[47]
A letter came from Mithridates of the following tenor: "You favor the Romans even now, and many of your citizens are still sojourning with them. You are reaping the fruits of Roman property of which you do not make returns to us. Your trireme ran against and shook my ship in the battle before Rhodes. I willingly imputed that fault to the pilots alone, hoping that you would observe the rules of safety and remain my submissive subjects. Now you have secretly sent your chief men to Sulla, and you have never proved or declared that this was done without public authority, as was the duty of those who were not cooperating with them. Although my friends consider that those who conspire against my government, and who intend to conspire against my person, ought to suffer death, I will let you off with a fine of 2000 talents." Such was the purport of the letter. The Chians wanted to send legates to the king, but Zenobius would not allow it. As they were disarmed and had given up the children of their principal families, and a large barbarian army was in possession of the city, they groaned aloud, but they collected the temple ornaments and the women's jewellery to the full amount of 2000 talents. When this sum had been made up Zenobius accused them of giving him short weight and summoned them to the theatre. Then he stationed his army with drawn swords around the theatre itself and along the streets leading from it to the sea. Then he led the Chians one by one out of the theatre and put them in ships, the men separate from the women and children, and all treated with indignity by their barbarian captors. In this way they were dragged to Mithridates, who packed them off to Pontus on the Euxine. Such was the calamity that befell the citizens of Chios.
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Appian. The Foreign Wars. Horace White. New York. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 1899.
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