n
thousand out of so large a host made their escape to Chalkis.[243]
Sulla says in his Memoirs, that he missed only fourteen of his own
soldiers, and that ten of them showed themselves in the evening; in
commemoration of which he inscribed on the trophies, Mars and
Victory, and Venus, to signify that he had gained the victory no less
through good fortune than skill and courage. One of these trophies,
which commemorates the victory in the plain, stands where the soldiers
of Archelaus first gave ground in the flight to the Molus:[244] the
other is placed on the summit of Thurium, to commemorate the surprise
of the barbarians, with a Greek inscription in honour of the courage
of Homoloichus and Anaxidamus. Sulla celebrated the festival for the
victory in Thebes at the fountain of Oedipus, where he erected a
stage. The judges were Greeks invited from the other cities of Greece;
for Sulla could not be reconciled to the Thebans; and he took from
them half of their lands, which he dedicated to the Pythian Apollo and
Olympian Jupiter; and from the revenue of these lands he ordered the
sums of money which he had taken from them to be repaid to the
deities.

XX. After the battle Sulla received intelligence that Flaccus,[245]
who belonged to the opposite faction, was chosen consul, and was
crossing the Ionian[246] sea with a force which was said to be
designed against Mithridates, but was in fact directed against
himself; and accordingly he advanced towards Thessalia to meet
Flaccus. He had advanced to the neighbourhood of Meliteia,[247] when
reports from all sides reached him that the country in his rear was
ravaged by another army of Mithridates as numerous as that which he
had dispersed. Dorylaus had landed at Chalkis with a large navy, on
board of which he brought eighty thousand men of the best trained and
disciplined troops of Mithridates, and he immediately advanced into
Boeotia and occupied the country, being eager to draw Sulla to an
engagement, and paying no regard to Archelaus, who dissuaded him from
fighting: he even said publicly that so many thousands could never
have been destroyed if there had not been treachery. However, Sulla,
who quickly returned to Boeotia, showed Dorylaus that Archelaus was a
prudent man and had formed a very just estimate of the courage of the
Romans; for after a slight skirmish with Sulla near Tilphossium,[248]
Dorylaus was himself the first among those who were not for deciding
the matter