superficially to chastise,(1) and to regulate, by military
intervention, the disorderly state of things along the northern
frontier of the Greek peninsula; thoroughly to suppress
the bands of pirates infesting the seas everywhere, but especially
the eastern waters; and lastly to introduce better order
into the unsettled relations of Asia Minor. The peace which Sulla
had concluded in 670 with Mithradates, king of Pontus,(2)
and of which the treaty with Murena in 673(3) was essentially
a repetition, bore throughout the stamp of a provisional arrangement
to meet the exigencies of the moment; and the relations of the Romans
with Tigranes, king of Armenia, with whom they had de facto waged war,
remained wholly untouched in this peace. Tigranes had with right
regarded this as a tacit permission to bring the Roman possessions
in Asia under his power. If these were not to be abandoned, it
was necessary to come to terms amicably or by force with the new
great-king of Asia.

In the preceding chapter we have described the movements
in Italy and Spain connected with the proceedings of the democracy,
and their subjugation by the senatorial government. In the present
chapter we shall review the external government, as the authorities
installed by Sulla conducted or failed to conduct it.

Dalmato-Macedonian Expeditions

We still recognize the vigorous hand of Sulla in the energetic measures
which, in the last period of his regency, the senate adopted almost
simultaneously against the Sertorians, the Dalmatians and Thracians,
and the Cilician pirates.

The expedition to the Graeco-Illyrian peninsula was designed partly
to reduce to subjection or at least to tame the barbarous tribes
who ranged over the whole interior from the Black Sea to the Adriatic,
and of whom the Bessi (in the great Balkan) especially were,
as it was then said, notorious as robbers even among a race
of robbers; partly to destroy the corsairs in their haunts,
especially along the Dalmatian coast. As usual, the attack took
place simultaneously from Dalmatia and from Macedonia, in which
province an army of five legions was assembled for the purpose.
In Dalmatia the former praetor Gaius Cosconius held the command,
marched through the country in all directions, and took by storm
the fortress of Salona after a two years' siege. In Macedonia
the proconsul Appius Claudius (676-678) first attempted along
the Macedono-Thracian frontier to make himself master of