ult to manage, from being accustomed to obey no commander. They
were the men who joined Fimbria in putting to death Flaccus, who was a
consul and their general, and who gave up Fimbria himself to
Sulla[343]--self-willed and lawless men, but brave and full of
endurance, and experienced soldiers. However, in a short time,
Lucullus took down the insolence of these soldiers, and changed the
character of the rest, who then, for the first time, as it seems, knew
what it was to have a genuine commander and leader; for under other
generals, they were used to be courted, and spirited on to military
service in such wise as was agreeable to them. As to the enemy,
matters were thus: Mithridates, like most of the sophists,[344] full
of boasting at first, and rising up against the Romans arrogantly,
with an army unsubstantial in fact, but in appearance brilliant and
pompous, had failed in his undertaking, and exposed himself to
ridicule: but now, when he was going to commence the war a second
time, taught by experience he concentrated his powers in a real and
effectual preparation. Rejecting those motley numbers and many-tongued
threats of the barbarians, and arms ornamented with gold and precious
stones, which he considered to be the spoils of the victors, and to
give no strength to those who possess them, he set about having Roman
swords made, and heavy shields manufactured; and he got together
horses which were well trained, instead of horses which were well
caparisoned; and one hundred and twenty thousand foot-soldiers who
were disciplined to the Roman order of battle, and sixteen thousand
horse-soldiers, without reckoning the scythe-bearing four-horse
chariots, and these were a hundred; besides, his ships were not filled
with tents embroidered with gold, nor with baths for concubines, nor
apartments for the women luxuriously furnished; but fitting them out
fully with arms, missiles, and stores, he invaded Bithynia, where he
was again gladly received by the cities, and not by these cities only,
for a return of their former calamities had visited all Asia, which
was suffering past endurance from the Roman money-lenders[345] and
farmers of the taxes.[346] These men, who, like so many harpies, were
plundering the people of their substance, Lucullus afterwards drove
out; but, for the time, he endeavoured by reproof to make them more
moderate in their conduct, and he stopped the insurrection of the
towns, when, so to speak, not a singl