tor when war was afoot in Asia, and
perhaps may have had the honester notion that, as Mithridates was sure
to go to war soon, it was for the public as well as for his private
interest to act boldly and strike the first blow. So he forced the
reluctant Bithynian king to declare war, and to ravage with an army
the country round Amastris while his fleet shut up the Bosporus. Still
Mithridates did not stir; all that he did was to lodge a complaint
with the Romans, and solicit their mediation or their permission to
defend himself. [Sidenote: Aquillius forces on a war.] Aquillius
replied that he must in no case make war on Nicomedes. It is easy to
conceive how such an answer affected a man of the king's temper. He
instantly sent his son with an army into Cappadocia. But once more he
tried diplomacy. [Sidenote: Ultimatum of Mithridates.] Pelopidas, his
envoy, came to Aquillius, and said that his master was willing to aid
the Romans against the Italians if the Romans would forbid Nicomedes
to attack him, their ally. If not, he wished the alliance to be
formally dissolved. Or there was yet another alternative. Let the
commissioners and himself appeal to the Senate to decide between them.
The commissioners treated the message as an insult. Mithridates,
they said, must not attack Nicomedes, and they intended to restore
Ariobarzanes. Possibly the conduct of Aquillius was due to his having
been heavily bribed by Nicomedes, who must have felt that when the
Romans were gone he would be like a mouse awaiting the cat's spring;
for it is difficult to imagine the foolhardiness which without some
such tangible stimulus would at that moment have plunged him into war.

[Sidenote: War begun. Energy of Mithridates.] But when once the die
was cast, Mithridates threw himself into the war with the energy of
long-suppressed rage. He sent to court the alliance of Egypt and the
Cretan league, to whom he represented himself as the champion of
Greece against her tyrant. He tried to stir up revolts in Thrace and
Macedonia. He arranged with Tigranes that an Armenian army should
co-operate with him, leaving him the land it occupied, but carrying
off the plunder. He gave the word, and a swarm of pirate ships swept
the Mediterranean under his colours. He summoned an army of 250,000
foot, 40,000 horse, and 130 scythed chariots, a fleet of 300 decked
vessels, and 100 other ships called 'Dicrota' with a double bank of
oars. He formed and armed in Roman fashio