 Part 19 of Volume 2 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Volume 2 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. Translated by Bernadotte Perrin. Lucullus. Part 2. But in the meantime, Mithridates planned a blow at Cisacus, which had suffered terribly in the battle near Calcedon, having lost three thousand men and ten ships. Accordingly, wishing to evade the notice of Lucullus, he set out immediately after the evening meal, taking advantage of a dark and rainy night, and succeeded in planting his forces over against the city, on the slopes of the mountain range of Adrecia, by daybreak. Lucullus got wind of his departure and pursued him, but was well satisfied not to fall upon the enemy, while his own troops were in disorder from their march, and stationed his army near the village called Thracia, in a spot best suited to command the roads and regions from which, and over which, the army of Mithridates must get its necessary supplies. Seeing clearly, therefore, what the issue must be, he did not conceal it from his soldiers, but as soon as they had completed the labor of fortifying their camp, called them together, and boastfully told them that within a few days he would give them their victory, and that without any bloodshed. Mithridates was besieging Sizzacus both by land and sea, having encompassed it with ten camps on the land side, and having blockaded with his ships by sea the narrow strait which parts the city from the mainland. Although the citizens viewed their peril with a high courage, and were resolved to sustain every hardship for the sake of the Romans, still they knew not where Lucullus was, and were disturbed because they heard nothing of him. And yet his camp was in plain sight, only they were deceived by their enemies. Those pointed the Romans out to them, lying encamped on the heights, and said, Do you see those forces? It is an army of Armenians and Medes, which Tigranus has sent to assist Mithridates. They were therefore terrified to see such hosts encompassing them, and had no hopes that any way of succor remained, even if Lucullus should come. However, in the first place, Deminax was sent into them by Arceleus, and told them that Lucullus was arrived. They disbelieved him, and thought that he had invented his story merely to mitigate their anxieties. But then a boy came to them, who had escaped from his captivity with the enemy. On there asking him where he thought Lucullus was, he laughed at them, supposing them to be jesting. But when he saw that they were an earnest, he pointed out the Roman camp to them, and their courage was revived. Again Lucullus drew out on shore the largest of the sizable craft which plied the lake Discalitus, carried it across the sea on a wagon, and embarked upon it as many soldiers as it would hold, who crossed by night unobserved and got safely into the city. It would seem also that heaven, in admiration of their bravery, emboldened the men of Cisacus by many manifest signs, and especially by the following. The festival of Persephone was at hand, and the people, in lack of a black heifer for the sacrifice, fashioned one of dough and brought it to the altar. Now the sacred heifer reared for the goddess was pasturing, like the other herds of the Cisazines, on the opposite side of the Strait, but on that day she left her herd, swam over alone to the city, and presented herself for the sacrifice. And again the goddess appeared in a dream to Aristogorus, the town clerk, saying, Lo, here I am, and I bring the Livy and Pfeifer against the Pontic trumpeter. Bid the citizens therefore to be of good cheer. Now the Cisazines were lost in wondering at the saying, at daybreak the sea began to toss under a boisterous wind, and the siege engines of the king along the walls, the wonderful works of Niconides, the Thessalian, by their creaking and cracklings showed clearly what was about to happen. Then a south wind burst forth with incredible fury, shattered the other engines in a short space of time, and threw down with a great shock the wooden tower a hundred cubits high. It is related, too, that the goddess Athena appeared to many of the inhabitants of Ilium in their sleep, dripping with sweat, showing parts of her pepless torn away, and saying that she was just come from assisting the Cisazines. And the people of Ilium used to show a stele which had on it certain decrees and inscriptions relating to this matter. Mithridates, as long as his generals deceived him into ignorance of the famine in his army, was vets that the Cisazines should successfully withstand his siege. But his eager ambition quickly ebbed away when he perceived the straits in which his soldiers were involved, and their actual cannibalism. For Lucullus was not carrying on the war in any theatrical way, nor from ear display, but as the saying is, was kicking in the belly, and devising every means for cutting off food. Accordingly, while Lucullus was laying siege to some outpost or other, Mithridates eagerly took advantage of the opportunity, and sent away into Bithnia almost all his horsemen, together with the beasts of burden, and those of his foot soldiers who were disabled. On learning of this, Lucullus returned to his camp while it was still night, and early in the morning, in spite of a storm, took ten cohorts of infantry in his cavalry, and started in pursuit, although snow was falling and his hardships were extreme. Many of his soldiers were overcome with the cold and had to be left behind, but with the rest he overtook the enemy at the river Rindicus and inflicted such a defeat upon them that the very women came forth from Apollonia and carried off their baggage and stripped their slain. Many fell in the battle as it is natural to suppose. Six thousand horses and fifteen thousand men were captured, besides an untold number of beasts of burden. All these followed in the train of Lucullus as he marched back past the camp of the enemy. Solace says, to my amazement, that camels were then seen by the Romans for the first time. He must have thought that the soldiers of Scipio who conquered Antiochus before this, and those who had lately fought Arkelus at Arcomenis and Cheronia, were unacquainted with the camel. Mithridates was now resolved upon the speediest possible flight, but with a view to dragging Lucullus away, and holding him back from pursuit, he dispatched his admiral, Aristonicus, to the Grecian Sea. Aristonicus was just on the point of sailing when he was betrayed into the hands of Lucullus, together with ten thousand pieces of gold which he was carrying for the corruption of some portion of the Roman army. Upon this, Mithridates fled to the sea, and his generals of infantry began to lead the army away. But Lucullus fell upon them at the River Granicus, captured a vast number of them, and slew twenty thousand. It is said that out of the whole horde of camp-followers and fighting men, not much less than three hundred thousand perished in the campaign. Lucullus, in the first place, entered Cisacus in triumph, and enjoyed the pleasant welcome which was his due. Then he proceeded to the Hellespont, and began to equip a fleet. On visiting the Trud, he pitched his tent in the sacred precinct of Aphrodite, and in the night, after he had fallen asleep, he thought he saw the goddess standing over him and saying, Why dost thou sleep, great lion? The fawns are near for thy taking. Rising up from sleep and calling his friends, he narrated to them his vision, while it was yet night. Below there came certain men from Ilium, with tidings that thirteen of the king's galleys had been seen off the harbour of the Achaeans, making for Lemnos. Accordingly, Lucullus put to sea at once, captured these, slew their commander, Isidorus, and then sailed in pursuit of the other captains, whom these were seeking to join. They chanced to be lying at anchor close to shore, and drawing their vessels all up on land they fought from their decks, and sorely galled the crews of Lucullus. These had no chance to sail round their enemies, nor to make onset upon them, since their own ships were afloat, while those of their enemies were planted upon the land and securely fixed. However, Lucullus at last succeeded in disembarking the best of his soldiers, where the island afforded some sort of access. These fell upon the enemy from the rear, slew some of them, and forced the rest to cut their stern cables and fly from the shore, their vessels thus falling foul of one another, and receiving the impact of the ships of Lucullus. Many of the enemy perished, of course, and among the captives there was brought in Marius, the general sent from Sertorius. He had but one eye, and the soldiers had received strict orders from Lucullus as soon as they set sail to kill no one-eyed man. Lucullus wished Marius to die under the most shameful insults. These things being done, Lucullus hastened in pursuit of Mithridates himself. For he expected to find him still in Bithnia under the watch and ward of Vaconius, whom he had dispatched with a fleet to Nicomedia that he might intercept the king's flight. But Vaconius was behind hand, owing to his initiation into, and celebration of, the mysteries and samothrace, and Mithridates put to sea with his armament, eager to reach Pontus before Lucullus turned and set upon him. He was overtaken, however, by a great storm, which destroyed some of his vessels and disabled others. The whole coast for many days was covered with the wrecks dashed upon it by the billows. As for the king himself, the merchant-man on which he was sailing was too large to be readily beached when the sea ran so high and the waves were so baffling, nor would it answer to its helm, and it was now too heavy and full of water to gain an offing. Accordingly he abandoned it for a light brigantine belonging to some pirates, and entrusting his person to their hands, contrary to expectation, and after great hazard, got safely to Heraclea in Pontus. And so it happened that the boastful speech of Lucullus to the senate brought no divine retribution down upon him. When, namely, that body was ready to vote three thousand talents to provide a fleet for this war, Lucullus blocked the measure by writing a letter in which he made the haughty boast that without any such costly array, but only with the ships of the allies, he would drive Mithridates from the sea. In this success he gained with the assistance of Heaven, for it is said that it was owing to the wrath of Artemis of Priapus that the tempest fell upon the men of Pontus, who had plundered her shrine and pulled down her image. Though many now advise Lucullus to suspend the war, he paid no heed to them, but threw his army into the king's country by way of Bithnia and Galatia. At first he lacked the necessary supplies, so that thirty thousand Galatians followed in his train, each carrying a bushel of grain upon his shoulders. But as he advanced and mastered everything, he found himself in the midst of such plenty that an ox sold in his camp for a drachma, and a man slaved for four, while other booty had no value at all. Some abandoned it, and some destroyed it. There was no sale for anything to anybody when all had such abundance. But when Lucullus merely wasted and ravaged the country with cavalry incursions, which penetrated to Thymus Scoria in the plains of the River Thermodon, his soldiers found fault with him because he brought all the cities over to him by peaceful measures. He had not taken a single one by storm, they said, nor given them a chance to enrich themselves by plunder. Nay, they said, at this very moment we are leaving Amisus, a rich and prosperous city, which it would be no great matter to take, if its siege were pressed, and are following our general into the desert of Tiberini and the Chaldeans to fight with Mithridates. But these grievances, not dreaming that they would bring the soldiers to such acts of madness as they afterwards performed, Lucullus overlooked and ignored. He was, however, more ready to defend himself against those who denounced his slowness in lingering there a long while, subduing worthless little villages and cities, and allowing Mithridates to recruit himself. That, he said, is the very thing I want, and I am sitting here to get it. I want the man to become powerful again, and to get together a forth with which it is worth our while to fight, in order that he may stand his ground and not fly when we approach. Do you not see that he has a vast and trackless desert behind him? The Caucasus, too, is