of the step
to which necessity had driven the king, and to demand their
ultimatum. It was to the effect which was to be anticipated.
Although neither the Roman senate nor king Mithradates nor king
Nicomedes had desired the rupture, Aquillius desired it and war
ensued (end of 665).

Preparations of Mithradates

Mithradates prosecuted the political and military preparations for
the passage of arms thus forced upon him with all his characteristic
energy. First of all he drew closer his alliance with Tigranes king
of Armenia, and obtained from him the promise of an auxiliary army
which was to march into western Asia and to take possession of the
soil there for king Mithradates and of the moveable property for
king Tigranes. The Parthian king, offended by the haughty carriage
of Sulla, though not exactly coming forward as an antagonist to
the Romans, did not act as their ally. To the Greeks the king
endeavoured to present himself in the character of Philip and
Perseus, as the defender of the Greek nation against the alien rule
of the Romans. Pontic envoys were sent to the king of Egypt and to
the last remnant of free Greece, the league of the Cretan cities,
and adjured those for whom Rome had already forged her chains to rise
now at the last moment and save Hellenic nationality; the attempt was
in the case of Crete at least not wholly in vain, and numerous Cretans
took service in the Pontic army. Hopes were entertained that the
lesser and least of the protected states--Numidia, Syria, the Hellenic
republics--would successively rebel, and that the provinces would
revolt, particularly the west of Asia Minor, the victim of unbounded
oppression. Efforts were made to excite a Thracian rising, and even
to arouse Macedonia to revolt. Piracy, which even previously was
flourishing, was now everywhere let loose as a most welcome ally,
and with alarming rapidity squadrons of corsairs, calling themselves
Pontic privateers, filled the Mediterranean far and wide. With
eagerness and delight accounts were received of the commotions among
the Roman burgesses, and of the Italian insurrection subdued yet far
from extinguished. No direct relations, however, were formed with
the discontented and the insurgents in Italy; except that a foreign
corps armed and organized in the Roman fashion was created in Asia,
the flower of which consisted of Roman and Italian refugees.
Forces like those of Mithradates had not been seen in Asia since