well disposed to a
quiet life; but that, owing to uncontrollable causes, and contrary to
his wishes, he entered on the career of a commander, and then, when he
could not ensure his safety, and was driven to arms by his enemies, he
had recourse to war as the only means by which he could protect his
life.

XXIII. His negociations with Mithridates also were a proof of his
magnanimity; for now that Mithridates, rising from the fall that he
had from Sulla, as it were, to a second contest, had again attacked
Asia, and the fame of Sertorius was great, and had gone abroad to all
parts, and those who sailed from the West had filled the Pontus with
the reports about him, as if with so many foreign wares, Mithridates
was moved to send an embassy to him, being urged thereto mainly by the
fulsome exaggerations of his flatterers, who compared Sertorius to
Hannibal and Mithridates to Pyrrhus, and said that if the Romans were
attacked on both sides, they could not hold out against such great
abilities and powers combined, when the most expert of commanders had
joined the greatest of kings. Accordingly, Mithridates sent
ambassadors to Iberia, with letters to Sertorius and proposals. On his
part he offered to supply money and ships for the war, and he asked
from Sertorius a confirmation of his title to the whole of Asia, which
he had given up to the Romans pursuant to the treaty made with Sulla.
Sertorius assembled a council, which he called a senate, and all the
members advised to accept the king's proposal, and to be well content
with it; they said the king only asked of them a name and an empty
answer touching things that were not in their power, in return for
which they were to receive what they happened to stand most in need
of. But Sertorius would not listen to this; he said he did not grudge
Mithridates having Bithynia and Cappadocia; these were nations that
were accustomed to a king, and the Romans had nothing to do with them;
but the province which belonged to the Romans by the justest of
titles, which Mithridates took from them and kept, from which, after a
contest, he was driven out by Fimbria, and which he gave up by treaty
with Sulla,[161] -that province he would never allow to fall again
into the power of Mithridates; for it was fit that the Roman state
should be extended by his success, not that his success should be
owing to her humiliation. To a generous mind, victory by honest means
was a thing to desire, but life its