near, with its many hills and dels, which are sufficient to hide away in safety ten thousand kings who decline to fight. And it is only a few days' journey from Kibera into Armenia and over Armenia there sits enthroned to Granis, king of kings, with forces which enable him to cut the Parthians off from Asia, transplant Greek cities into Medea, sway Syria and Palestine, put to death the successors of Celisus, and carry off their wives and daughters into captivity. This king is a kinsman in Mithridates, his son-in-law. He will not be content to receive him as a supplient, but will make war against us. If we strive therefore to eject Mithridates from his kingdom, we shall run the risk of drawing to Granis down upon us. He has long wanted an excuse for coming against us, and could not get a better one than that of being compelled to aid a man who is his kinsman and a king. Why then should we bring this to pass, and teach Mithridates, when he does not know it, with what allies he must carry on a war against us? Why help to drive him against his wish and as a last resource, into the arms of to Granis, instead of giving him time to equip himself from his own resources and get fresh courage? And we shall fight with Calcians and Tiberini and Cappadocians, whom we have often overcome, rather than with Medes and Armenians. Influenced by such considerations as these, Lucullus lingered about Amisus, without punishing the siege vigorously. When winter was over he left Marina in charge of the siege, and marched against Mithridates, who had taken his stand at Kibera, and intended to await the Roman onset there. A force of forty thousand footmen had been collected by him, and four thousand horsemen. On the latter he placed his chief reliance. Crossing the river Lycus and advancing into the plain, he offered the Romans battle. A cavalry fight ensued, and the Romans took to flight. Pomponius, a man of some note, having been wounded, was taken prisoner and led into the presence of Mithridates, suffering greatly from his wounds. When the king asked him if he would become his friend, provided he spared his life, Pomponius answered, Yes, indeed, if you come to terms with the Romans, otherwise I must remain your enemy. Mithridates was struck with admiration for him, and did him no harm. Lucullus was now afraid of the plains, since the enemy was superior in cavalry, and yet hesitated to go forward into the hill-country, which was remote, woody, and impassable. But at chance that certain Greeks, who had taken refuge in a sort of cave, were captured, and the elder of them, Attimidorus, promised to serve Lucullus as a guide, and set him in a place which was safer his camp, and which had a fortress overlooking Cabira. Lucullus put confidence in this promise, and as soon as it was night, lit his campfires and set out. He passed safely through the narrow defiles and took possession of the desired place, and at daybreak was seen above the enemy, stationing his men in positions which gave him access to the enemy if he wished to fight, and safety from their assaults if he wished to keep quiet. Now neither commander had any intention of hazarding an engagement at once. But we are told that while some of the king's men were chasing a stag, the Romans cut them off and confronted them, whereupon a skirmish followed, with fresh assessions continually to either side. At last the king's men were victorious. Then the Romans in their camp, beholding the flight of their comrades, were in distress, and ran in throngs to Lucullus, begging him to lead them, and demanding the signal for battle. But he, wishing them to learn how important, in a dangerous struggle with the enemy, the visible presence of a prudent general is, bade them keep quiet. Then he went down into the plain by himself, and confronting the foremost of the fugitives bade them stop, and turn back with him. They obeyed, and the rest also wheeled about and formed in battle array, and in a short time routed the enemy and drove them to their camp. When he came back, however, Lucullus inflicted the customary disgrace upon the fugitives. He bade them dig a twelve-foot ditch, working in ungirt blouses, while the rest of the soldiers stood by and watched them. In the camp of Mithridates there was a Dandarian prince named Othicus, the Dandarians are a tribe of barbarians dwelling about like Matios, a man conspicuous as a soldier for qualities of strength and boldness, of a most excellent judgment, and with all affable in address and of insinuating manners. This man was always an emulous rivalry for the precedents with a fellow prince of his tribe, and so was led to undertake a great exploit for Mithridates, namely the murder of Lucullus. The king approved of his design, and purposefully inflicted upon him sundry marks of disgrace, whereupon, pretending to be enraged, he galloped off to Lucullus, who gladly welcomed him, since there was much talk of him in the camp. After a short probation, Lucullus was so pleased with his shrewdness and zeal that he made him a table-companion, and at last a member of his council. Now when the Dandarian thought his opportunity had come, he ordered his slaves to lead his horse outside the camp, while he himself at midday, when the soldiers were lying around enjoying their rest, went to the general's tent. He thought no one would deny entrance to a man who was an intimate of the general, and said he brought him certain messages of great importance. And he would have entered without, let or hindrance, had not sleep the destroyer of many generals, saved Lucullus. For a chance that he was asleep, and Menedemus, one of his chamberlains, who stood at the tent door, told Ulthicus that he had come at an inopportune time, since Lucullus had just but taken himself to rest after his long watching and many hardships. Ulthicus did not retire at the bidding of Menedemus, but declared that even in spite of him he would go in, since he wished to confer with the general on urgent business of great importance. Then Menedemus got angry, declared that nothing was more urgent than the preservation of Lucullus, and pushed the man away with both hands. Then Ulthicus in fear left the camp, took horse, and rode off to the camp of Mithridates, without affecting his purpose. So true is it that in active life, as well as in sickness, it is the critical moment which gives the scales their savings or their fatal inclination. After this, Sornatius was sent with ten cohorts to get supplies of grain. Being pursued by Menander, one of the generals of Mithridates, he faced about, joined battle, and routed the enemy with great slaughter. And again, when Adrian was sent out with a force to procure an abundance of grain for the soldiers, Mithridates did not look on idly, but dispatched Menomachus and Myron at the head of a large body of cavalry and footmen. All these it is said except two were cut to pieces by the Romans. Mithridates tried to conceal the extent of the disaster, pretending that it was a slight matter, and due to the inexperience of his generals. But when Adrian marched pompously past his camp, convoying many wagons laden with grain and booty, a great despair fell upon the king, and confusion and helpless fear upon his soldiers. They decided, therefore, to remain where they were no longer. But when the king's servants tried to send away their own baggage first, and to hinder the rest from going, the soldiers that once got angry pushed and forced their way to the excess of the camp, and there plundered the luggage and slew the men in charge of it. There it was that Dorleus, the general with nothing else about him but his purple robe, lost his life for that, and Hermaeus the priest was trampled to death at the gates. Mithridates himself, with no attendant or groom to assist him, fled away from the camp in the midst of the throng, not even provided with one of the royal horses. But at last the eunuch Ptolemaus, who was mounted, spied him as he was born along on the torrent of the route, leaped down from his horse and gave it to the king. Presently the Romans, who were forcing the pursuit, were hard upon him, and it was for no lack of speed that they did not take him. Indeed they were very near doing so, but greed and petty soldiers avarice snatched from them the quarry which they had so long pursued in many struggles and great dangers, and robbed Lucullus of the victor's prize. For the horse which carried the king was just within reach of his pursuers, when one of the mules which carried the royal gold came between him and them, either of his eunuch horde or because the king purposely sent him into the path of pursuit. The soldiers fell to plundering and collecting the gold, bought with one another over it, and so were left behind in the chase. Nor was this the only fruit of their greed which Lucullus reaped. He had given orders that Calistrates, who was in charge of the king's private papers, should be brought alive to him, but his conductors, finding that he had five hundred pieces of gold in his girdle, slew him. However, Lucullus allowed such shoulders as these to plunder the enemy's camp. In capturing Kibera and most of the other strongholds he found great treasures and many prisons, in which many Greeks and many kinsfolk of the king were confined. As they had long been given up for dead, it was not so much a rescue as it was a resurrection and a sort of second birth, for which they were indebted to the favor of Lucullus. Nissa, a sister of Mithridates, was also captured, and her capture was her salvation. But the sisters and wives of the king, who were thought to be at farthest removed from danger and quietly hidden away in Farnatia, perished pitifully, since Mithridates paused long enough in his flight to send Bacchides, a eunuch, to compass their death. Among many other women there were two sisters of the king, Roxana and Startira, about forty years old and unmarried, and two of his wives of Ionian families, Baranis from Chios and Monim, a Malaysian. The latter was most talked of among the Greeks, to the effect that though the king tempted her virtue and sent her fifteen thousand pieces of gold, she resisted his advances, until he entered into a marriage contract with her, sent her a diadem, and greeted her with the title of queen. But her marriage had been an unhappy one, and she bewailed that beauty which had procured her a master instead of a husband, and a guard of barbarians instead of home and family, dwelling, as she did, far, far away from Greece, where the blessings for which she had hoped existed only in her dreams, while she was bereft of the real blessings to which she had been wanted. And now Bacchides came and ordered them all to die, in whatever manner each might deem easiest and most painless. Monim snatched the diadem from her head, fastened it round her neck and hanged herself. But her halter quickly broken too. O cursed bobble, she cried, couldst thou not serve me even in this office? Then she spat upon it, hurled it from her, and offered her throat to Bacchides. But Berenice, taking a cup of poison, shared it with her mother, who stood at her side and begged for some. Together they drank it off, and the force of the poison sufficed for the weaker body, but it did not carry off Berenice, who had not drunk enough. As she was long and dying, and Bacchides was in a hurry, she was strangled. It is said also that of the unmarried sisters one drank off her poison with many abrasive implications on her brother, but that statira did so without othering a single reproachful or ungenerous word. She rather commended her brother because, when his own life was at hazard, he had not neglected them, but had taken measures to have them die in freedom and under no insults. Of course these things gave pain to Lucullus, who was naturally of a gentle and humane disposition. Part 20 of Volume 2 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Volume 2 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, translated by Bernadotte Perrin. Lucullus, Part 3. Lucullus pushed on in pursuit as far as Talora, whence, four days before Mithridates had succeeded in escaping to Granis, in Armenia. Then he turned aside. After subduing the Chaldeans and the Tiborini, he occupied Lesser Armenia, reducing its fortresses and cities, and then sent Apias to Chagranes with the demand for Mithridates. He himself, however, came to Amesis, which was still holding out against the siege. Its success in this was due to Calimacus, its commander, who by his acquaintance with