there had occurred a fresh complication,
for the Asiatic difficulties had rendered it imperatively necessary
to declare war against Mithradates king of Pontus, and for next year
(666) to destine the one consul and a consular army to Asia Minor.
Had this war broken out a year earlier, the contemporary revolt of
the half of Italy and of the most important of the provinces would have
formed an immense peril to the Roman state. Now that the marvellous
good fortune of Rome had once more been evinced in the rapid collapse
of the Italian insurrection, this Asiatic war just beginning was,
notwithstanding its being mixed up with the expiring Italian
struggle, not of a really dangerous character; and the less so,
because Mithradates in his arrogance refused the invitation of the
Italians that he should afford them direct assistance. Still it
was in a high degree inconvenient. The times had gone by, when
they without hesitation carried on simultaneously an Italian and
a transmarine war, the state-chest was already after two years of
warfare utterly exhausted, and the formation of a new army in addition
to that already in the field seemed scarcely practicable. But they
resorted to such expedients as they could. The sale of the sites
that had from ancient times(19) remained unoccupied on and near the
citadel to persons desirous of building, which yielded 9000 pounds of
gold (360,000 pounds), furnished the requisite pecuniary means. No new
army was formed, but that which was under Sulla in Campania was destined
to embark for Asia, as soon as the state of things in southern Italy
should allow its departure; which might be expected, from the progress
of the army operating in the north under Strabo, to happen soon.

Third Campaign
Capture of Venusia
Fall of Silo

So the third campaign in 666 began amidst favourable prospects for
Rome. Strabo put down the last resistance which was still offered
in the Abruzzi. In Apulia the successor of Cosconius, Quintus Metellus
Pius, son of the conqueror of Numidia and not unlike his father in
his strongly conservative views as well as in military endowments,
put an end to the resistance by the capture of Venusia, at which 3000
armed men were taken prisoners. In Samnium Silo no doubt succeeded
in retaking Bovianum; but in a battle, in which he engaged the Roman
general Mamercus Aemilius, the Romans conquered, and--what was more
important than the victory itself--Silo was among the 6000 de