arose Cinna was slain.  Plutarch says that the troops murdered him because he was suspected of having killed Pompeius, and that, when he tried to bribe a centurion with a signet-ring to spare him, the centurion replied that he was not going to seal a bond but slay a tyrant.  But Cinna probably died as he lived, a brave man, and one who could not have held ascendency for so long, and over men like Sertorius, had he not been an able as well as a brave man.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XI.

THE FIRST MITHRIDATIC WAR.

Events have been anticipated in order to relate the close of Cinna’s career.  But it is time now to say what Sulla had been doing, and who that Mithridates was whose name for so long had been formidable at Rome.

[Sidenote:  Foreign events after the second slave war.] After the defeat of the northern hordes and the suppression of the second slave revolt, there was a war with the Celtiberi in Spain, in 97, in which Sertorius showed himself already an adroit and bold officer. [Sidenote:  Sertorius in command against the Celtiberi.] He was in winter quarters at Castulo (Cazlona), and his men were so disorderly that the Spaniards were emboldened to attack them in the town; Sertorius escaped, rallied those soldiers who had also escaped, marched back, and after putting those in the town to the sword, dressed his troops in the dead men’s clothes, and so obtained admission to another town which had helped the enemy.  But the hero of the campaign was Titus Didius, afterwards Caesar’s lieutenant in the Social War.  He had some hard fighting and captured Termesus, the chief town of the Arevaci, and Colenda.—­He earned his triumph by other means also.  There was a town near Colenda, the inhabitants of which the Romans wished to destroy.  Didius told them that he would give them the lands of Colenda, and they came to receive their allotments.  As soon as they were within his lines, his soldiers set on them and slew them all.

[Sidenote:  Africa.] In 96 B.C.  Ptolemaus Apion bequeathed Cyrene—­a narrow strip of terraced land on the north coast of Africa, situated between the Libyan deserts and the Mediterranean—­to Rome.  The Romans did not refuse the legacy; but they took no trouble to govern the country.  The cities of Cyrene were declared to be free.  In other words, while nominally subject to Rome, so that she might interfere when she pleased, they were left to govern themselves.  Such government was no government; but it was in accordance with the deliberate policy of the senatorial party.