The Historians' History of the World 05

The liberated prisoners who now returned to their homes, the soldiers enriched by the chase, the Roman people saved from hunger, the merchants of the wide Roman dominions whose commerce was reinstated—all lauded the name of the great proconsul who had accomplished in three months what had been vainly desired for seventeen years. In fact, this extermination of the corsairs of the Mediterranean was probably the most brilliant and in any case the most meritorious achievement in the life of Pompey, although it must also be noted that this swift conquest was as illustrative of the power of Rome when it assembled and united its forces, as it was of the capacity of Pompey. The pirates themselves moreover had no cause to complain of undue severity. The better sort were allowed to settle in the town of Soli in Cilicia, whose name, Pompeiopolis, immortalised the memory of its conqueror; others found shelter in different inland places and towns, whilst some were even bestowed in southern Italy. The temperate way in which Pompey treated the conquered led the Cretans, who had been conquered in 68 by Q. Metellus and treated with great cruelty, to send their submission by an embassy.

Pompey accepted it and sent them his deputy L. Octavius; Metellus protested loudly against this invasion of his province, and took up arms against him, but his protest was unjustifiable in face of the Gabinian law. Thus a regular civil war arose in the island, which was of little importance in itself but greatly increased the very unsettled condition of the republic and its government.

THE SECOND AND THIRD MITHRIDATIC WARS

[84-73 B.C.]

In the meanwhile Pompey was by no means inclined to be contented with this triumph. He expected that the command in the Pirate War would lead to a greater and more important one. The war in Asia had always been the object of his desires, and now, after crushing the corsairs, the people could not refuse him anything. L. Licinius Murena, left by Sulla in Asia in the year 84 with the two Fimbrian legions, had recommenced the war directly after his general’s departure, but without success, and at Sulla’s command he abandoned it; these military operations, which ended in the year 81 with the triumph of the proprætor Murena, were distinguished by the name of the Second Mithridatic War. Mithridates knew that the peace with Sulla was only a truce, and he saw himself threatened anew when the Romans made Bithynia a province in the year 75, its last king, Nicomedes III, having died and bequeathed his kingdom to the Roman people. We know that through the Marians who had taken refuge at his court, Mithridates entered into negotiations with Sertorius, and therefore in the year 74 the consuls, L. Licinius Lucullus and M. Aurelius Cotta, accepted the king’s challenge to the Third Mithridatic War.

The king found that the corsairs were allies not to be despised on the sea; and the Roman outlaws at his court, as well as the officers sent him by Sertorius, helped him to drill his army in the Roman fashion. Lucullus and Cotta were entrusted with the direction of the war. The former, a man belonging to the aristocratic class had exhibited great capacity in the eastern seat of war, and in all the appointments since filled by him, he had proved himself a skilful and intelligent officer, while his moderation and gentleness united with unusual cultivation had won Sulla’s highest approval.

In the year 74 the war commenced. Mithridates began operations by calling many districts in Asia Minor to arms and by making himself master in Bithynia by means of his fleet and army. The Romans had retired to Chalcedon; and here Cotta, who refused to wait for his advancing colleague, was beaten by land and water, and the king proceeded in a southwesterly direction, towards the town of Cyzicus, and laid siege to it. The Hellenic inhabitants offered a firm resistance, for they knew the fate that awaited conquered cities at the hands of the Pontian king. Lucullus was therefore able to move to a spot east of the camp of Mithridates. By this stroke he cut off the king’s communication with his Pontian territory and closing the way on the land side left Mithridates only the sea open to him. At the river Rhyndacus (east of Cyzicus) Lucullus defeated a portion of the enemy’s army which was attempting to break through the Roman lines. The sufferings from the winter season and want of care consequent on the stoppage of the transports had naturally thinned the ranks of the three hundred thousand men who were besieging the city. So in the spring of 73 the king was finally forced to raise the siege and escape with the rest of his fleet; and the failure would have been fatal to him, had not the Roman ships been burned in the harbour the previous year.

[73-70 B.C.]