Dio's Rome, Volume 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 437 pages of information about Dio's Rome, Volume 2.

Dio's Rome, Volume 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 437 pages of information about Dio's Rome, Volume 2.
off his guard and tired from the march, and thus put a stop, to a certain extent, to the mutiny of the soldiers.  He attained neither object.  The army accompanied him to a certain spot from which it was possible to turn aside into Cappadocia, and all with one consent without a word turned off in that direction.  The Valerians, indeed, learning that they had been exempted from the campaign by the authorities at home, withdrew altogether.

[-16-] Let no one wonder that Lucullus, who had proved himself of all men most versed in warfare, and was the first Roman to cross the Taurus with an army and for hostile operations, who had vanquished two powerful kings and would have captured them if he had chosen to end the war quickly, was unable to rule his fellow-soldiers, and that they were always revolting and finally left him in the lurch.  He required a great deal of them, was difficult of access, strict in his demands for labor, and inexorable in his punishments:  he did not understand how to win over a man by argument, or to attach him to himself by kindliness, or to make a comrade of him by sharing honors or wealth,—­all of which means are necessary, especially in a large body, and most of all in a body of soldiers.  Hence the soldiers, as long as they prospered and got booty that was a fair return for their dangers, obeyed him:  but when they encountered trouble and fell into fear instead of hopes, they no longer heeded him at all.  The proof of this is that Pompey took these same men (he enrolled the Valerians again) and kept them without the slightest show of revolt.  So much does man differ from man.

[-17-] After this action of the soldiers Mithridates won back almost all his domain and wrought dire devastation in Cappadocia, since neither Lucullus defended it, under the excuse that Acilius was near, nor Acilius himself.  For the latter, who in the first place was hurrying on to rob Lucullus of the fruits of victory, now, when he learned what had taken place, did not come to the camp, but delayed in Bithynia.  As for Marcius, the pretext which he gave for not assisting Lucullus was that his soldiers refused to follow him.  When he reached Cilicia he received one Menemachus, a deserter from Tigranes, and Clodius who had revolted under Lucullus, and, fearing a repetition of the doings at Nisibis, he put him in command of the fleet; for Marcius, too, had one of his sisters as wife.  Now Clodius, after being captured by the pirates and released by them in consequence of their fear of Pompey, came to Antioch in Syria, declaring that he would be their ally against the Arabians, with whom the people were then at variance.  There, likewise, he caused some to revolt, and his activity nearly cost him his life.

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Dio's Rome, Volume 2 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.