For though the Romans no longer remained true to their former integrity and purity of morals, but had declined from the old standard, and let in luxury and expense among them, they still considered it equally a matter of reproach for a man to have wasted the property that he once had, and not to remain as poor as his ancestors. Subsequently when Sulla was in the possession of power and was putting many to death, a man of the class of Libertini, who was suspected of concealing a proscribed person, and for this offence was going to be thrown down the Tarpeian rock, reproached Sulla with the fact that they had lived together for some time in one house; that he had paid two thousand sestertii for his lodgings, which were in the upper part of the house, and Sulla three thousand for the lower rooms; and, consequently, that between their fortunes there was only the difference of a thousand sestertii, which is equivalent to two hundred and fifty Attic drachmæ. This is what is recorded of Sulla's early condition.
II. As for his person, we may judge of it by his statues, except his eyes and complexion. His eyes were an uncommonly pure and piercing blue, which the colour of his face rendered still more terrific, being spotted with rough red blotches, interspersed with the white; from which circumstance, it is said, he got his name Sulla, which had reference to his complexion; and one of the Athenian satirists[164] in derision made the following verse in allusion to it: "Sulla is a mulberry besprinkled with meal."
It is not out of place to avail ourselves of such traits of a man who is said to have had so strong a natural love of buffoonery, that when he was still young and of no repute, he spent his time and indulged himself among mimi[165] and jesters; and when he was at the head of the state, he daily got together from the scena and the theatre the lewdest persons, with whom he would drink and enter into a contest of coarse witticisms, in which he had no regard to his age, and, besides degrading the dignity of his office, he neglected many matters that required attention. It was not Sulla's habit when he was at table to trouble himself about anything serious, but though he was energetic and rather morose at other times, he underwent a complete change as soon as he went into company and was seated at an entertainment, for he was then exceedingly complaisant to singers of mimi and dancers, and easy of access and affable. This habit of relaxation seems to have produced in him the vice of being exceedingly addicted to women and that passion for enjoyment which stuck to him to his old age. In his youth he was for a long time attached to one Metrobius,[166] an actor. The following incident also happened to him:--He formed an attachment to a woman named Nicopolis, who was of mean condition, but rich, and from long familiarity and the favour which he found on account of his youth, he came to be considered as a lover, and when the woman died she left him her heir. He also succeeded to the inheritance of his step-mother, who loved him as her own son; and in this way he acquired a moderate fortune.
III. On being appointed Quæstor to Marius in his first consulship, he sailed with him to Libya, to prosecute the war against Jugurtha.[167] In this campaign he showed himself a man of merit, and by availing himself of a favourable opportunity he made a friend of Bocchus, king of the Numidians. Some ambassadors of Bocchus who had escaped from Numidian robbers were hospitably received by Sulla, and sent back with presents and a safe conduct. Now Bocchus happened for some time to have disliked his son-in-law Jugurtha, whom he was also afraid of; and as Jugurtha had been defeated by the Romans and had fled to Bocchus, he formed a design to make him his prisoner and deliver him to his enemies; but as he wished Sulla to be the agent rather than himself, he invited Sulla to come and see him. Sulla communicated the message to Marius, and, taking a few soldiers with him, ventured on the hazardous enterprise of putting himself in the hands of a barbarian who never kept his faith even with his friends, and this for the purpose of having another man betrayed to him. Bocchus, having got both of them in his power, was under the necessity of being treacherous to one of them, and after great fluctuations in his resolution, he finally carried into effect his original perfidious design, and surrendered Jugurtha to Sulla. Marius enjoyed the triumph for the capture of Jugurtha, but the honour of the success was given to Sulla through dislike of Marius, which caused Marius some uneasiness; for Sulla was naturally of an arrogant disposition, and as this was the first occasion, on which he had been raised from a mean condition and obscurity to be of some note among his fellow-citizens, and had tasted the sweets of distinction, he carried his pride so far as to have a seal-ring cut, on which the occurrence was represented, and he wore it constantly. The subject represented was Bocchus surrendering and Sulla receiving the surrender of Jugurtha.
