in Thessaly, with a
view to begin the Asiatic campaign in the spring of 670,(15) for
which purpose he gave orders to build ships in the Thessalian ports.

Reaction in Asia Minor against Mithradates

Meanwhile the circumstances of Asia Minor also had undergone a
material change. If king Mithradates had once come forward as the
liberator of the Hellenes, if he had introduced his rule with the
recognition of civic independence and with remission of taxes, they
had after this brief ecstasy been but too rapidly and too bitterly
undeceived. He had very soon emerged in his true character, and
had begun to exercise a despotism far surpassing the tyranny of
the Roman governors--a despotism which drove even the patient
inhabitants of Asia Minor to open revolt. The sultan again resorted
to the most violent expedients. His decrees granted independence
to the townships which turned to him, citizenship to the -metoeci-,
full remission of debts to the debtors, lands to those that had none,
freedom to the slaves; nearly 15,000 such manumitted slaves fought
in the army of Archelaus. The most fearful scenes were the result
of this high-handed subversion of all existing order. The most
considerable mercantile cities, Smyrna, Colophon, Ephesus, Tralles,
Sardes, closed their gates against the king's governors or put
them to death, and declared for Rome.(16) On the other hand the
king's lieutenant Diodorus, a philosopher of note like Aristion, of
another school, but equally available for the worst subservience,
under the instructions of his master caused the whole town-council
of Adramyttium to be put to death. The Chians, who were suspected
of an inclination to Rome, were fined in the first instance in 2000
talents (480,000 pounds) and, when the payment was found not correct,
they were en masse put on board ship and deported in chains under
the charge of their own slaves to the coast of Colchis, while their
island was occupied with Pontic colonists. The king gave orders that
the chiefs of the Celts in Asia Minor should all be put to death along
with their wives and children in one day, and that Galatia should be
converted into a Pontic satrapy. Most of these bloody edicts were
carried into effect either at Mithradates' own headquarters or in
Galatia, but the few who escaped placed themselves at the head of
their powerful tribes and expelled Eumachus, the governor of the king,
out of their bounds. It may readily be conceived tha