The history of Rome. Book IV

in marriage to the great-prince of the Iberians Mihrdates (Mithradates) who was descended from Mihrdates satrap of Darius and governor appointed by Alexander over the conquered Iberians, and ruled in the northern mountains as well as over the Black Sea. Ardasches then took Croesus the king of the Lydians prisoner, subdued the mainland between the two great seas (Asia Minor), and crossed the sea with innumerable vessels to subjugate the west. As there was anarchy at that time in Rome, he nowhere encountered serious resistance, but his soldiers killed each other and Ardasches fell by the hands of his own troops. After Ardasches' death his successor Dicran marched against the army of the Greeks (i. e. the Romans) who now in turn invaded the Armenian land; he set a limit to their advance, handed over to his brother-in-law Mihrdates the administration of Madschag (Mazaca in Cappadocia) and of the interior along with a considerable force, and returned to Armenia. Many years afterwards there were still pointed out in the Armenian towns statues of Greek gods by well-known masters, trophies of this campaign.

We have no difficulty in recognizing here various facts of the first Mithradatic war, but the whole narrative is evidently confused, furnished with heterogeneous additions, and in particular transferred by patriotic falsification to Armenia. In just the same way the victory over Crassus is afterwards attributed to the Armenians. These Oriental accounts are to be received with all the greater caution, that they are by no means mere popular legends; on the contrary the accounts of Josephus, Eusebius, and other authorities current among the Christians of the fifth century have been amalgamated with the Armenian traditions, and the historical romances of the Greeks and beyond doubt the patriotic fancies also of Moses himself have been laid to a considerable extent under contribution. Bad as is cur Occidental tradition in itself, to call in the aid of Oriental tradition in this and similar cases - as has been attempted for instance by the uncritical Saint-Martin - can only lead to still further confusion.

19. III. X. Intervention in the Syro-Egyptian War.

Chapter IX Cinna and Sulla

1. The whole of the representation that follows is based in substance on the recently discovered account of Licinianus, which communicates a number of facts previously unknown, and in particular enables us to perceive the sequence and connection of these events more clearly than was possible before.

2. IV. VII. The Bestowal of the Franchise and Its Limitations. That there was no confirmation by the comitia, is clear from Cic. Phil. xii. 11, 27. The senate seems to have made use of the form of simply prolonging the term of the Plautio-Papirian law (IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts), a course which by use and wont (i. 409) was open to it and practically amounted to conferring the franchise on all Italians.

3. 'Ad flatus sidere', as Livy (according to Obsequens, 56) expresses it, means 'seized by the pestilence' (Petron. Sat. 2; Plin. H. N. ii. 41, 108; Liv. viii. 9, 12), not 'struck by lightning', as later writers have misunderstood it.

4. IV. VII. Combats with the Marsians.

5. IV. VII. Sulpicius Rufus.

6. IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts.

7. IV. V. In Illyria.

8. IV. VI. Discussions on the Livian Laws.

9. IV. VII. Energetic Decrees.

10. Lucius Valerius Flaccus, whom the Fasti name as consul in 668, was not the consul of 654, but a younger man of the same name, perhaps son of the preceding. For, first, the law which prohibited re-election to the consulship remained legally in full force from c. 603 (IV. II. Attempts at Reform) to 673, and it is not probable that what was done in the case of Scipio Aemilianus and Marius was done also for Flaccus. Secondly, there is no mention anywhere, when either Flaccus is named, of a double consulship, not even where it was necessary as in Cic. pro Flacc. 32, 77. Thirdly, the Lucius Valerius Flaccus who was active in Rome in 669 as princeps senatus and consequently of consular rank (Liv. 83), cannot have been the consul of 668, for the latter had already at that time departed for Asia and was probably already dead. The consul of 654, censor in 657, is the person whom Cicero (ad Att. viii. 3, 6) mentions among the consulars present in Rome in 667; he was in 669 beyond doubt the oldest of the old censors living and thus fitted to be princeps senatus; he was also the interrex and the magister equitum of 672. On the other hand, the consul of 668, who Perished at Nicomedia (p. 47), was the father of the Lucius Flaccus defended by Cicero (pro Flacc. 25, 61, comp. 23, 55. 32, 77).

11. IV. VI. The Equestrian Party.

12. IV. VII. Sulla Embarks for Asia.

13. We can only suppose this to be the Brutus referred to, since Marcus Brutus the father of the so-called Liberator was tribune of the people in 671, and therefore could not command in the field.

14. IV. IV. Prosecutions of the Democrats.

15. It is stated, that Sulla occupied the defile by which alone Praeneste was accessible (App. i. 90); and the further events showed that the road to Rome was open to him as well as to the relieving