IV. Though Marius was annoyed at this, yet as he still thought Sulla beneath his jealousy, he employed him in his campaigns--in his second consulship in the capacity of legate, and in his third consulship as tribune;[168] and by his instrumentality Marius effected many important objects. In his capacity of legate Sulla took Copillius, king of the Tectosages;[169] and when he was a tribune he persuaded the powerful and populous nation of the Marsi[170] to become friends and allies to Rome. But now perceiving that Marius was jealous of him, and was no longer willing to give him the opportunity of distinguishing himself, but opposed his further rise, Sulla attached himself to Catulus, the colleague of Marius, who was an honest man, but inactive as a soldier. Sulla being entrusted by Catulus with all matters of the greatest moment, thus attained both influence and reputation. In his military operations he reduced a large part of the Alpine barbarians; and on one occasion, when there was a scarcity of provisions in the camp, he undertook to supply the want, which he did so effectually that the soldiers of Catulus had not only abundance for themselves, but were enabled to relieve the army of Marius. This, as Sulla himself says, greatly annoyed Marius. Now this enmity, so slight and childish in its foundation and origin, was continued through civil war and the inveterate animosity of faction, till it resulted in the establishment of a tyranny and the complete overthrow of the constitution; which shows that Euripides[171] was a wise man and well acquainted with the diseases incident to states, when he warned against ambition, as the most dangerous and the worst of dæmons to those who are governed by her.
V. Sulla now thought that his military reputation entitled him to aspire to a political career, and accordingly as soon as the campaign was ended he began to seek the favour of the people, and became a candidate for the prætorship; but he was disappointed in his expectations. He attributed his failure to the populace, for he says that they knew he was a friend of Bocchus, and if he filled the office of ædile before that of prætor, they expected to have brilliant hunting exhibitions and fights of Libyan[172] wild beasts, and that therefore they elected others to the prætorship, with the view of forcing him to serve as ædile. But that Sulla does not state the real cause of his failure appears evident from what followed. In the next year he obtained the prætorship, having gained the votes of the people, partly by solicitation and partly by bribery. It was in allusion to this, and during his prætorship when he was threatening Cæsar[173] to use his own authority against him, that Cæsar replied with a laugh, You are right in considering your authority as your own, for you bought it. After the expiration of his prætorship he was sent to Cappadocia, for the purpose, as it was given out, of restoring Ariobarzanes[174] to his power, but in reality to check Mithridates,[175] who was very active and was acquiring new territory and dominion as extensive as what he already had. Sulla took with him no large force of his own, but meeting with zealous co-operation on the part of the allies, he slaughtered a great number of the Cappadocians, and on another occasion a still greater number of Armenians who had come to the relief of the Cappadocians, drove out Gordius, and declared Ariobarzanes king. While he was staying near the Euphrates, the Parthian general Orobazus, a commander of King Arsaces,[176] had an interview with him, which was the first occasion on which the two nations met; and this also may be considered as one of the very fortunate events in Sulla's successful career, that he was the first Roman to whom the Parthians addressed themselves in their request for an alliance and friendship with Rome. Sulla is said to have had three chairs placed, one for Ariobarzanes, another for Orobazus, and a third for himself, on which he took his seat between the two, while the business was transacted. The king of the Parthians is said to have put Orobazus to death for submitting to this indignity; as to Sulla, some commended him for his haughty treatment of the barbarians, while others blamed him for his arrogance and ill-timed pride. It is said there was a man among the attendants of Orobazus, a Chaldæan,[177] who examined the countenance of Sulla and observed the movements of his mind and body, not as an idle spectator, but studying his character according to the principles of his art, and he declared that of necessity that man must become the first of men, and he wondered that he could endure not to be the first already. On his return to Rome Censorinus[178] instituted proceedings against Sulla on the charge of having received large sums of money, contrary to express law, from a king who was a friend and ally of the Romans.
Censorinus did not bring the matter to a trial, but gave up the prosecution.
