Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
cowardly than huntsmen, to leave the wild beasts abroad, and seek
after sport in their deserted dens. Having so said, he made
towards Mithridates with thirty thousand foot, and two thousand
five hundred horse. But on being come in sight of his enemies, he
was astonished at their numbers, and thought to forbear fighting,
and wear out time. But Marius, whom Sertorius had sent out of
Spain to Mithridates with forces under him, stepping out and
challenging him, he prepared for battle. In the very instant
before joining battle, without any perceptible alteration
preceding, on a sudden the sky opened, and a large luminous body
fell down in the midst between the armies, in shape like a
hogshead, but in color like melted silver, insomuch that both
armies in alarm withdrew. This wonderful prodigy happened in
Phrygia, near Otryae. Lucullus after this began to think with
himself that no human power and wealth could suffice to sustain
such great numbers as Mithridates had, for any long time in the
face of an enemy, and commanded one of the captives to be brought
before him, and first of all asked him, how many companions had
been quartered with him, and how much provision he had left behind
him, and when he had answered him, commanded him to stand aside;
then asked a second and a third the same question; after which,
comparing the quantity of provision with the men, he found that in
three or four days' time, his enemies would be brought to want.
This all the more determined him to trust to time, and he took
measures to store his camp with all sorts of provision, and thus
living in plenty, trusted to watch the necessities of his hungry
enemy.
This made Mithridates set out against the Cyzicenians, miserably
shattered in the fight at Chalcedon, where they lost no less than
three thousand citizens and ten ships. And that he might the safer
steal away unobserved by Lucullus, immediately after supper, by the
help of a dark and wet night, he went off and by the morning gained
the neighborhood of the city, and sat down with his forces upon the
Adrastean mount. Lucullus, on finding him gone, pursued, but was
well pleased not to overtake him with his own forces in disorder;
and he sat down near what is called the Thracian village, an
admirable position for commanding all the roads and the places
whence, and through which the provisions for Mithridates's camp
must of necessity come. And judging now of the event, he no longer
kept his mind from his soldiers, but when the camp was fortified
and their work finished, called them together, and with great
assurance told them that in a few days, without the expense of
blood, he would give them victory.
Mithridates besieged the Cyzicenians with ten camps by land, and
with his ships occupied the strait that was betwixt their city and
the main land, and so blocked them up on all sides; they, however,
were fully prepared stoutly to receive him, and resolved to endure
the utmost extremity, rather than forsake the Romans. That which
troubled them most was, that they knew not where Lucullus was, and
heard nothing of him, though at that time his army was visible
before them. But they were imposed upon by the Mithridatians, who,
showing them the Romans encamped on the hills, said, "Do ye see
those? those are the auxiliary Armenians and Medes, whom Tigranes
has sent to Mithridates." They were thus overwhelmed with thinking
of the vast numbers round them, and could not believe any way of
relief was left them, even if Lucullus should come up to their
assistance. Demonax, a messenger sent in by Archelaus, was the
first who told them of Lucullus's arrival; but they disbelieved his
report, and thought he came with a story invented merely to
encourage them. At which time it happened that a boy, a prisoner
who had run away from the enemy, was brought before them; who,
being asked where Lucullus was, laughed at their jesting, as he
thought, but, finding them in earnest, with his finger pointed to
the Roman camp; upon which they took courage. The lake Dascylitis
was navigated with vessels of some little size; one, the biggest of
them, Lucullus drew ashore, and carrying her across in a wagon to
the sea, filled her with soldiers, who, sailing along unseen in the
dead of the night, came safe into the city.
The gods themselves, too, in admiration of the constancy of the
Cyzicenians, seem to have animated them with manifest signs, more
especially now in the festival of Proserpine, where a black heifer
being wanting for sacrifice, they supplied it by a figure made of
dough, which they set before the altar. But the holy heifer set
apart for the goddess, and at that time grazing with the other
herds of the Cyzicenians on the other side of the strait, left the
herd and swam over to the city alone, and offered herself for
sacrifice. By night, also, the goddess appearing to Aristagoras,
the town clerk, "I am come," said she, "and have brought the Libyan
piper against the Pontic trumpeter; bid the citizens, therefore, be
of good courage." While the Cyzicenians were wondering what the
words could mean, a sudden wind sprung up and caused a considerable
motion on the sea. The king's battering engines, the wonderful
contrivance of Niconides of Thessaly, then under the walls, by
their cracking and rattling, soon demonstrated what would follow;
after which an extraordinarily tempestuous south wind succeeding
shattered in a short space of time all the rest of the works, and
by a violent concussion, threw down the wooden tower a hundred
cubits high. It is said that in Ilium Minerva appeared to many
that night in their sleep, with the sweat running down her person,
and showed them her robe torn in one place, telling them that she
had just arrived from relieving the Cyzicenians; and the
inhabitants to this day show a monument with an inscription,
including a public decree, referring to the fact.
