h the utmost speed. As early as 667 his son
Ariarathes had started from Macedonia to combat Sulla in Greece
proper; only the sudden death, which overtook the prince on the march
at the Tisaean promontory in Thessaly, had at that time led to the
abandonment of the expedition. His successor Taxiles now appeared
(668), driving before him the Roman corps stationed in Thessaly,
with an army of, it is said, 100,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry at
Thermopylae. Dromichaetes joined him. Archelaus also--compelled,
apparently, not so much by Sulla's arms as by his master's orders--
evacuated the Piraeeus first partially and then entirely, and joined
the Pontic main army in Boeotia. Sulla, after the Piraeeus with
all its greatly-admired fortifications had been by his orders
destroyed, followed the Pontic army, in the hope of being able
to fight a pitched battle before the arrival of Flaccus. In vain
Archelaus advised that they should avoid such a battle, but should
keep the sea and the coast occupied and the enemy in suspense.
Now just as formerly under Darius and Antiochus, the masses of
the Orientals, like animals terrified in the midst of a fire, flung
themselves hastily and blindly into battle; and did so on this
occasion more foolishly than ever, since the Asiatics might perhaps
have needed to wait but a few months in order to be the spectators
of a battle between Sulla and Flaccus.

Battle of Chaerones

In the plain of the Cephissus not far from Chaeronea, in March 668,
the armies met. Even including the division driven back from
Thessaly, which had succeeded in accomplishing its junction with
the Roman main army, and including the Greek contingents, the Roman
army found itself opposed to a foe three times as strong and
particularly to a cavalry fur superior and from the nature of
the field of battle very dangerous, against which Sulla found it
necessary to protect his flanks by digging trenches, while in front
he caused a chain of palisades to be introduced between his first and
second lines for protection against the enemy's war-chariots. When
the war chariots rolled on to open the battle, the first line of the
Romans withdrew behind this row of stakes: the chariots, rebounding
from it and scared by the Roman slingers and archers, threw themselves
on their own line and carried confusion both into the Macedonian
phalanx and into the corps of the Italian refugees. Archelaus
brought up in haste his cavalry from both