mechanical contrivances and his power to employ every resource which the siege of a city demands, had given the Romans the greatest annoyance. For this he afterwards paid the penalty. But at this time he was simply out-generaled by Lucullus, who made a sudden attack at just that time of day when Calimacus was accustomed to draw his soldiers off from the ramparts and give them a rest. When the Romans had got possession of a small part of the hall, Calimacus abandoned the city, first setting fire to it with his own hands, either because he begrudged the visitors their booty or because his own escape was thus facilitated. For no one paid attention to those who were sailing away, but when the flames increased mightily and enveloped the walls the soldiers made ready to plunder the houses. Lucullus, out of pity for the perishing city, tried to bring aid from outside against the fire, and gave orders to extinguish the flames, but no one paid any heed to his commands. The soldiers all clamored for the booty, and shouted, and clashed their shields and spears together until he was forced to let them have their way, hoping that he could at least save the city itself from the flames. But the soldiers did just the opposite. Ransacking everything by torchlight and carrying lights about everywhere, they destroyed most of the houses themselves. When Lucullus entered the city at daybreak he burst into tears and said to his friends that he had often deemed Sulla happy, and that on that day more than ever he admired the man's good fortune, in that when he wished to save Athens he had the power to do so. But upon me, he said, who have been so eager to imitate his example, heaven has devolved the reputation of Momeus. However, as far as circumstances allowed he endeavored to restore the city. The fire indeed had been quenched by showers which fell providentially just as the city was captured, and most of what the soldiers had destroyed he rebuilt himself before his departure. He also received into the city those of the Amensis who had fled, and settled there any other Greeks who so desired, and added to the city's domain a tract of a hundred and twenty stadia. The city was a colony of Athens, founded in that period when her power was at its height and she controlled the sea. This was the reason why many who wished to escape the tyranny of Aristien and Athens sailed to Amensis, settled there, and became citizens. Flying from evils at home they got the benefit of greater evils abroad. But those of them who survived were well clothed by Lucullus, and sent back home with a present of two hundred drachmas apiece. Turanio, the Grimarian, was also taken prisoner at this time. Marina asked to have him as his own prize, and on getting him, finally gave him his liberty, therein making an illiberal use of the gift which he had received. For Lucullus did not think it meet that a man so esteemed for his learning should first become a slave, and then be set at liberty. To give him a nominal liberty was to rob him of the liberty to which he was born. But this was not the only case in which Marina was found to be far inferior to his commander in nobility of conduct. Lucullus now turned his attention to the cities in Asia, in order that, while he was at leisure from military enterprises, he might do something for the furtherance of justice and law. Through long lack of these, unspeakable and incredible misfortunes were rife in the province. Its people were plundered and reduced to slavery by the tax-gatherers and moneylenders. Families were forced to sell their comely sons and virgin daughters, and cities their votive offerings, pictures and sacred statues. At last men had to surrender to their creditors and serve themselves as slaves, but what preceded this was far worse, tortures of rope, barrier and horse, standing under the open sky in the blazing sun of summer, and in winter being thrust into mud or ice. Slavery seemed by comparison to be a disburdenment and peace. Such were the evils which Lucullus found in the cities, and in a short time he freed the oppressed from all of them. In the first place he ordered that the monthly rate of interest should be reckoned at one percent, and no more. In the second place he cut off all interest that exceeded the principal. Third, and most important of all, he ordained that the lender should receive not more than the fourth part of his debtor's income, and any lender who added interest to principal was deprived of the whole. Thus, in less than four years' time the debts were all paid, and the properties restored to their owners unencumbered. This public debt had its origin in the twenty thousand talents which Sulla had laid upon Asia as a contribution, and twice this amount had been paid back to the money lenders. Yet now, by reckoning usurious interest, they had brought the total debt up to a hundred and twenty thousand talents. These men accordingly considered themselves outraged, and raised a clamour against Lucullus at Rome. They also bribed some of the tribunes to proceed against him, being men of great influence, who had got many of the active politicians into their debt. This, however, was not only beloved by the peoples whom he had benefited, nay, other provinces also longed to have him sent over them, and felicitated those whose good fortune it was to have such a governor. Appius Claudius, who had been sent to Tigranes—Claudius was a brother of her who was then the wife of Lucullus—was at first conducted by the royal guides through the upper country by a route needlessly circuitous and long. But when a freedman of his, who was a Syrian, told him of the direct route, he left the long one which was being trickily imposed upon him, bad his barbarian guides along farewell, and within a few days crossed the Euphrates and came to Antioch by Daphne. Then, being ordered to await Tigranes there, the king was still engaged in subduing some cities of Phoenicia. He gained over many of the princes who paid but a hollow obedience to the Armenian. One of these was Zarbiennes, the king of Gordina. He also promised many of the enslaved cities, when they sent to confer with him secretly, the assistance of Lucullus, although for the present he bad them keep quiet. Now the sway of the Armenians was intolerably grievous to the Greeks. Above all else, the spirit of the king himself had become pompous and haughty in the midst of his great prosperity. All the things which most men covet and admire he not only had in his possession, but actually thought that they existed for his sake. For though he had started on his career with small and insignificant expectations, he had subdued many nations, humbled the Parthian power as no man before him had done, and filled Mesopotamia with Greeks whom he removed in great numbers from Cilicia and from Cappadocia, and settled anew. He also removed from their wanted haunts the nomadic Arabians, and brought them to an adjacent settlement that he might employ them in trading commerce. Many were the kings who waited upon him, and four, whom he always had about him, like attendants or body-guards, would run on foot by their master's side when he rode out, clad in short blouses, and when he sat transacting business would stand by with their arms crossed. This altitude was thought to be the plainest confession of servitude, as if they had sold their freedom and offered their persons to their master disposed for suffering rather than for service. Appius, however, was not frightened or astonished at all this pomp and show, but as soon as he obtained an audience, told the king plainly that he was come to take back Mithridates, as an ornament due to the triumph of Lucullus, or else to declare war against Tugranes. Although Tugranes made every effort to listen to this speech with a cheerful countness and a forced smile, he could not hide from the bystanders his disconfiture at the bold words of the young man. It must have been five and twenty years since he had listened to a free speech. That was the length of his reign, or rather of his wanton tyranny. However, he replied to Appius that he would not surrender Mithridates, and that if the Romans began war he would defend himself. He was vexed with Lucullus for addressing him in his letter with the title of king only, and not king of kings, and accordingly in his reply he would not address Lucullus as emperor. But he sent splendid gifts to Appius, and when he would not take them added more besides. Appius finally accepted a single bowl from among them, not wishing his rejection of the king's offers to seem prompted by any personal enmity, but sent back the rest and marched off with all speed to join the emperor. Up to this time Tugranes had not dained to see Mithridates, nor speak to him, although the man was lied to him by marriage, and had been expelled from such a great kingdom. Instead he had kept him at the farthest removed possible, in disgrace and costumely, and he had suffered him to be held a sort of prisoner in marshy and sickly regions. Now however he summoned him to his palace with marks of esteem and friendship. There in secret conference they strove to allay their mutual suspicions at the expense of their friends by laying the blame upon them. One of these was Metrodorus of Cephas, a man of agreeable speech and wide learning, who enjoyed the friendship of Mithridates in such a high degree that he was called the king's father. This man, as it seems, had once been set as an ambassador from Mithridates to Tugranes, with a request for aid against the Romans. On this occasion Tugranes asked him, But what is your own advice to me, Metrodorus, in this matter? Whereupon Metrodorus, either with an eye to the interest of Tugranes, or because he did not wish Mithridates to be saved, said that as an ambassador he urged consent, but that as an advisor he forbade it. Tugranes disclosed this to Mithridates, not supposing when he told him that he would punish Metrodorus past all healing. But Metrodorus was at once put out of the way. Then Tugranes repented of what he had done, although he was not entirely to blame for the death of Metrodorus. He merely gave an impulse, as it were, to the hatred which Mithridates already had for the man. For he had long been secretly hostile to him, as was seen from his private papers when they were captured, in which there were directions that Metrodorus, as well as others, be put to death. Accordingly Tugranes gave the body of Metrodorus a splendid burial, sparing no expense upon the man when dead, although he had betrayed him when alive. M. Ficrates, the Returician, also lost his life at the quarter to Tugranes. If for the sake of Athens we may make some mention of him too. It is said that when he was exiled from his native city he went to Seleucia on the Tigris, and that when the citizens asked him to give lectures there he treated their invitation with contempt, arrogantly remarking that a stupan could not hold a dolphin. Removing thence he attached himself to Cleopatra, the daughter of Mithridates and wife of Tugranes, but speedily fell into disfavor, and being excluded from intercourse with Greeks, starved himself to death. He also received honorable burial at the hands of Cleopatra, and his body lies at Safa, as a place in those parts is called. Lucullus, after filling Asia full of law and order and full of peace, did not neglect the things which minister to pleasure and went favor, but during his stay at Ephesus gratified the cities with processions and triumphal festivals, and contests of athletes and gladiators. And the cities in response celebrated festivals which they called Lucullae to do honor to the man, and bestowed upon him what is sweeter than honor their genuine goodwill. But when Apias came, and it was plain that war must be waged against Tugranes, he went back into Pontus, put himself at the head of his soldiers, and laid siege to Sinope, or rather, to the Seleitians who were occupying that city for the king. These slew many of the Sinopians, fired the city, and set on to fly by night. But Lucullus saw what was going on, made his way into the city, and slew eight thousand of the Seleitians who were still there. Then he restored to the city their private property, and ministered to the needs of the city, more especially on account of the following vision. He thought in his sleep that a form stood by his side and said, Go forward a little, Lucullus, for Autolaicus is come, and wishes to meet you. On rising from sleep he was unable to conjecture what the vision