as closed again during the night by the besieged,
and the exertions of the royal army remained as fruitless as did
the barbarous threat of the king to put to death the captured Cyzicenes
before the walls, if the citizens still refused to surrender.
The Cyzicenes continued the defence with courage and success;
they fell little short of capturing the king himself
in the course of the siege.

Destruction of the Pontic Army

Meanwhile Lucullus had possessed himself of a very strong position
in rear of the Pontic army, which, although not permitting him
directly to relieve the hard-pressed city, gave him the means
of cutting off all supplies by land from the enemy. Thus the enormous
army of Mithradates, estimated with the camp-followers at 300,000
persons, was not in a position either to fight or to march, firmly
wedged in between the impregnable city and the immoveable Roman
army, and dependent for all its supplies solely on the sea,
which fortunately for the Pontic troops was exclusively commanded
by their fleet. But the bad season set in; a storm destroyed a great
part of the siege-works; the scarcity of provisions and above all
of fodder for the horses began to become intolerable. The beasts
of burden and the baggage were sent off under convoy of the greater
portion of the Pontic cavalry, with orders to steal away or break
through at any cost; but at the river Rhyndacus, to the east
of Cyzicus, Lucullus overtook them and cut to pieces the whole body.
Another division of cavalry under Metrophanes and Lucius Fannius
was obliged, after wandering long in the west of Asia Minor,
to return to the camp before Cyzicus. Famine and disease made
fearful ravages in the Pontic ranks. When spring came on (681),
the besieged redoubled their exertions and took the trenches
constructed on Dindymon: nothing remained for the king but to raise
the siege and with the aid of his fleet to save what he could.
He went in person with the fleet to the Hellespont, but suffered
considerable loss partly at its departure, partly through storms
on the voyage. The land army under Hermaeus and Marius likewise
set out thither, with the view of embarking at Lampsacus
under the protection of its walls. They left behind their baggage
as well as the sick and wounded, who were all put to death
by the exasperated Cyzicenes. Lucullus inflicted on them
very considerable loss by the way at the passage of the rivers
Aesepus and Granicus; but they attain