The Provinces

There was still work to be done in the provinces. Sardinia had
been speedily wrested by Lucius Philippus from the governor of the
revolutionary government Quintus Antonius (672), and Transalpine
Gaul offered little or no resistance; but in Sicily, Spain, and
Africa the cause of the party defeated in Italy seemed still by
no means lost. Sicily was held for them by the trustworthy governor
Marcus Perpenna. Quintus Sertorius had the skill to attach to
himself the provincials in Hither Spain, and to form from among the
Romans settled in that quarter a not inconsiderable army, which in
the first instance closed the passes of the Pyrenees: in this he
had given fresh proof that, wherever he was stationed, he was in
his place, and amidst all the incapables of the revolution was the
only man practically useful. In Africa the governor Hadrianus, who
followed out the work of revolutionizing too thoroughly and began
to give liberty to the slaves, had been, on occasion of a tumult
instigated by the Roman merchants of Utica, attacked in his
official residence and burnt with his attendants (672); nevertheless
the province adhered to the revolutionary government, and Cinna's
son-in-law, the young and able Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus,
was invested with the supreme command there. Propagandism had
even been carried from thence into the client-states, Numidia
and Mauretania. Their legitimate rulers, Hiempsal II son of Gauda,
and Bogud son of Bocchus, adhered doubtless to Sulla; but with the
aid of the Cinnans the former had been dethroned by the democratic
pretender Hiarbas, and similar feuds agitated the Mauretanian
kingdom. The consul Carbo who had fled from Italy tarried on the
island Cossyra (Pantellaria) between Africa and Sicily, at a loss,
apparently, whether he should flee to Egypt or should attempt to
renew the struggle in one of the faithful provinces.

Spain
Sertorius Embarks

Sulla sent to Spain Gaius Annius and Gaius Valerius Flaccus,
the former as governor of Further Spain, the latter as governor
of the province of the Ebro. They were spared the difficult task
of opening up the passes of the Pyrenees by force, in consequence
of the general who was sent thither by Sertorius having been killed
by one of his officers and his troops having thereafter melted away.
Sertorius, much too weak to maintain an equal struggle, hastily
collected the nearest divisions and embarked at New Carthage--for
what d