meant. But he took the city on that day, and as he pursued the Seleitians who were sailing away, he saw a statue lying on the beach, which the Seleitians had not succeeded in getting on board with them. It was the work of Stennis, one of his masterpieces. Well then, someone told Lucullus that it was the statue of Autolaicus, the founder of Sinope. Now Autolaicus is said to have been one of those who made an expedition with Heracles from Thessaly against the Amazons, a son of Demacus. On his voyage of return, in company with Demoleon and Phlogius, he lost his ship, which was wrecked at the place called Padelium, in the Chersonesis. But he himself escaped, with his arms and companions, and coming to Sinope took the city away from the Syrians. These Syrians, who were in possession of the city, were descended, as it is said, from Cirrus, the son of Apollo, and Sinope, the daughter of Asopus. On hearing this, Lucullus called to mind the advice of Sulla in his memoirs, which was to think nothing so trustworthy and sure as that which is signified by dreams. Being informed now that Mithridates and Tigranus were on the point of entering Laconia and Cilicia, with the purpose of invading Asia before war was actually declared, he was amazed that the Armenian, if he cherished the design of attacking the Romans, had not made use of Mithridates for this war when he was at the zenith of his power, nor joined forces with him when he was strong, but had allowed him to be crushed and ruined, and now began a war which offered only faint hopes of success, prostrating himself to the level of those who were unable to stand erect. But when Macarres, also the son of Mithridates, who held the Bosporus, sent Lucullus a crown valued at a thousand pieces of gold, begging to be included in the list of Rome's friends and allies, Lucullus decided at once that the first war was finished. He therefore left Sornatius there as a guardian of Pontus, with six thousand soldiers, while he himself, with twelve thousand footmen and less than three thousand horses, set out for the second war. He seemed to be making a reckless attack, and one which admitted of no saving calculation, upon warlike nations, countless thousands of horsemen, and a boundless region surrounded by deep rivers and mountains covered with perpetual snow. His soldiers, therefore, who were none too well disciplined in any case, followed him reluctantly and rebelliously, while the popular tribunes at Rome raised an outcry against him, and accused him of seeking one war after another, although the city had no need of them, that he might be in perpetual command and never lay down his arms or cease enriching himself from the public dangers. And in time these men accomplished their purpose. But Lucullus advanced by forced marches to the Euphrates. Here he found the stream swollen and turbid from the winter storms, and was vexed to think of the delay in trouble which it would cost him to collect boats and build rafts. But at evening the stream began to subside, went on diminishing through the night, and at daybreak the river was running between lofty banks. The natives, observing that sundry small islands in the channel had become visible, and that the current near them was quiet, made obeisance to Lucullus, saying that this had seldom happened before, and that the river had voluntarily made itself tame and gentle for Lucullus, and offered him an easy and speedy passage. Accordingly he took advantage of his opportunity and put his troops across, and a favourable sign accompanied his crossing. Hefers pastor there which are sacred to Persia Artemis, a goddess whom the barbarians on the further side of the Euphrates hold in the highest honour. These heifers are used only for sacrifice, and at other times are left to roam about the country at large, with brands upon them in the shape of the torch of the goddess. Nor is it a slight or easy manner to catch any of them when they are wanted. One of these heifers, after the army had crossed the Euphrates, came to a certain rock which is deemed sacred to the goddess, and stood upon it, and lowering its head without any compulsion from the usual rope, offered itself to Lucullus for sacrifice. He also sacrificed a bull to the Euphrates, in acknowledgment of his safe passage. Then after encamping there during the day, on the next and the succeeding days he advanced through Sophinae. He wrought no harm to the inhabitants who came to meet him and received his army gladly. Nay, when his soldiers wanted to take a certain fortress which was thought to contain much wealth, yonder lies the fortress which we must rather bring low, said he, pointing to the Taurus in the distance. These nearer things are reserved for the victors. Then he went on by forced marches, crossing the Tigris, and entered Armenia. Since the first messenger who told to Granus that Lucullus was coming had his head cut off for his pains, no one else would tell him anything, and so he sat in ignorance while the fires of war were already blazing around him, giving ear only to those who flattered him and said that Lucullus would not be a great general if he ventured to withstand to Granus at Ephesus, and did not fly incontinentally from Asia at the mere sight of so many myriads of men. Which only proves that it is not every man who can bear much unmixed wine, nor is it any ordinary understanding that does not lose its reckoning in the midst of great prosperity. The first of his friends who ventured to tell him the truth was Mithro Barzenes, and he too got no very excellent reward for his boldness of speech. He was sent at once against Lucullus with three thousand horsemen in a large force of infantry, under orders to bring the general alive, but to trample his men underfoot. Now, part of the army of Lucullus was already preparing to go into camp, and the rest was still coming up, when his scouts told him that the barbarian was advancing to the attack. Fearing lest the enemy attack his men when they were separated and in disorder, and so throw them into confusion, he himself fell to arranging the encampment, and Sextilius, the legate, was sent at the head of sixteen hundred horsemen and about as many lied in heavy infantry, with orders to get near the enemy and wait there until he learned that the main body was safely encamped. Well then, this was what Sextilius wished to do, but he was forced into an engagement by Mithro Barzenes, who boldly charged upon him. A battle ensued in which Mithro Barzenes fell fighting, and the rest of his forces took to flight and were cut to pieces, all except a few. Upon these, T'Granes abandoned T'Granocerta, that great city which he had built, withdrew to the Taras, and there began collecting his forces from every quarter. Lucullus, however, gave him no time for preparation, but sent out Marina to harass and cut off the forces gathering to join T'Granes, and Sextilius again to hold in check a large body of Arabs which was drawing near the king. At one in the same time Sextilius fell upon the Arabs as they were going into camp, and slew most of them, and Marina, following hard upon T'Granes, seized his opportunity and attacked the king as he was passing through a rough and narrow defile with his army in long column. To Granes himself fled, abandoning all his baggage, many of the Armenians were slain, and more were captured. THE SUCCESSFUL IN HIS CAMPAIGN Lucullus struck camp and proceeded to T'Granocerta, which city he invested and began to besiege. There were in the city many Greeks who had been transplanted, like others from Cilicia, and many barbarians who had suffered the same fate as the Greeks, Adiabeni, Assyrians, Gordyeni, and Capidotians, whose native cities T'Granes had demolished and brought their inhabitants to dwell there under compulsion. The city was also full of wealth and votive offerings, since every private person and every prince vied with the king in contributing to its increase in adornment. Therefore Lucullus pressed the siege of the city with vigor, in the belief that T'Granos would not endure it, but contrary to his better judgment and in anger would descend into the plains to offer battle, and his belief was justified. Mithridates, indeed, both by messengers and letters, strongly urged the king not to join battle, but to cut off the enemy's supplies with his cavalry. This also, who came from Mithridates and joined the forces of T'Granes, earnestly begged the king to remain on the defensive and avoid the invincible arms of the Romans. And at first T'Granes gave considerate hearing to this advice. But when the Armenians and Gordyeni joined with him all their hosts, and the kings of the Medis and Adiabeni came up with all their hosts, and many Arabs arrived from the Sea of Babylonia, and many Albanians from the Caspian Sea, together with Iberians who were neighbors to the Albanians, and when not a few of the people about the river Araxes, who are not subject to kings, had been induced by favors and gifts to come and join him, and when the banquets of the king and his councils as well, were full of hopes and boldness and barbaric threats, then T'axilus ran the risk of being put to death when he opposed the plan of fighting, and Mithridates was thought to be diverting the king from a great success out of mere envy. Or T'Granes would not even wait for him, lest he share in the glory, but advanced with all his army, bitterly lamenting to his friends, as it is said, that he was going to contend with T'Colus alone, and not with all the Roman generals put together. And his boldness was not altogether that of a madman, nor without good reason, when he saw so many nations and kings in his following, with phalanxes of heavy infantry and myriads of horsemen. For he was in command of twenty thousand bowmen and slingers, fifty-five thousand horsemen, of whom seventeen thousand were clad in mail, as L'Colus said in his letter to the senate. Also of one hundred and fifty thousand heavy infantry, some of whom were drawn up in cohorts, and some in phalanxes, also of road-makers, bridge-builders, clearers of rivers, foresters, and ministers to the other needs of an army, to the number of thirty-five thousand. His latter, being drawn up in array behind the fighting men, increased the apparent strength of the army. When Tigranis had crossed the Taurus, deployed with all his forces, and looked down upon the Roman army, investing Tigranaterta, the throng of barbarians in the city greeted his appearance with shouts and din, and standing on the walls, threateningly pointed out the Armenians to the Romans. When L'Colus held a council of war, some of his officers advised him to give up the siege and lead his army against Tigranis. Others urged him not to leave so many enemies in his rear, and not to remit the siege. Whereupon, remarking that each council by itself was bad, but both together were good, he divided his army. Marina, with six thousand footmen, he left behind in charge of the siege, while he himself, with twenty-four cohorts, comprising no more than ten thousand heavy infantry, and all the horsemen, fingers and archers, to the number of about a thousand, set out against the enemy. When he had encamped along the river in a great plain, he appeared utterly insignificant to Tigranis, and supplied the king's flatterers with ground for amusement. Some mocked at the Romans, and others in pleasantry cast lots for their spoil, while each of the generals and kings came forward and begged that the task of conquering them might be entrusted to himself alone, and that the king would sit by as a spectator. And to Tigranis, not wishing to be left behind entirely in this play of widens' coughing, uttered that famous saying, If there are comas ambassadors they are too many, if as soldiers too few. And so for the while they continued their sarcasms and jests. But at daybreak Lucullus led out his forces under arms. Now the barbarian army lay to the east of the river. But as the stream takes a turn to the west at the point where it was easy as to forward, and as Lucullus led his troops to the attack in that direction first, and with speed, he seemed to Tigranis to be retreating. So he called Texillis and said, with a laugh, Don't you see that the invincible Roman hoplites are taking to flight? Oh, king, said Texillis, I could wish that some marvellous thing might fall to your good fortune. But when these men are merely on a march, they do not put on shining raiment, nor have they their shields polished and their helmets uncovered, as