[56]
The ambassadors of Mithridates returned with ratifications of all the terms except those relating to Paphlagonia, and they added that Mithridates could obtain better conditions, "if he should negotiate with your other general, Fimbria." Sulla was indignant that he should be brought into such comparison and said that he would bring Fimbria to punishment, and would go himself to Asia and see whether Mithridates wanted peace or war. Having spoken thus he marched through Thrace to Cypsella after having sent Lucullus forward to Abydus, for Lucullus had arrived at last, having run the risk of capture by pirates several times. He had collected a sort of a fleet composed of ships from Cyprus, Phoenicia, Rhodes, and Pamphylia, and had ravaged much of the enemy's coast, and had skirmished with the ships of Mithridates on the way. Then Sulla advanced from Cypsella and Mithridates from Pergamus, and
they met in a conference. Each went with a small force to a plain in sight of the two armies. Mithridates began by discoursing of his own and his father's friendship and alliance with the Romans. Then he accused the Roman ambassadors, committeemen, and generals of doing him injuries by putting Ariobarzanes on the throne of Cappadocia, depriving him of Phrygia, and allowing Nicomedes to wrong him. "And all this," he said, "they did for money, taking it from me and from them by turns; for there is nothing of which most of you are so liable to accusation, 0 Romans, as the love of lucre. When war had broken out through the acts of your generals all that I did was in self-defence, and was the result of necessity rather than of intention."
B.C. 84 |
