[Sidenote:  Sulla has Ofella slain.] Two other officials of Sulla gave him trouble.  One, Ofella, stood for the consulship against his wishes, and went about with a crowd of friends in the Forum.  But with a man like Sulla it was foolish to presume on past services.  He had no notion of allowing street-riots again, and sent a centurion who cut Ofella down.  The people brought the centurion to him, demanding justice. [Sidenote:  Sulla’s parables.] Sulla told them the man had done what he ordered, and then spoke a grim parable to them.  A rustic, he said, was so bitten by lice that twice he took off his coat and shook it.  But as they went on biting him he burnt it.  And so those who had twice been humbled had better not provoke him to use fire the third time. [Sidenote:  Murena provokes the second Mithridatic war.] The other officer was Murena, who had been left in Asia.  He raised troops besides the legions left with him, forced Miletus and other Asiatic towns to supply a fleet, and then stirred up the second Mithridatic war.  The Colchians had revolted, and Mithridates suspected his son of fostering the revolt in order to be set over them.  So he invited him to come to his court, put him there in chains of gold, and soon killed him.  He had also, it seems, threatened Archelaus, who fled from him and represented to the ready ears of Murena, that Mithridates still held part of Cappadocia, and was collecting a powerful army.  Murena advanced into Cappadocia, took Comana, and pillaged its temple.  Mithridates appealed to the treaty; but Murena asked where it was, for the terms had never been reduced to a written form. [Sidenote:  Mithridates appeals to the Senate.] The king then sent to the Senate.  Murena crossed the Halys, and retired into Phrygia and Galatia with rich spoil. [Sidenote:  Murena defeated.] Disregarding a prohibition of the Senate, he again attacked the king, who at last sent Gordius against him, and soon after, coming up in person, defeated Murena twice and drove him into Phrygia.  For this success Mithridates lit on a high mountain a bonfire, which, it is said, was seen more than a hundred miles away by sailors in the Black Sea. [Sidenote:  Sulla puts a stop to the war.] Sulla sent orders to Murena to fight nor more; and Mithridates, on condition of being reconciled to Ariobarzanes, was allowed to keep as much of Cappadocia as was in his possession.  He gave a great banquet in honour of the occasion; and Murena went home, where he had a triumph.  Sulla probably granted it to him after his defeats with more pleasure than he granted it to Pompeius for his victories.

[Sidenote:  Sertorius in Spain.] The ablest of the Marian generals was, it has been seen, virtually unemployed in the Civil War.  Sertorius, when sent to Spain, seized the passes of the Pyrenees.  Sulla, in 81, sent against him, Q. Annius Luscus, who found one of the lieutenants of Sertorius so strongly posted that he could not get past him.  However this lieutenant was assassinated by one of his own