now that they have stripped the leather and coverings from their armor. Nay, this splendor means that they are going to fight, and are now advancing upon their enemies. While Texillis was yet speaking, the first eagle came in sight, as Lucullus wheeled towards the river, and the cohorts were seen forming in manoplies with a view to crossing. Then at last, as though coming out of a drunken stupor, to grannies cried out two or three times, are the men coming against us. And so, with much tumult and confusion, his multitude formed in battle array, the king himself occupying the center, and assigning the left wing to the king of the Adiabene, the right to the king of the Medes. In front of this wing also the greater part of the male clad horsemen were drawn up. As Lucullus was about to cross the river, some of his officers advised him to be aware of the day, which was one of the unlucky days, the Romans call them black days. For on that day Scipio and his army perished in a battle with the Simbri. But Lucullus answered with immemorable words, verily I will make this day too a lucky one for the Romans. Now the day was the sixth of October. Saying this, and bidding his men be of good courage, he crossed the river, and led the way in person against the enemy. He wore a steel breastplate of glittering scales, and a tasseled cloak, and at once led his sword-flash forth from his scabbard, indicating that they must forthwith come to close quarters with men who fought with long-range missiles, and eliminate, by the rapidity of their onset, the space in which the archery would be effective. But when he saw that the male clad horsemen, on whom the greatest reliance was placed, were stationed at the foot of a considerable hill, which was crowned by a broad and level space, and that the approach to this was a matter of only forestadia, and neither rough nor steep, he ordered his thration and gallic horsemen to attack the enemy in the flank, and to parry their long spears with their own short swords. Now the sole resource of the male clad horsemen is their long spear, and they have none other whatsoever, either in defending themselves or attacking their enemies, owing to the weight and rigidity of their armor. In this they are as it were immured. Then he himself, with two cohorts, hastened eagerly towards the hill, his soldiers following with all their might, because they saw him ahead of them in armor, enduring all the fatigue of a foot soldier, and pressing his way along. Arrived at the top, and standing in the most conspicuous spot, he cried with a loud voice, The day is ours, the day is ours, my fellow soldiers. With these words he led his men against the male clad horsemen, ordering them not to hurl their javelins yet, but taking each his own man to smite the enemy's legs and thighs, which are the only parts of these male clad horsemen left exposed. However, there was no need of this mode of fighting, for the enemy did not await the Romans. But with loud cries, and in most disgraceful flight, they hurled themselves and their horses, with all their weight, upon the ranks of their own infantry, before it had so much as begun to fight, and so all those tens of thousands were defeated without the infliction of a wound or the sight of blood. But the great slaughter began, at once when they fled, or rather tried to fly, for they were prevented from really doing so by the closeness and depths of their own ranks. The Granus rode away at the very outset with a few attendance and took to flight. Seeing his son also in the same plight, he took off the die-dem from his head, and in tears, gave it to him, bidding him save himself as best he could by another route. The young man, however, did not venture to assume the die-dem, but gave it to his most trusted slave for safekeeping. This slave happened to be captured, and was brought to Lucullus, and thus even the die-dem of Tigranus became part of the booty. It is said that more than a hundred thousand of the enemy's infantry perished, while of the cavalry only a few all told made their escape. Of the Romans, on the other hand, only a hundred were wounded, and only five killed. Antiochus the philosopher makes mention of this battle in his treatise concerning gods, and says that the son never looked down on such another. And Strabo, another philosopher, in his historical commentaries, says that the Romans themselves were ashamed, and laughed one another to scorn for recurring arms against such slaves. Livy also has remarked that the Romans were never in such inferior numbers when they faced an enemy, for the victors were hardly even a twentieth part of the vanquished, but less than this. The Roman generals, who were most capable and most experienced in war, praised Lucullus especially for this, that he out-general two kings who were most distinguished and powerful by two most opposite tactics, speed and slowness. For he used up Mithridates at the height of his power by long delays, but crushed to grannies by the speed of his operations, being one of the few generals of all time to use delay for great achievement, and boldness for greater safety. This was the reason why Mithridates made no haste to be at the battle. He thought Lucullus would carry on the war with his wanted caution and indirectness, and so marched slowly to join to grannies. At first he met a few Armenians hurrying back over the road in panic, fear, and conjectured what had happened. Then presently, when he had learned of the defeat from more unarmed and wounded fugitives whom he met, he sought to find to grannies. And though he found him destitute of all things and humiliated, he did not return his insolent behavior, but got down from his horse and wept with him over their common sufferings. Then he gave him his own royal equipage, and tried to fill him with courage for the future. And so these kings began to assemble fresh forces. But in the city of Tigranacherta the Greeks had risen up against the barbarians and were ready to hand the city over to Lucullus, so he assaulted and took it. The royal treasures in the city he took into his own charge, but the city itself he turned over to his soldiers for plunder, and it contained eight thousand talents and money, together with the usual valuables. Besides this he gave to each man eight hundred drachmas from the general spoils. On learning that many dramatic artists had been captured in the city, whom Tigranus had collected there from all quarters for the formal decoration of the theater which he had built, Lucullus employed them for the contests and spectacles with which he celebrated his victories. The Greeks he sent to their native cities, giving them also the means wherewith to make the journey, and likewise the barbarians who had been compelled to settle there. Thus it came to pass that the dissolution of one city was the restoration of many others, by reason of their recovering their own inhabitants, and they all loved Lucullus as their benefactor and founder. And whatever else he did also prospered in a way worthy of the man, who was ambitious of the praise that is consequent upon righteousness and humanity, rather than of that which follows military successes. For the latter the army also was in no slight degree, and fortune in the highest degree responsible, but the former were the manifestations of a gentle and disciplined spirit, and in the exercise of these qualities Lucullus now, without appeal to arms, subdued the barbarians. The kings of the Arabs came to him, with proffers of their possessions, and the Sophonnes joined his cause. The Gordiennes were so affected by his kindness that they were ready to abandon their cities and follow him with their wives and children in voluntary service. The reason for this was as follows. Zarbiennes, the king of the Gordiennes, as has been said, secretly stipulated with Lucullus through Apias for an alliance, being oppressed by the tyranny of Tigranus. He was informed against, however, and put to death, and his wife and children perished with him, before the Romans entered Armenia. Lucullus was not unmindful of all this, but on entering the country of the Gordiennes appointed funeral rites in honor of Zarbiennes, and after adorning a pile with royal raiment and gold, and with the spoils taken from Tigranus, set fire to it with his own hand, and joined the friends and kindred of the man in pouring libations upon it, calling him a comrade of his and an ally of the Romans. He also ordered that a monument be erected to his memory at great cost, for many treasures were found in the palace of Zarbiennes, including gold and silver, and three million bushels of grain were stored up there, so that the soldiers were plentifully supplied, and Lucullus was admired for not taking a single drakma from the public treasury, but making the war pay for itself. Here he received an embassy from the king of the Parthians also, inviting him into friendly alliance. This was agreeable to Lucullus, and in his turn he sent ambassadors to the Parthian, but they discovered that he was playing a double game and secretly asking for Mesopotamia as a reward for an alliance with Tigranus. Accordingly, when Lucullus was apprised of this, he determined to ignore Tigranes and Mithridates as exhausted antagonists, and to make trial of the Parthian power by marching against them, thinking it a glorious thing, in a single impetuous onset of war, to throw like an athlete three kings in secession, and to make his way, unvanquished and victorious, through three of the greatest empires under the sun. Accordingly he sent orders to Sornatius and his fellow commanders in Pontus to bring the army there to him, as he intended to proceed eastward from Gordyeni. These officers had already found their soldiers unmanageable and disobedient, but now they discovered that they were utterly beyond control, being unable to move them by any manner of persuasion or compulsion. Nay, they roundly swore that they would not even stay where they were, but would go off and leave Pontus undefended. When news of this was brought to Lucullus, it demoralized his soldiers there also. Their wealth and luxurious life had already made them adverse to military service and desirous of leisure, and when they heard of the bold words of their comrades in Pontus, they called them brave men, and said their example must be followed in Gordyeni, where their many achievements entitled them to respite from toil and freedom from danger. Such speeches, and even worse than these, coming to the years of Lucullus, he gave up his expedition against the Parthians, and marched once more against Tugranis, it being now the height of summer. And yet, after crossing the Taurus, he was discouraged to find the plains still covered with unright grain, so much later are the seasons there, owing to the coolness of the atmosphere. However, he descended from the mountains, routed the Armenians who twice or thrice ventured to attack him, and then plundered their villages without fear, and by taking away the grain which had been stored up for Tugranis, reduced his enemy to the straits which he had been fearing for himself. Then he challenged them to battle by encompassing their camp with a moat, and by ravaging their territory before their eyes. But this did not move them, so often had they been defeated. He therefore broke camp and marched against our Taksata, the royal residence of Tugranis, where were his wives and young children, thinking that Tugranis would not give these up without fighting. It is said that Hannibal, the Carthaginian, after Antiochus had been conquered by the Romans, left him and went to our Taksas, the Athenian, to whom he gave many excellent suggestions and instructions. For instance, observing that a section of the country which had the greatest natural advantages and attractions was lying idle and neglected, he drew up a plan for a city there and then brought our Taksas to the place and showed him its possibilities and urged him to undertake the building. The king was delighted and begged Hannibal to superintend the work himself, whereupon a very great and beautiful city arose there, which was named after the king and proclaimed the capital of Armenia. When Lucullus marched against this city, Tugranis could not suffer it quietly, but put himself at the head of his forces, and on the fourth day encamped over against the Romans, keeping the river Arsenia between himself and them, which they must have necessity cross on their way to our Taksata. Thereupon Lucullus