VI. His quarrel with Marius was kindled anew by fresh matter supplied by the ostentation of King Bocchus, who, with the view of flattering the Roman people and pleasing Sulla, dedicated in the Capitol some figures bearing trophies, and by the side of them placed a gilded figure of Jugurtha being surrendered by himself to Sulla. Marius was highly incensed and attempted to take the figures down, while others were ready to support Sulla, and the city was all but in a flame through the two factions, when the Social War which had long smouldered burst forth in a blaze upon Rome and stopped the civil discord. In this most serious war, which was attended with many variations of fortune, and brought on the Romans the greatest misery and the most formidable dangers, Marius by his inability to accomplish anything of importance showed that military excellence requires bodily vigour and strength: but Sulla by his great exploits obtained among his own citizens the reputation of a great commander, among his friends the reputation of the very greatest, and among his enemies too the reputation of the most fortunate of generals. Sulla did not behave like Timotheus[179] the son of Konon, whose success was attributed by his enemies to fortune, and they had paintings made in which he was represented asleep while Fortune was throwing a net over the cities, all which he took in a very boorish way, and got into a passion with his enemies, as if they were thus attempting to deprive him of the honour due to his exploits; and on one occasion, returning from a successful expedition, he said to the people, "Well, Fortune has had no share in this campaign, at least, Athenians." Now, as the story goes, Fortune[180] showed her spite to Timotheus in return for his arrogance, and he never did anything great afterwards, but failing in all his undertakings and becoming odious to the people, he was at last banished from the city. But Sulla by gladly accepting such felicitations on his prosperity and such admiration, and even contributing to strengthen these notions and to invest them with somewhat of a sacred character, made all his exploits depend on Fortune; whether it was that he did this for the sake of display, or because he really had such opinions of the deity. Indeed he has recorded in his memoirs, that the actions which he resolved upon without deliberation, and on the spur of the moment, turned out more successfully than those which appeared to have been best considered.
And again, from the passage in which he says that he was made more for fortune than for war, he appears to attribute more to fortune than to his merit, and to consider himself completely as the creature of the dæmon;[181] nay, he cites as a proof of good fortune due to the favour of the gods his harmony with Metellus, a man of the same rank with himself, and his father-in-law, for he expected that Metellus would cause him a good deal of trouble, whereas he was a most accommodating colleague.[182] Further, in his memoirs which he dedicated to Lucullus, he advises him to think nothing so safe as what the dæmon enjoins during the night. When he was leaving the city with his troops for the Social War, as he tells us in his memoirs, a great chasm opened in the earth near Laverna,[183] from which a quantity of fire burst forth, and a bright flame rose like a column to the skies.
The diviners said that a brave man, of an appearance different from and superior to ordinary men, would obtain the command and relieve the city from its present troubles, Sulla says this man was himself, for the golden colour of his hair was a peculiarity in his personal appearance, and that he had no diffidence about bearing testimony to his own merits after so many illustrious exploits. So much as to his religious opinions. As to the other parts of his character, he was irregular and inconsistent: he would take away much, and give more; he would confer honours without any good reason, and do a grievous wrong with just as little reason; he courted those whose assistance he wanted, and behaved with arrogance to those who wanted his aid; so that one could not tell whether he had naturally more haughtiness or subserviency. For as to his inconsistency in punishing, sometimes inflicting death for the slightest matters, and at others quietly bearing the greatest wrongs, his ready reconciliations with his deadly enemies, and his prosecution of slight and trifling offences with death and confiscation of property--all this may be explained on the supposition that he was naturally of a violent and vindictive temper, but sometimes moderated his passion upon calculations of interest.
