person, could not avoid complying with the suggestion that he should begin war with Mithradates.  The declaration of war by Bithynia took place; but, even when the vessels of Nicomedes closed the Bosporus against those of Pontus, and his troops marched into the frontier districts of Pontus and laid waste the region of Amastris, Mithradates remained still unshaken in his policy of peace; instead of driving the Bithynians over the frontier, he lodged a complaint with the Roman envoys and asked them either to mediate or to allow him the privilege of self-defence.  But he was informed by Aquillius, that he must under all circumstances refrain from war against Nicomedes.  That indeed was plain.  They had employed exactly the same policy against Carthage; they allowed the victim to be set upon by the Roman hounds and forbade its defending itself against them.  Mithradates reckoned himself lost, just as the Carthaginians had done; but, while the Phoenicians yielded from despair, the king of Sinope did the very opposite and assembled his troops and ships.  “Does not even he who must succumb,” he is reported to have said, “defend himself against the robber?” His son Ariobarzanes received orders to advance into Cappadocia; a message was sent once more to the Roman envoys to inform them 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.