sacrificed to the gods in full assurance that the victory was already his, and then crossed the river with twelve cohorts in the van, and the rest disposed so as to prevent the enemy from closing in upon his flanks. For large bodies of horsemen and picked soldiers confronted him, and these were covered by martian-mounted archers and Iberian lancers, on whom Tugranis relied beyond any other mercenaries, deeming them the most warlike. However, they did not shine in action, but after a slight skirmish with the Roman cavalry gave way before the advancing infantry, scattered to right and left in flight, and drew after them the cavalry in pursuit. On the dispersion of these troops, Tugranis rode out at the head of his cavalry, and when Lucullus saw their splendor in their numbers, he was afraid. He therefore recalled his cavalry from their pursuit of the flying enemy, and taking the lead of the troops in person, set upon the Atropiteni, who were stationed opposite him with the magnets of the king's following, and before coming to close quarters, sent them off in panicked flight. Of three kings who together confronted the Romans, Mithridates Apontes seems to have fled most disgracefully, for he could not endure even their shouting. The pursuit was long and lasted through the whole night, and the Romans were worn out, not only with killing their enemies, but also with taking prisoners and getting all sorts of booty. Livy says that in the former battle a great number of the enemy, but in this more men of high station were slain and taken prisoners. Elated and emboldened by this victory, Lucullus purposed to advance further into the interior and subdue the barbarian realm utterly. But contrary to what might have been expected at the time of the autumnal equinox, severe winter weather was encountered, which generally covered the ground with snow, and even when the sky was clear produced whorefrost and ice, owing to which the horses could not well drink of the rivers, so excessive was the cold, nor could they easily cross them, since the ice broke and cut the horses' sinews with its draget edges. Most of the country was thickly shaded, full of narrow defies and marshy, so that it kept the soldiers continually wet. They were covered with snow while they marched and spent the nights uncomfortably in damp places. Accordingly they had not followed Lucullus for many days after the battle when they began to object. At first they sent their tribunes to him with entreaties to desist, then they held more tumultuous assemblies and shouted in their tents at night, which seems to have been characteristic of a mutinous army. And yet Lucullus plied the with entreaties, calling upon them to possess their souls and patience until they had taken and destroyed the Armenian Carthage, the work of their most hated foe, meaning Hannibal. But since he could not persuade them he led them back, and crossing the Taurus by another pass, descended into the country called Migdonia, which is fertile and open to the sun, and contains a large and populous city, called Nisibis by the barbarians, Antioch in Migdonia by the Greeks. The nominal defender of this city, by virtue of his rank, was Gorus, a brother of Tigranus, but its actual defender, by virtue of his experience and skill as an engineer, was Kalamakis, the man who gave Lucullus most trouble at Amesis also. But Lucullus established his camp before it, laid siege to it in every way, and in a short time took the city by storm. To Gorus, who surrendered himself unto his hands, he gave kind treatment, but to Kalamakis, who promised to reveal secret stores of great treasure, he would not harken. Instead he ordered him to be broad in change, that he might be punished for destroying Amesis by fire, and thereby robbing Lucullus of the object of his ambition, which was to show kindness to the Greeks. End of Lucullus Part IV. Up to this point one might say that Fortune had followed Lucullus and fought on his side, but from now on, as though a favoring breeze had failed him, he had to force every issue, and met with obstacles everywhere. He still displayed the bravery and patience of a good leader, but his undertakings brought him no new fame or favor. Indeed, so ill-starred and devious was his course, that he came near losing that which he had already won. And he himself was not least to blame for this. He was not disposed to court the favor of the common soldier, and thought that everything that was done to please one's command only dishonored and undermined one's authority. Worst of all, not even with men of power and of equal rank with himself could he readily cooperate. He despised them all, and thought them of no account as compared with himself. These bad qualities Lucullus is said to have had, but no more than these. He was tall and handsome, a powerful speaker, and equally able in the form and the field. Well then, Silas says that his soldiers were ill-disposed towards him at the very beginning of the war, before Cisacus and again before Amesis, because they were compelled to spend two successive winters in camp. The winters that followed also vexed them. They spent them either in the enemy's country or among the allies and camped under the open sky. Not once did Lucullus take his army into a city that was Greek and friendly. In their disaffection they received the greatest support from the popular leaders at Rome. These envied Lucullus and denounced him for protracting the war through love of power and love of wealth. They said he all but had in his soul power Cilicia, Asia, Bithnia, Faflagonia, Galatia, Pontus, Armenia, and the regions extending to the Faces, and now that he had actually plundered the palaces of Tigranes as if he had been sent not to subdue the kings but to strip them. These were the words they say of Lucius Quintus, one of the praetors, to whom most of the people listened when they passed a vote to send men who should succeed Lucullus in the command of his province. They voted also that many of the soldiers under him should be released from military service. To these factors in the case so unfavorable in themselves there was added another, which most of all vitiated the undertakings of Lucullus. This was Publius Clodius, a man of wanton violence and full of all arrogance and boldness. He was a brother of the wife of Lucullus, a woman of the most dissolute ways, whom he was actually accused of debauching. At this time he was in service with Lucullus and did not get all the honour which he thought his due. He thought of foremost places due, when many were preferred before him because of his evil character. He worked secretly upon the soldiers who had been commanded by Fimbria and tried to incite them against Lucullus, disseminating among them speeches well adapted to men who were neither unwilling nor unaccustomed to have their favour courted. These were the men whom Fimbria had once persuaded to kill the consul Flacas and choose himself for their general. They therefore gladly listened to Clodius also and called him the soldier's friend. For he pretended to be incensed in their behalf, if there was to be no end of their countless wars and toils, but they were rather to wear out their lives in fighting with every nation and wandering over every land, receiving no suitable reward for such service, but convoying the wagons and camels of Lucullus laden with golden beakers set with precious stones, while the soldiers of Pompey, citizens now, were snugly ensconced with wives and children in the possession of fertile lands and prosperous cities, not for having driven Mithridates and Togranis into uninhabitable deserts, nor for having demolished the royal palaces of Asia, but for having fought with wretched exiles in Spain and runaway slaves in Italy. Why, then he would cry. If our campaigns are never to come to an end, if we do not reserve what is left of our bodies and our lives, for a general in whose eyes the wealth of his soldiers is his fairest honor. For such reasons as these the army of Lucullus was demoralized and refused to follow him either against Togranis or against Mithridates, who had come back into Pontus from Armenia and was trying to restore his power there. They made the long winter their excuse for lingering in Gordegny, expecting every moment that Pompey or some other commander would be sent out to succeed Lucullus. But when tidings came that Mithridates had defeated Fabius and was on the march against Sornatius and Tririus, they were struck with shame and followed Lucullus. But Tririus, who was ambitious to snatch the victory which he thought assured before Lucullus who was near should come up, was defeated in a great battle. It is said that over seven thousand Romans fell, among whom were a hundred and fifty centurions and twenty-four tribunes, and their camp was captured by Mithridates. But Lucullus, coming up a few days afterward, hid Tririus from the search of his infuriated soldiers. Then, since Mithridates was unwilling to give fight but lay waiting for Togranis, who was coming down with a large force, he determined to anticipate the junction of their armies and march back to meet Togranis in battle. But while he was on the way thither the Fimbrian soldiers mutinied and left their ranks, declaring that they were discharged from service by decree of the people, and that Lucullus no longer had the right to command them, since the provinces had been assigned to others. Accordingly, there was no expedient, however much beneath his dignity, to which Lucullus did not force himself to resort, in treating the soldiers man by man, going about from tent to tent in humility and tears, and actually taking some of the men by the hand in supplication. But they rejected his advances and threw their empty purses down before him, bidding him fight the enemy alone, since he alone knew how to get rich from them. However, at the request of the other soldiers, the Fimbrians were constrained to agree to remain during the summer. But if in the meantime no enemy should come down to fight them, they were to be dismissed. Lucullus was obliged to content himself with these terms, or else to be deserted and give up the country to the barbarians. He therefore simply held his soldiers together without forcing them any more, or leading them out to battle. Their remaining with him was all that he could expect, and he looked on helplessly while to Granny's ravage Cappadocia and Mithridates resumed his insolent ways, a monarch whom he had reported by letter to the senate as completely subdued. Besides, the commissioners were now with him, who had been sent out to regulate the affairs of Pontus, on the supposition that it was a secure Roman possession. And lo, when they came, they saw that Lucullus was not even his own master, but was mocked and insulted by his soldiers. These went so far in their outrageous treatment of their general, that at the close of the summer they donned their armor, drew their swords, and challenged to battle an enemy who was nowhere near, but had already withdrawn. Then they shouted their war cries, brandished their weapons in the air, and departed from the camp, calling men to witness that the time had expired during which they had agreed to remain with Lucullus. The rest of the soldiers Pompey summoned by letter, for he had already been appointed to conduct the war against Mithridates and Tugranis, because he won the favour of the people and flattered their leaders. But the senate and the nobility considered Lucullus a wronged man. He had been superseded, they said, not in a war but in a triumph, and had been forced to relinquish and turn over to others, not his campaign, but the prizes of victory in his campaign. But to those who were on the spot, what happened there seemed to be still greater matter for wrath and indignation. For Lucullus was not allowed to bestow rewards or punishments for what had been done in the war, nor would Pompey even suffer anyone to visit him, or to pay any heed to the edicts and regulations which he made in concert with the ten commissioners, but prevented it by issuing counter-edicts, and by the terror which his presence with a larger force inspired. Nevertheless, their friends decided to bring the two men together, and so they met in a certain village of Galatia. They greeted one another amicably, and each congratulated the other on his victories. Lucullus was the elder man, but Pompey's prestige was the greater, because he had conducted more campaigns and celebrated two triumphs. Faces wreathed with