During this Social War his soldiers killed with sticks and stones a man of Prætorian rank, who was his legatus, Albinus[184] by name, an outrage which Sulla overlooked, and made no inquiry about: he went so far as to say, with apparent seriousness, that the soldiers would bestir themselves the more in the war and make amends for their fault by their courage. As to any blame that was imputed to him, he cared not for it; but having already formed the design of overthrowing the power of Marius and of getting himself appointed to the command against Mithridates, as the Social War was now considered at an end, he endeavoured to ingratiate himself with his army. On coming to Rome he was elected consul with Quintus Pompeius[185] for his colleague, being now fifty years of age, and he formed a distinguished matrimonial alliance with Cæcilia,[186] the daughter of Metellus,[187] the chief Pontifex. This gave occasion to the populace to assail him with satirical songs; and many of the highest class were displeased at the marriage, as if they did not think him worthy of such a wife, whom they had judged to be worthy of the consulship, as Titus Livius[188] remarks. Cæcilia was not the only wife that Sulla had. When he was a very young man he married Ilia, who bore him a daughter; his second wife was Ælia; and his third wife was Clœlia, whom he divorced on the ground of barrenness, yet in a manner honourable to the lady, with an ample testimony to her virtues and with presents. But as he married Metella a few days after, it was believed that his alleged ground of divorce was merely a pretext. However, he always paid great respect to Metella, which induced the Romans, when they wished to recall from exile the partisans of Marius, and Sulla refused his assent, to apply to Metella to intercede for them. After the capture of Athens also, it was supposed that he treated the citizens with more severity, because they had cast aspersions upon Metella from their walls. But of this hereafter.
VII. Sulla looked on the consulship as only a small matter compared with what he expected to attain: the great object of his desires was the command in the war against Mithridates. But he had a rival in Marius, who was moved by an insane love of distinction and by ambition, passions which never grow old in a man, for though he was now unwieldy and had done no service in the late campaigns by reason of his age, he still longed for the command in a distant war beyond the seas. While Sulla was with the army completing some matters that still remained to be finished, Marius kept at home and hatched that most pestilent faction which did more mischief to Rome than all her wars; and indeed the deity[189] showed by signs what was coming. Fire spontaneously blazed from the wooden shafts which supported the military standards, and was quenched with difficulty; and three crows brought their young into the public road, and after devouring them, carried the fragments back to their nest. The mice in a temple gnawed the gold which was kept there, and the keeper of the temple caught one of the mice, a female, in a trap, which produced in the trap five young ones, and devoured three of them. But what was chief of all, from a cloudless and clear sky there came the sound of a trumpet, so shrill and mournful, that by reason of the greatness thereof men were beside themselves and crouched for fear. The Tuscan seers interpreted this to portend the commencement of a new period, and a general change. They say that there are in all eight periods, which differ in mode of life and habits altogether from one another, and to each period is assigned by the deity a certain number of years determined by the revolution of a great year. When a period is completed, the commencement of another is indicated by some wondrous sign on the earth or from the heavens, so as to make it immediately evident to those who attend to such matters and have studied them, that men are now adopting other habits and modes of life, and are less or more an object of care to the gods than the men of former periods. They say, in the change from one period to another there are great alterations, and that the art of the seer at one time is held in high repute, and is successful in its predictions, when the deity gives clear and manifest signs, but that in the course of another period the art falls into a low condition, being for the most part conjectural, and attempting to know the future by equivocal and misty signs. Now this is what the Tuscan wise men said, who are supposed to know more of such things than anybody else. While the senate was communicating on these omens with the seers, in the temple of Bellona,[190] a sparrow flew in before the whole body with a grasshopper in his mouth, part of which he dropped, and the rest he carried off with him out of the place. From this the interpreters of omens apprehended faction and divisions between the landholders on the one side and the city folk and the merchant class on the other, for the latter were loud and noisy like a grasshopper, but the owners of land kept quiet on their estates.
