e man in them was quiet.

VIII. While Lucullus was busied about these matters, Cotta, thinking
it a good opportunity for himself, was preparing to fight with
Mithridates; and, though many persons brought him intelligence that
Lucullus was encamped in Phrygia on his advanced march, Cotta,
thinking that he had the triumph all but in his hands, hastened to
engage, that Lucullus might have no share in it. But he was defeated
by land and by sea at the same time; and he lost sixty vessels with
all the men in them, and four thousand foot-soldiers, and he was shut
up in Chalkedon[347] and besieged there, and obliged to look for help
at the hands of Lucullus. Now there were some who urged Lucullus not
to care for Cotta, but to advance forward, as he would be able to
seize the kingdom of Mithridates, which was unprotected; and this was
the language of the soldiers especially, who were indignant that
Cotta, not satisfied with ruining himself and those with him by his
imprudent measures, should be a hindrance to their getting a victory
without a contest when it was in their power; but Lucullus said in
reply to all this in an harangue, that he would rather save one Roman
from the enemy than get all that the enemy had. And when
Archelaus,[348] who had commanded for Mithridates in Boeotia, and
afterwards had left him, and was now in the Roman army, maintained
that if Lucullus would only show himself in Pontus, he might make
himself master of everything at once, Lucullus replied that he was not
a greater coward than huntsmen, which he should be if he passed by the
wild beasts and went to their empty dens. Saying this he advanced
against Mithridates, with thirty thousand foot-soldiers and two
thousand five hundred cavalry. On arriving in sight of the enemy, he
was startled at their numbers, and wished to avoid a battle and to
protract the time. Marius, however, whom Sertorius had sent from
Iberia to Mithridates in command of a force, came out to meet
Lucullus, and challenged him to the contest, on which Lucullus put his
army in order of battle; and they were just on the point of commencing
the engagement, when, without any evident change, but all at once, the
sky opened, and there appeared a huge flame-like body, which came down
between the two armies, in form most like a cask, and in colour
resembling molten silver, so that both armies were alarmed at the
sight and separated. This, it is said, took place in Phrygia, at a
place called