sion for declaring war;
but he carefully avoided any open rupture which would have placed the
senate under the necessity of declaring it. As soon as men appeared
to be in earnest he drew back, before Sulla as well as before
Aquillius; he hoped, doubtless, that he would not always be
confronted by energetic generals, that he too would, as well as
Jugurtha, fall in with his Scaurus or Albinus. It must be owned
that this hope was not without reason; although the very example
of Jugurtha had on the other hand shown how foolish it was to
confound the bribery of a Roman commander and the corruption
of a Roman army with the conquest of the Roman people.

Aquillius Brings about War
Nicomedes

Thus matters stood between peace and war, and looked quite as if
they would drag on for long in the same indecisive position. But
it was not the intention of Aquillius to allow this; and, as he could
not compel his government to declare war against Mithradates, he
made use of Nicomedes for that purpose. The latter, who was under
the power of the Roman general and was, moreover, his debtor for
the accumulated war expenses and for sums promised to the general in
person, could not avoid complying with the suggestion that he should
begin war with Mithradates. The declaration of war by Bithynia
took place; but, even when the vessels of Nicomedes closed the
Bosporus against those of Pontus, and his troops marched into the
frontier districts of Pontus and laid waste the region of Amastris,
Mithradates remained still unshaken in his policy of peace; instead
of driving the Bithynians over the frontier, he lodged a complaint
with the Roman envoys and asked them either to mediate or to allow
him the privilege of self-defence. But he was informed by
Aquillius, that he must under all circumstances refrain from war
against Nicomedes. That indeed was plain. They had employed
exactly the same policy against Carthage; they allowed the victim
to be set upon by the Roman hounds and forbade its defending itself
against them. Mithradates reckoned himself lost, just as the
Carthaginians had done; but, while the Phoenicians yielded from
despair, the king of Sinope did the very opposite and assembled
his troops and ships. "Does not even he who must succumb," he is
reported to have said, "defend himself against the robber?" His son
Ariobarzanes received orders to advance into Cappadocia; a message
was sent once more to the Roman envoys to inform them