laurel were carried before both commanders in token of their victories, and since Pompey had made a long march through waterless and arid regions, the laurel which wreathed his spices was withered. When the lictors of Lucullus noticed this, they considerably gave Pompey's lictor some of their own laurel, which was fresh and green. This circumstance was interpreted as a good omen by the friends of Pompey, for in fact the exploits of Lucullus did adorn the command of Pompey. However, their conference resulted in no equitable agreement, but they left it still more estranged from one another. Pompey also annulled the ordinances of Lucullus and took away all but sixteen hundred of his soldiers. These he left to share his triumph, but even these did not follow him very cheerfully. To such a marvelous degree was Lucullus either unqualified or unfortunate as regards the first and highest of all requisites in a leader. Had this power of gaining the affection of his soldiers been added to his other gifts, which were so many and so great—courage, diligence, wisdom, and justice—the Roman Empire would not have been bounded by the Euphrates, but by the outer confines of Asia and the Hurcanian Sea, for all the other nations had already been subdued by Tigranes, and in the time of Lucullus the Parthian power was not so great as it proved to be in the time of Crassus, nor was it so well united. Nay, rather, owing to intestine and neighbouring wars, it had not even strength enough to repel the wanton attacks of the Armenians. Now my own opinion is that the harm Lucullus did his country through his influence upon others was greater than the good he did her himself. For his trophies in Armenia, standing on the borders of Parthia and Tigranicherta and Nisibis, and the vast wealth brought to Rome from these cities, and of the display in his triumph of the cashier diadem of Tigranes, incited Crassus to his attack upon Asia, he thought that the barbarians were spoil and booty and nothing else. It was not long, however, before he encountered the Parthian arrows, and proved that Lucullus had won his victories, not through the folly and cowardice of his enemies, but through his own daring and ability. This, however, is later history. Now when Lucullus had returned to Rome, he found in the first place that his brother Marcus was under prosecution by Gaius Memius for his Axis Quester under the administration of Sulla. Marcus indeed was acquitted, but Memius then turned his attack upon Lucullus and strove to excite the people against him. He charged him with diverting much property to his own uses, and with needlessly protracting the war, and finally persuaded the people not to grant him a triumph. Marcus strove mightily against this decision, and the foremost and most influential men mingled with the tribes, and by much entreaty and exertion at last persuaded the people to allow him to celebrate a triumph. Not, however, like some, a triumph which was startling into multuous from the length of the procession and the multitude of objects displayed. Instead, he decorated the Circus of Flaminius with the arms of the enemy, which were very numerous, and with the royal engines of war, and this was a great spectacle in itself and far from contemptible. But in the procession a few of the male-clad horsemen and ten of the Sith-bearing chariots moved along, together with sixty of the king's friends and generals. A hundred and ten bronze-beaked ships of war were also carried along, a golden statue of Mithridates himself, six feet in height, a wonderful shield adorned with precious stones, twenty litters of silver vessels, and thirty-two litters of gold beakers, armor, and money. All this was carried by men. Then there were eight mules which bore golden couches, fifty-six bearing ingots of silver, and a hundred and seven more bearing something less than two million seven hundred thousand pieces of silver coin. There were also tablets with records of the sums of money already paid by Lucullus to Pompey for the war against the pirates, and to the keepers of the public treasury, as well as of the fact that each of his soldiers had received nine hundred and fifty drachmas. To crown all, Lucullus gave a magnificent feast to the city, and to the surrounding villages, called Feed. After his divorce from Clodia, who was a licentious and base woman, he married Servilia, a sister of Cato, but this two was an unfortunate marriage. For it lacked none of the evils which Clodia had brought in her train except one, namely the scandal about her brothers. In all other respects Servilia was equally vile and abandoned, and yet Lucullus forced himself to tolerate her out of regard for Cato. At last, however, he put her away. The Senate had conceived wondrous hopes that in him it would find an opposer of the tyranny of Pompey and a champion of the aristocracy, with all the advantage of great glory and influence. But he quitted and abandoned public affairs, either because he saw that they were already beyond proper control and diseased, or as some say, because he had his fill of glory, and felt that the unfortunate issue of his many struggles and toils entitled him to fall back upon a life of ease and luxury. Some commend him for making such a change, and thereby escaping the unhappy lot of Marius, who, after his Cymbrian victories and the large and fair successes which were so famous, was unwilling to relax his efforts and enjoy honor's one, but with an insatiate desire for glory and power, old man that he was, fought with young men in the conduct of the State, and so drove headlong into terrible deeds, and sufferings more terrible still. Cicero, they say, would have had a better old age if he had taken in sale after the affair of Catiline, and Cipio, too, if he had given himself pause after adding Numancia to Carthage, for a political cycle, too, has a sort of natural termination, and political no less than athletic contests are absurd after the full vigor of life has departed. Crasses and Pompey, on the other hand, ridiculed Lucullus for giving himself up to pleasure and extravagance, as if a luxurious life were not even more unsuitable to many of his than political and military activities. And it is true that in the life of Lucullus, as in an ancient comedy, one reads in the first part of political measures and military commands, and in the latter part of drinking bouts and banquets, and what might pass for revel- routes, and torch-races, and all manner of frivolity. For I must count as frivolous his costly edifices, his ambulatories and baths, and still more his paintings and statues, not to speak of his devotion to these arts, which he collected at enormous outlays, pouring out into such channels the vast and splendid wealth which he had accumulated from his campaigns. Even now, when luxury has increased so much, the gardens of Lucullus are counted among the most costly of the imperial gardens. As for his works on the seashore and in the vicinity of Neapolis, where he suspended hills over vast tunnels, girded his residences with zones of sea and with streams for the breeding of fish, and built dwellings in the sea, when two borough the stoic saw them, he called him Xerxes in a toga. He had also country establishments near Tusculum, with observatories and extensive open banqueting halls and cloisters. Pompey once visited these, and chided Lucullus because he had arranged his country seat in the best possible way for summer, but had made it uninhabitable in winter, whereupon Lucullus burst out laughing and said, Do you suppose, then, that I have less sense than cranes and storks, and do not change residences according to the seasons? A praetor was once making ambitious plans for a public spectacle, and asked of him some purple clothes for the adornment of a chorus. Lucullus replied that he would investigate, and if he had any would give them to him. The next day he asked the praetor how many he wanted, and on his replying that a hundred would suffice, he bade him take twice that number. The poet Flacas alluded to this when he said that he did not regard a house as wealthy in which the treasures that were overlooked and unobserved were not more than those which met the eye. The daily repass of Lucullus were such as the newly rich effect. Not only with his dyed coverlets and beakers set with precious stones, and choruses and dramatic recitations, but also with his arrays of all sorts of meat and daintily prepared dishes did he make himself the envy of the vulgar. A saying of Pompeys when he was ill was certainly very popular. His physicians had prescribed a thresh for him to eat, and his servants said that a thresh could not be found anywhere in the summer season except where Lucullus kept them fattening. Pompey, however, would not suffer them to get one from there, but bade them prepare something else that was easily to be had, remarking as he did so to his physician, What, must a Pompey have died if a Lucullus were not luxurious? And Cato, who was a friend of his and a relation by marriage, was nevertheless much offended by his life and habits. Once when a youthful senator had delivered a tedious and lengthy discourse, all out of season, on frugality and temperance, Cato Rosen said, Stop there! You get wealth like crasses, you live like Lucullus, but you talk like Cato. Some, however, while they say that these words were actually uttered, do not say that they were spoken by Cato. Moreover, that Lucullus took not only pleasure but pride in this way of living is clear from the anecdotes recorded of him. It is said, for instance, that he entertained for many successive days some Greeks who had come up to Rome, and that they, with genuinely Greek scruples, were at last ashamed to accept his invitation, on the ground that he was incurring so much expense every day on their account, whereupon Lucullus said to them with a smile, Some of this expense, my Grecian friends, is indeed on your account. Most of it, however, is on account of Lucullus. And once, when he was dining alone, and a modest repast of one course had been prepared for him, he was angry, and summoned to the servant who had the matter in charge. The servant said that he did not suppose, since there were no guests, that he wanted anything very costly. What sayest thou, said the Master? Just thou not know that to-day Lucullus dines with Lucullus? While this matter was much talked of in the city, as was natural, Cicero and Pompey came up to him as he was idling in the forum. Cicero was one of his most intimate friends, and although the matter of the command of the army had led to some coolness between him and Pompey, still they were accustomed to frequent and friendly intercourse and conversation with one another. Accordingly Cicero saluted him, and asked how he was disposed towards receiving a petition. Most excellently well, said Lucullus, and invited them to make their petition. We desire, said Cicero, to dine with you to-day, just as you would have dined by yourself. Lucullus demirred to this, and begged the privilege of selecting a later day, but they refused to allow it, nor would they suffer him to confer with his servants, that he might not order anything more provided than what was provided for himself. Thus much, however, and no more, did they allow him, at his request, namely, to tell one of his servants in their presence that he would dine that day in the Apollo. Now this was the name of one of his costly apartments, and he thus outwitted the men without their knowing it. For each of his dining-rooms, as it seems, had a fixed allowance for the dinner served there, as well as his own special apparatus and equipment, so that his slaves, on hearing where he wished to dine, knew just how much the dinner was to cost, and what were to be its decorations and arrangements. Now the usual cost of a dinner in the Apollo was fifty thousand drachmas, and that was the sum laid out on the present occasion. Pompey was amazed at the speed with which the banquet was prepared, notwithstanding it had cost so much. In these ways, then, Lucullus used his wealth wantonly, as though it were in very truth a barbarian prisoner of war. But what he did in the establishment of a library deserves warm praise. He got together many books, and they were well written, and his use of them was more honourable to him than his acquisition of them. His libraries were thrown open to all, and the cloisters surrounding them and the study-rooms were accessible without restriction to the Greeks, who constantly repaired thither as to an hostellary of the muses, and spent the day with one another in glad escape from their other occupations. Lucullus himself also spent his leisure hours there with them, walking about in the cloisters with their scholars, and he would assist their statesmen in whatever they desired. And in general his house was a home and a pier to Nahum for the Greeks who came to Rome. He was fond of all philosophy, and well disposed and friendly towards every school, but from the first he cherished a particular in zealous love for the academy, not the new academy so-called, although that school at the time had a vigorous representative of the doctrines of Candideus and Philo, but the old academy, which at that time was headed by a persuasive man and powerful speaker in the person of Antiochus of Scalan. This man, Lucullus hastened to make his friend and companion, and arrayed him against the disciples of Philo, of whom Cicero also was one. Indeed Cicero wrote a noble treatise on the doctrines of this sect, in which he has put the argument and supportive apprehension into the mouth of Lucullus, and carried the opposing argument himself. The book is entitled, Lucullus. Lucullus and Cicero were, as I have said, ardent friends and members of the same political party, for Lucullus had not withdrawn himself entirely from political life, although he lost no time in leaving to Crassus and Cato the ambitious struggle for the chief place and the greatest power, since he saw that it invoked both peril and ignominy. For those who looked with suspicion on the power of Pompey made Crassus and Cato the champions of the senatorial party when Lucullus declined the leadership. But Lucullus would still go to the forum in support of his friends, and also to the Senate, whenever there was need of combating some ambitious scheme of Pompeys. Thus, the dispositions which Pompey made after his conquest of the kings, Lucullus made null and void, and his proposal for a generous distribution of lands to his soldiers, Lucullus, with the cooperation of Cato, prevented from being granted. Pompey therefore took refuge in an alliance, or rather a conspiracy, with Crassus and Caesar, and by filling the city with his armed soldiery and expelling from the forum the artisans of Cato and Lucullus, got his measures ratified. As these proceedings were resented by the nobles, the partisans of Pompey produced a certain veteus, whom, as they declared, they had caught plotting against the life of Pompey. So the man was examined in the Senate, where he accused Sundry other persons, but before the people he named Lucullus as the man who had engaged him to kill Pompey. However, no one believed his story. Nay, it was at once clear that the fellow had been put forward by the partisans of Pompey to make false and malicious charges, and the fraud was made all the plainer when, a few days afterwards, his dead body was cast out of the prison. It was said indeed that he had died a natural death, but he bore the marks of throttling and violence, and the opinion was that he had been taken up by the very men who had engaged his services. Of course this induced Lucullus to withdraw even more from public life, and when Cicero was banished from the city, and Cato was sent out to Cyprus, he retired altogether. Even before his death, it is said that his understanding was affected and gradually faded away. But Cornelius Nepos says that Lucullus lost his mind not from old age, nor yet from disease, but that he was disabled by drugs administered to him by one of his freedmen, calisthenes, that the drugs were given him by calisthenes in order to win more of his love, in the belief that they had such a power, but they drove him from his senses and overwhelmed his reason, so that even while he was still alive his brother managed his property. However, when he died the people grieved just as much as if his death had come at the culmination of his military and political services, and flocked together, and tried to compel the young nobles who had carried the body into the forum to bury it in the campus marshes, where Sulla also had been buried. But no one had expected this, and preparations for it were not easy, and so his brother, by prayers and supplications, succeeded in persuading them to suffer the burial to take place on the estate at Tusculum, where preparations for it had been made. Nor did he himself long survive Lucullus, but as in age and reputation he came a little behind him, so did he also in the time of his death, having been a most affectionate brother. End of Lucullus. One might deem Lucullus especially happy in his end, from the fact that he died before that constitutional change had come, which fate was already contriving by means of the civil wars. His country was in a distempered state when he had laid down his life, but still she was free. And in this respect, more than any other, he is like Simon. For Simon also died before Greece was confounded, and while she was at the acme of her power. He died, however, in the field, and at the head of an army, not exhausted or of a wandering mind, nor yet making feastings and reveling at the crowning prize for arms and campaigns and trophies. Plato banters the followers of Orpheus for declaring that for those who have lived rightly there is laid up in Hades a treasure of everlasting intoxication. Leisure, no doubt, and quiet, and the pursuit of pleasantly speculative learning, furnish a most fitting solace for a man of years who has retired from wars and politics. But to divert fair achievements to pleasure as their final end, and then to sport and wanton at the head of Aphrodite's train, as a sequel to wars and fightings, was not worthy of the noble academy, nor yet of one who would follow Zinocrates, but rather of one who leaned towards Epicurus. And this is the more astonishing because, contrary wise, Simon seems to have been of ill repute and unrestrained in his youth, while Lucullus was disciplined and sober. Better surely is the man in whom the change is for the better, for it argues a more wholesome nature than its evil withers and its good ripens. And further, though both alike were wealthy, they did not make a like use of their wealth. There is no comparing the south wall of the Acropolis, which was completed with the moneys brought home by Simon, with the palaces and sea-washed Belvedere's at Neopolis, which Lucullus built out of the spoils of the barbarians. Nor can the table of Simon be likened to that of Lucullus. The one was democratic and charitable, the other sumptuous and oriental. The one at slight outlay gave daily sustenance to many, the other at large cost was prepared for a few luxurious livers. It may be said indeed that the difference in state was due to the difference in time, for it is at least possible that Simon also, if he had retired after his active campaigns to an old age, which knew neither war nor politics, might have led an even more ostentatious and pleasure-loving life. He was fond of wine and given to display, and his relations with women, as I have said before, were scandalous. But success and strenuous achievement, affording as it does a higher pleasure, gives public-spirited and ambitious natures no time to indulge the baser appetites, which are forgotten. At any rate, if Lucullus also had ended his days in active military command, not even the most carping and censorious spirit, I think, could have brought accusations against him, thus much concerning their manners of life. In war it is plain that both were good fighters, both on land and sea. But just as those athletes who win crowns in wrestling and the pancreatium on a single day are called by custom, victors extraordinary, so Simon, who in a single day crowned Greece with the trophies of a land and sea victory, may justly have a certain preeminence among generals. And further it was his country which conferred imperial power upon Lucullus, whereas Simon conferred it upon his. The one added his foreign conquest to a country which already ruled her allies, the other found his country obeying others and gave her command over her allies and victory over her foreign foes by defeating the Persons and driving them from the sea, and by persuading the Lekidemonians voluntarily to relinquish the command. Granted that it is the most important task of a leader to secure prompt obedience through good will, Lucullus was despised by his own soldiers while Simon was admired by the allies. His soldiers deserted the one, the allies came over to the other. The one came back home abandoned by those whom he commanded when he set out. The other was sent out with allies to do the commands of others, but before he sailed home he himself gave commands to those allies, having successfully secured for his city three of the most difficult objects at once, namely peace with the enemy, leadership of the allies, and concord with the Lekidemonians. Again, both attempted to subvert great empires and to subdu all Asia, and both left their work unfinished. Simon, through ill fortune, pure and simple, for he died at the head of his army and at the height of his success. But Lucullus one cannot altogether acquit of blame, whether he was ignorant of, or would not attend to the grievances and complaints among his soldiery, in consequence of which he became so bitterly hated. Or perhaps this has its counterpart in the life of Simon, for he was brought to trial by his fellow citizens and finally ostracised, in order that for ten years, as Plato says, they might not hear his voice. For aristocratic natures are a little in accord with the multitude, and seldom please it, but by so often using force to rectify its aberrations they vex and annoy it, just as physicians bandages vex and annoy, although they bring the dislocated members into their natural position. Perhaps then both come off about alike on this count. But Lucullus was much the greater in war. He was the first Roman to cross the Taurus with an army. He passed the Tigris and captured and burnt the royal cities of Asia, Tigranacherta, Cabira, Sonope, and Nisubis, before the eyes of their kings. He made his own regions to the north as far as the faces, to the east as far as Medea, and to the south as far as the Red Sea, through the assistance of the Arabian kings. He annihilated the forces of the hostile kings, and failed only in the capture of their persons, since like wild beasts they fled away into deserts and trackless and impenetrable forests. Strong proof of his superiority is seen in this, that the Persians, since they had suffered no great harm at the hands of Simon, straight way arrayed themselves against the Greeks, and overwhelmed and destroyed that large force of theirs in Egypt. Whereas after Lucullus, Tigranes and Mithridates availed nothing. The latter, already weak and disabled by his first struggles, did not once dare to show Pompey his forces outside their camp, but fled away to the Bosporus, and there put an end to his life. As for Tigranes, he hastened to throw himself while unrobed and unarmed at the feet of Pompey, and taking the diadem from off his head, laid it there upon the ground, flattering Pompey, thus not with his own exploits, but with those for which Lucullus had celebrated a triumph. At any rate, he was as much delighted to get back the insignity of his royalty as though he had been robbed of them before. Later therefore is the general, as is the athlete, who hands over his antagonist to his successor in a weaker plight. Moreover, and still further, Simon made his onsets when the power of the king had been broken, and the pride of the persons humbled by great defeats and incessant routes at the hand of the Mosocles, Poesanias, and Latiklides, and easily conquered the bodies of men whose spirits had been defeated before hand and lay prone. But when Tigranes encountered Lucullus, he had known no defeat in many battles, and was in exultant mood. In point of numbers also, those who were overpowered by Simon are not worthy of comparison with those who united against Lucullus. Therefore one who takes everything into consideration finds it hard to reach a decision. Heaven seems to have been kindly disposed to both, directing the one as to what he must perform, and the other as to what he must avoid. Both therefore may be said to have received the vote of the gods as noble and godlike natures. End of Comparison of Lucullus with Simon. End of Volume 2 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, translated by Bernadotte Perrin.