date is not
quite certain. Probably it happened in 86.

[Sidenote: Sulla winters in Thessaly.] After the battle Sulla wintered
in Thessaly, where he built a fleet, being tired of waiting for
Lucullus. [Sidenote: He confers with Archelaus at Delium.] At Delium
he met Archelaus and each urged the other to turn traitor, Archelaus
promising that Mithridates would aid Sulla against Cinna; Sulla
advising Archelaus to dethrone Mithridates. It was a curious way of
showing the respect which they entertained for each other's ability;
but Sulla was too scornful of Asiatic aid, and Archelaus too loyal
to listen to such suggestions. However, when Archelaus fell ill
afterwards, Sulla was so attentive to him, besides giving him land
in Euboea and styling him friend of the Roman people, that it was
suspected that Archelaus had been playing into his hands all along. It
was a most unlikely suspicion; for nothing was more natural than that
now, when Sulla was making terms with Mithridates and going to meet
Fimbria, he should wish to make Archelaus his friend. For after all he
had resolved to forget the Asiatic massacre and not push Mithridates
to desperation. [Sidenote: Terms offered by Sulla to Mithridates.] The
terms agreed upon were these: Mithridates was to surrender Cappadocia,
Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Asia, and the islands, eighty ships of war, all
prisoners and deserters; he was to give pay and provisions to Sulla's
men, and provide a war indemnity of 3,000 talents (732,000_l_.); to
restore to their homes the refugees from Macedonia, and those whom, as
will be related hereafter, he had carried off from Chios; and to hand
over more of his ships of war to such states as Rhodes in alliance
with Rome. Mithridates was then to be recognised as the ally of Rome.
He chafed at the terms, the proposal of which indeed brought out the
long-headed intrepidity of Sulla's character in the strongest light.
Walking, as it were, on the razor-edge of two precipices, he never
faltered once. The Romans could not charge him with not having carried
into effect the original purpose of the war--the restoration of
Nicomedes and Ariobarzanes--nor could Mithridates fail in the end to
listen to the voice of Archelaus. When he at first rejected the terms,
Sulla advanced towards Asia, plundering some of the barbarous tribes
on the frontiers of Macedonia, and reducing that province to order.
But Mithridates did not hesitate long. [Sidenote: Tyranny and
difficulti