Meanwhile the ambassadors had found Sulla in Greece, and had received his answer. [Sidenote:  Sulla’s response to an embassy from Rome.] He said that he would never be reconciled to such criminals as his enemies, though the Romans might, if they chose; and that, as for his own safety, he had an army devoted to him, and should prefer to secure the safety of the Senate and his own adherents.  He sent back with the ambassadors some friends to represent him before the Senate, and, embarking his army at the Piraeus, ordered it to go round the coast to Patrae in Achaia, and thence to the shores opposite Brundisium.  He, himself, having a fit of gout, went to Euboea, to try the springs of Aedepsus. [Sidenote:  Story of Sulla and some fishermen.] One day, says Plutarch, while he was walking on the shore there some fishermen brought him some fine fish.  He was much pleased, but when they told him that they were citizens of Halae, a town which he had destroyed after the battle of Orchomenos, he said in his grim way, ’What! is there a man of Halae still alive?’ But then he told the men to take heart, for the fish had pleaded eloquently for them.  From Euboea he crossed to the mainland to rejoin his troops.  They were about 40,000 in number, and more than 200,000 men were, he said, in arms against him in Italy. [Sidenote:  Devotion of Sulla’s troops to him.] But Sulla, who had connived at their mutinies, their vices, and their breaches of discipline, who had always led them to victory, and had never yet thrown aside that mask of moderation which veiled an inflexible determination to be revenged—­Sulla who had been so long the sole representative of authority, and to whom they had learned to look for their ultimate reward, was their hero and hope.  They offered him their money, and of their own accord swore not to disperse or to ravage the country.  Sulla refused their money.  Indeed he must have had plenty of his own.  But now, when slowly and still very cautiously he was unfolding his designs, such devotion must have been very welcome.

[Sidenote:  Sulla lands at Brundisium, B.C. 83.] Early in 83 he sailed from Dyrrhachium to Brundisium, and was at once received by the town.  He was particularly anxious not to rouse against himself the Italians, with whom his name was anything but popular, and he solemnly swore to respect their lately-acquired rights.  Adherents soon flocked to him. [Sidenote:  He is joined by Crassus;] Marcus Licinius Crassus came from Africa, and was sent to raise troops among the Marsi.  He asked for an escort, for he had to go through territory occupied by the enemy.  ’I give thee,’ said Sulla hotly, ’thy father, thy brother, thy friends and thy kinsmen, who were cut off by violence and lawlessness, and whose murderers I am now hunting down.’ [Sidenote:  by Metellus Pius;] Quintus Metellus Pius came from Liguria, whither he had escaped from Africa, after holding out there against the Marians as long as he could. [Sidenote: