[57]
When Mithridates had ceased speaking Sulla replied: "Although you called us here," he said, "for a different purpose, namely, to accept our terms of peace, I shall not refuse to speak briefly of those matters. I restored Ariobarzanes to the throne of Cappadocia by decree of the Senate when I was governor in Cilicia, and you obeyed the decree. You ought to have opposed it and given your reasons then, or forever after held your peace. Manius gave Phrygia to you for a bribe, which was a crime on the part of both of you. By the very fact of your getting it by bribery you confess that you had no right to it. Manius was tried at Rome for other acts that he had done for money and the Senate annulled them all. For this reason they decided, not that Phyrgia, which had been given to you wrongfully, should be made tributary to Rome, but should be free. If we who had taken it by war did not think best to govern it, by what right could you hold it? Nicomedes charges that you sent against him an assassin named Alexander, and then Socrates Chrestus, a rival claimant of the kingdom, and that it was to avenge these wrongs that he invaded your territory. However, if he wronged you, you ought to have sent an embassy to Rome and waited for an answer. But although you took swift vengeance on Nicomedes, why did you attack Ariobarzanes, who had not harmed you? When you drove him out of his kingdom you imposed upon the Romans, who were there, the necessity of putting him back. By preventing them from doing so you brought on the war. You had meditated war a long time, because you hoped to rule the whole world if you could conquer the Romans, and the reasons you tell of were mere pretexts to cover your real intent. The proof of this is that you, although not yet at war with any nation, sought the alliance of the Thracians, Sarmatians, and Scythians, sought aid from the neighboring kings, built a navy, and enlisted pilots and helmsmen.
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Appian. The Foreign Wars. Horace White. New York. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 1899.
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