Mithridates, through the knavery of his officers, not knowing for
some time the want of provision in his camp, was troubled in mind
that the Cyzicenians should hold out against him. But his ambition
and anger fell, when he saw his soldiers in the extremity of want,
and feeding on man's flesh; as, in truth, Lucullus was not carrying
on the war as mere matter of show and stage-play, but according to
the proverb, made the seat of war in the belly, and did everything
to cut off their supplies of food. Mithridates, therefore, took
advantage of the time, while Lucullus was storming a fort, and sent
away almost all his horse to Bithynia, with the sumpter cattle, and
as many of the foot as were unfit for service. On intelligence of
which, Lucullus, while it was yet night, came to his camp, and in
the morning, though it was stormy weather, took with him ten
cohorts of foot, and the horse, and pursued them under falling snow
and in cold so severe that many of his soldiers were unable to
proceed; and with the rest coming upon the enemy, near the river
Rhyndacus, he overthrew them with so great a slaughter, that the
very women of Apollonia came out to seize on the booty and strip
the slain. Great numbers, as we may suppose, were slain; six
thousand horses were taken, with an infinite number of beasts of
burden, and no less than fifteen thousand men. All which he led
along by the enemy's camp. I cannot but wonder on this occasion at
Sallust, who says that this was the first time camels were seen by
the Romans, as if he thought those who, long before, under Scipio,
defeated Antiochus, or those who lately had fought against
Archelaus near Orchomenus and Chaeronea, had not known what a camel
was. Mithridates, himself fully determined upon flight, as mere
delays and diversions for Lucullus, sent his admiral Aristonicus to
the Greek sea; who, however, was betrayed in the very instant of
going off, and Lucullus became master of him, and ten thousand
pieces of gold which he was carrying with him to corrupt some of
the Roman army. After which, Mithridates himself made for the sea,
leaving the foot officers to conduct the army, upon whom Lucullus
fell, near the river Granicus, where he took a vast number alive,
and slew twenty thousand. It is reported that the total number
killed, of fighting men and of others who followed the camp,
amounted to something not far short of three hundred thousand.
Lucullus first went to Cyzicus, where he was received with all the
joy and gratitude suiting the occasion, and then collected a navy,
visiting the shores of the Hellespont. And arriving at Troas, he
lodged in the temple of Venus, where, in the night, he thought he
saw the goddess coming to him, and saying,
Sleep'st thou, great lion, when the fawns are nigh?
Rising up hereupon, he called his friends to him, it being yet
night, and told them his vision; at which instant some Ilians came
up and acquainted him that thirteen of the king's quinqueremes were
seen off the Achaean harbor, sailing for Lemnos. He at once put to
sea, took these, and slew their admiral Isidorus. And then he made
after another squadron, who were just come into port, and were
hauling their vessels ashore, but fought from the decks, and sorely
galled Lucullus's men; there being neither room to sail round
them, nor to bear upon them for any damage, his ships being afloat,
while theirs stood secure and fixed on the sand. After much ado,
at the only landing-place of the island, he disembarked the
choicest of his men, who, falling upon the enemy behind, killed
some, and forced others to cut their cables, and thus making from
the shore, they fell foul upon one another, or came within the
reach of Lucullus's fleet. Many were killed in the action. Among
the captives was Marius, the commander sent by Sertorius, who had
but one eye. And it was Lucullus's strict command to his men
before the engagement, that they should kill no man who had but one
eye, that he might rather die under disgrace and reproach.
This being over, he hastened his pursuit after Mithridates, whom he
hoped to find still in Bithynia, intercepted by Voconius, whom he
sent out before to Nicomedia with part of the fleet, to stop his
flight. But Voconius, loitering in Samothrace to get initiated and
celebrate a feast, let slip his opportunity, Mithridates being
passed by with all his fleet. He, hastening into Pontus before
Lucullus should come up to him, was caught in a storm, which
dispersed his fleet and sunk several ships. The wreck floated on
all the neighboring shore for many days after. The merchant ship,
in which he himself was, could not well in that heavy swell be
brought ashore by the masters for its bigness, and it being heavy
with water and ready to sink, he left it and went aboard a pirate
vessel, delivering himself into the hands of pirates, and thus
unexpectedly and wonderfully came safe to Heraclea, in Pontus.
Thus the proud language Lucullus had used to the senate, ended
without any mischance. For they having decreed him three thousand
talents to furnish out a navy, he himself was against it, and sent
them word that without any such great and costly supplies, by the
confederate shipping alone, he did not in the least doubt but to
rout Mithridates from the sea. And so he did, by divine
assistance, for it is said that the wrath of Diana of Priapus
brought the great tempest upon the men of Pontus, because they had
robbed her temple, and removed her image.
Many were persuading Lucullus to defer the war, but he rejected
their counsel, and marched through Bithynia and Galatia into the
king's country, in such great scarcity of provision at first, that
thirty thousand Galatians followed, every man carrying a bushel of
wheat at his back. But subduing all in his progress before him, he
at last found himself in such great plenty, that an ox was sold in