x legions, the island was
evacuated by Perpenna without resistance. Pompeius sent a squadron
thence to Cossyra, which captured the Marian officers sojourning
there. Marcus Brutus and the others were immediately executed;
but Pompeius had enjoined that the consul Carbo should be brought
before himself at Lilybaeum in order that, unmindful of the
protection accorded to him in a season of peril by that very
man,(17) he might personally hand him over to the executioner (672).
Africa
Having been ordered to go on to Africa, Pompeius with his
army which was certainly far more numerous, defeated the not
inconsiderable forces collected by Ahenobarbus and Hiarbas, and,
declining for the time to be saluted as -imperator-, he at once
gave the signal for assault on the hostile camp. He thus became
master of the enemy in one day; Ahenobarbus was among the fallen:
with the aid of king Bogud, Hiarbas was seized and slain at Bulla,
and Hiempsal was reinstated in his hereditary kingdom; a great
razzia against the inhabitants of the desert, among whom a number
of Gaetulian tribes recognized as free by Marius were made subject
to Hiempsal, revived in Africa also the fallen repute of the Roman
name: in forty days after the landing of Pompeius in Africa all was
at an end (674?). The senate instructed him to break up his army--
an implied hint that he was not to be allowed a triumph, to which
as an extraordinary magistrate he could according to precedent make
no claim. The general murmured secretly, the soldiers loudly; it
seemed for a moment as if the African army would revolt against the
senate and Sulla would have to take the field against his son-in-
law. But Sulla yielded, and allowed the young man to boast of
being the only Roman who had become a triumphator before he was
a senator (12 March 675); in fact the "Fortunate," not perhaps
without a touch of irony, saluted the youth on his return from
these easy exploits as the "Great."
Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates
In the east also, after the embarkation of Sulla in the spring of
671, there had been no cessation of warfare. The restoration of
the old state of things and the subjugation of individual towns
cost in Asia as in Italy various bloody struggles. Against the
free city of Mytilene in particular Lucius Lucullus was obliged
at length to bring up troops, after having exhausted all gentler
measures; and even a victory in the open field did not put an end
to the o
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