VIII. Now Marius contrived to gain over the tribune Sulpicius,[191] a man without rival in any kind of villainy, and so one need not inquire whom he surpassed in wickedness, but only wherein he surpassed himself. For in him were combined cruelty, audacity, and rapaciousness, without any consideration of shame or of any crime, inasmuch as he sold the Roman citizenship to libertini[192] and resident aliens, and publicly received the money at a table in the Forum. He maintained three thousand men armed with daggers, and also a number of young men of the equestrian class always about him, and ready for anything, whom he called the Opposition Senate. He caused a law to be passed that no Senator should contract debt[193] to the amount of more than two thousand drachmæ, and yet at his death he left behind him a debt of three millions. This man being let loose upon the people by Marius, and putting everything into a state of confusion by violence and force of arms, framed various pernicious laws, and among them that which gave to Marius the command in the Mithridatic war. The consuls accordingly declared a cessation[194] of all public business; but while they were holding a meeting of the people near the temple of Castor and Pollux, Sulpicius with his rabble attacked them, and among many others massacred the youthful son of Pompeius in the Forum; Pompeius only escaped by hiding himself. Sulla was pursued into the house of Marius, from which he was compelled to come out and repeal the edict for the cessation of public business; and it was for this reason that Sulpicius, though he deprived Pompeius of his office, did not take the consulship from Sulla, but, merely transferred the command of the Mithridatic war to Marius, and sent some tribunes forthwith to Nola to take the army and lead it to Marius.
IX. But Sulla made his escape to the camp before the tribunes arrived, and the soldiers hearing of what had passed, stoned them to death; upon which the partisans of Marius murdered the friends of Sulla who were in the city, and seized their property. This caused many persons to betake themselves to flight, some going to the city from the camp, and others from the camp to the city. The Senate was not its own master, but was compelled to obey the orders of Marius and Sulpicius; and on hearing that Sulla was marching upon Rome, they sent to him two of the prætors, Brutus and Servilius, to forbid him to advance any further. The prætors, who assumed a bold tone before Sulla, narrowly escaped being murdered; as it was, the soldiers broke their fasces, stripped them of their senatorial dress, and sent them back with every insult. It caused dejection in the city to see the prætors return without their insignia of office, and to hear them report that the commotion could not be checked, and was past all remedy. Now the partisans of Marius were making their preparations, while Sulla with his colleague and six complete legions was moving from Nola; he saw that the army was ready to march right to the city, but he had some hesitation himself, and feared the risk.[195] However upon Sulla making a sacrifice, the seer Postumius, after inspecting the signs, stretched out his hands to Sulla and urged him to put him in chains and keep him a prisoner till the battle took place, declaring that if everything did not speedily turn out well, he was ready to be put to death. It is said also that Sulla in his sleep had a vision of the goddess, whose worship the Romans had learned from the Cappadocians, whatever her name may be, Selene,[196] Athena, or Enyo. Sulla dreamed that the goddess stood by him and put a thunderbolt into his hand, and as she named each of his enemies bade him dart the bolt at them, which he did, and his enemies were struck to the ground and destroyed. Being encouraged by the dream, which he communicated to his colleague, at daybreak Sulla led his forces against Rome. When he was near Picinæ[197] he was met by a deputation which entreated him not to march forthwith against the city, for all justice would be done pursuant to a resolution of the Senate. Sulla consented to encamp there, and ordered the officers to measure out the ground for the encampment, according to the usual practice, and the deputation went away trusting to his promise. But as soon as they were gone, Sulla sent Lucius Bacillus and Caius Mummius, who seized the gate and that part of the walls which surrounds the Esquiline hill, and Sulla set out to join them with all speed. Bacillus and his soldiers broke into the city and attempted to gain possession of it, but the people in large numbers, being unarmed, mounted the house-tops, and by pelting the soldiers with tiles and stones stopped their further progress, and drove them back to the wall. In the mean time Sulla had come up, and seeing how matters stood, he called out that the houses must be fired, and taking a flaming torch, he was the first to advance: he also ordered the bowmen to shoot firebrands, and to aim at the roofs; in which he acted without any rational consideration, giving way to passion, and surrendering the direction of his enterprize to revenge, for he saw before him only his enemies, and without thought or pity for his friends and kinsmen, would force his way into Rome with the help of flames, which know no distinction between the guilty and the innocent. While this was going on, Marius, who had been driven as far as the temple of Earth,[198] invited the slaves to join him by offering them their freedom, but being overpowered by his enemies who pressed on him, he left the city.
