is time now to say what Sulla had been doing, and who
that Mithridates was whose name for so long had been formidable at
Rome.

[Sidenote: Foreign events after the second slave war.] After the
defeat of the northern hordes and the suppression of the second slave
revolt, there was a war with the Celtiberi in Spain, in 97, in
which Sertorius showed himself already an adroit and bold officer.
[Sidenote: Sertorius in command against the Celtiberi.] He was in
winter quarters at Castulo (Cazlona), and his men were so disorderly
that the Spaniards were emboldened to attack them in the town;
Sertorius escaped, rallied those soldiers who had also escaped,
marched back, and after putting those in the town to the sword,
dressed his troops in the dead men's clothes, and so obtained
admission to another town which had helped the enemy. But the hero of
the campaign was Titus Didius, afterwards Caesar's lieutenant in the
Social War. He had some hard fighting and captured Termesus, the chief
town of the Arevaci, and Colenda.--He earned his triumph by other
means also. There was a town near Colenda, the inhabitants of which
the Romans wished to destroy. Didius told them that he would give them
the lands of Colenda, and they came to receive their allotments. As
soon as they were within his lines, his soldiers set on them and slew
them all.

[Sidenote: Africa.] In 96 B.C. Ptolemaus Apion bequeathed Cyrene--a
narrow strip of terraced land on the north coast of Africa, situated
between the Libyan deserts and the Mediterranean--to Rome. The Romans
did not refuse the legacy; but they took no trouble to govern the
country. The cities of Cyrene were declared to be free. In other
words, while nominally subject to Rome, so that she might interfere
when she pleased, they were left to govern themselves. Such government
was no government; but it was in accordance with the deliberate policy
of the senatorial party.

[Sidenote: Crimes and intrigues of Mithridates.] It was in the same
year that Mithridates committed the first of the series of crimes
which eventually brought him into collision with Rome. His sister
had married the King of Cappadocia. Mithridates assassinated him.
Nicomedes, King of Bithynia, seized Cappadocia and married the widowed
sister of Mithridates. Having slain one brother-in-law, Mithridates
expelled the other, and set on the throne his sister's son. But when
his nephew refused to welcome home Gordius, the man who had murder