talus died
in 133, the year of the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus, when Scipio
was besieging Numantia, and the first slave revolt was raging in
Sicily. The Romans had their hands full, and Aristonicus might have
so established himself as to give them trouble, had not some of the
Asiatic cities headed by Ephesus, and aided by the kings of Cappadocia
and Bithynia, opposed him. He seized Leucae (the modern Lefke) and
was expelled by the Ephesians. But when the Senate found time to send
commissioners, he was already in possession of Thyatira, Apollonia,
Myndus, Colophon, and Samos. Blossius, the friend of Gracchus, had
come to him, and the civil strife at Rome must have raised his
hopes. [Sidenote: Conduct of Crassus, illustrating Roman rule in the
province.] But in the year 131 P. Licinius Crassus Mucianus, the
father-in-law of Caius Gracchus, was consul, and was sent to Asia. He
was Pontifex Maximus, rich, high-born, eloquent, and of great legal
knowledge; and from his intimacy with the Gracchi and Scipio he must
have been an unusually favourable specimen of the aristocrat of the
day. And this is what he did in Asia. He was going to besiege Leucae,
and having seen two pieces of timber at Elaea, sent for the larger
of them to make a battering ram. The builder, who was the chief
magistrate of the town, sent him the smaller piece as being the most
suitable, and Crassus had him stripped and scourged. Next year he was
surprised by the enemy near Leucae. Apparently he could have got off
if he had not been laden with his collections in Asia, to procure
which he had intrigued to prevent his colleague Flaccus getting that
province. Unable to escape, he provoked his captor to kill him by
thrusting a stick into his eye. His death was a striking comment on
the Senate's government. Cruelty and culture, personal bravery and.
incompetence--such an alloy was now the best metal which its most
respectable representatives could supply.

[Sidenote: End of Aristonicus and settlement of the kingdom.]
Aristonicus was now the more formidable because he had roused the
slaves, among whom the spirit of revolt, in sympathy with the rest of
their kind throughout the Roman world, was then working. But in the
year 130 M. Perperna surprised him, and carried him to Rome. Blossius
committed suicide. The pretender was strangled in prison. Part of his
territory was given to the kings who had helped the consul, one of
whom was the father of the great Mithri