X. Sulla assembled the Senate, who condemned[199] to death Marius and a few others, among whom was the tribune Sulpicius. Sulpicius was put to death, being betrayed by a slave, to whom Sulla gave his freedom, and then ordered him to be thrown down the Tarpeian rock: he set a price on the head of Marius, which was neither a generous nor a politic measure, as Marius had shortly before let Sulla off safe when Sulla put himself into his power by going to the house of Marius. Now if Marius had not let Sulla go, but had given him up to Sulpicius to be put to death, he might have secured the supreme power; but he spared Sulla; and yet a few days after, when Sulla had the same opportunity, Marius did not obtain from him a like return. The conduct of Sulla offended the Senate, though they durst not show it; but the dislike of the people and their dissatisfaction were made apparent to him by their acts. They contemptuously rejected Nonius, the son of Sulla's sister, and Servius, who were candidates for offices, and elected those whose elevation they thought would be most disagreeable to Sulla. But Sulla pretended to be pleased at this, and to view it as a proof that the people, by doing what they liked, were really indebted to him for their liberty; and for the purpose of diminishing his general unpopularity he managed the election of Lucius Cinna,[200] who was of the opposite faction, to the consulship, having first bound him by solemn imprecations and oaths to favour his measures. Cinna ascended the Capitol with a stone in his hand and took the oath; then pronouncing an imprecation on himself, that, if he did not keep faithful to Sulla, he might be cast out of the city as the stone from his hand, he hurled it to the ground in the presence of a large number of persons. But as soon as Cinna had received the consulship, he attempted to disturb the present settlement of affairs, and prepared to institute a process against Sulla, and induced Virginius, one of the tribunes, to be the accuser; but Sulla,[201] without caring for him or the court, set out with his army against Mithridates.
XI. It is said that about the time when Sulla was conducting his armament from Italy, many omens occurred to Mithridates, who was staying in Pergamum, and that a Victory, bearing a crown, which the people of Pergamum were letting down upon him by some machinery from above, was broken in pieces just as it was touching his head, and the crown falling upon the theatre, came to the ground and was destroyed, which made the spectators shudder and greatly dispirited Mithridates, though his affairs were then going on favourably beyond all expectation. For he had taken Asia[202] from the Romans, and Bithynia and Cappadocia from their kings, and had fixed himself at Pergamum, where he was distributing wealth and provinces and kingdoms among his friends; one of his sons also held without any opposition the ancient dominions in Pontus, and the Bosporus[203] as far as the uninhabited regions beyond the Mæotis; Ariarathes[204] occupied Thrace and Macedonia with a large army; and his generals with their forces were subduing other places. Archelaus,[205] the greatest of his generals, was master of all the sea with his navy, and was subjugating the Cyclades[206] and all the other islands east of Malea, and had already taken Eubœa, while with his army, advancing from Athens as his starting-point, he was gaining over all the nations of Greece as far north as Thessaly, and had only sustained a slight check near Chæroneia. For there he was met by Bruttius Sura,[207] a legatus of Sentius, prætor of Macedonia, and a man of signal courage and prudence. Archelaus was sweeping through Bœotia like a torrent, when he was vigorously opposed by Sura, who, after fighting three battles near Chæroneia, repulsed him and drove him back to the coast. On receiving orders from Lucius Lucullus[208] to make room for Sulla, who was coming, and to allow him to carry on the war, for which he had received his commission, Sura immediately left Bœotia and went back to Sentius, though he had succeeded beyond his expectations, and Greece was well disposed to change sides on account of his great merit.
However, these exploits of Bruttius were very brilliant.
XII. Now all the rest of the Grecian cities immediately sent deputations to Sulla and invited him to enter; but against Athens, which was compelled by the tyrant Aristion[209] to be on the king's side, he directed all his energies; he also hemmed in and blockaded the Peiræus,[210] employing every variety of engine and every mode of attack. If he had waited a short time, he might have taken the Upper City without danger, for through want of provisions it was reduced by famine to extreme necessity; but anxious to return to Rome, and fearing a new revolution there, at great risk fighting many battles and at great cost he urged on the war, wherein, besides the rest of the expenditure, the labour about the military engines required ten thousand pair of mules to be daily employed on this service. As wood