[-18-] ... he spares.[7] In his eagerness for supremacy he assailed even the Cretans who had come to terms with him, and not heeding their objection that there was a state of truce he hastened to do them harm before Pompey came up.  Octavius, who was there, had no troops and so kept quiet:  in fact, he had not been sent to do any fighting, but to take charge of the cities.  Cornelius Sisenna, the governor of Greece, did, to be sure, when he heard the news, come to Crete and advise Metellus to spare the villages, but on failing to persuade him made no active opposition.  Metellus, after many other outrages, captured by treachery the city Eleuthera and extorted money from it.  The traitors had repeatedly at night saturated with vinegar a very large brick tower, most difficult of capture, so that it became brittle.  Next he took by storm Lappa, in spite of Octavius’s occupancy, and did the latter no harm, but put to death the Cilicians, his followers. [-19-]Octavius, incensed at this, no longer remained quiet, but first used the army of Sisenna (that general had fallen sick and died) to aid here and there the victims of oppression, and then, when the detachment of Metellus had retired, proceeded to Aristion at Hieropydna, by whose side he fought.  Aristion, on the retreat from Cydonia about that time, had conquered one Lucius Bassus who sailed out to oppose him, and had gained possession of Hieropydna.  They held out for a while, but at the approach of Metellus left the fortification and put to sea.  There they encountered a storm, and were driven ashore, losing many men.  Henceforth Metellus was master of the entire island.

In this way the Cretans, who had been free through all preceding ages and had never owned a foreign lord, were enslaved; and from their subjugation Metellus obtained his title.  He was, however, unable to have Panares and Lasthenes (whom he had also captured) march in his triumph.  For Pompey had got them away beforehand by persuading one of the tribunes that it was to him they had submitted and not to Metellus.

[-20-] I will now relate the progress of Pompey’s career.  The pirates, occupied in plundering, kept troubling continually those who sailed as well as the dwellers on land.  There was never a time when piracy was not practiced, nor may it cease so long as the nature of mankind remains the same.  But formerly plundering was limited to certain localities and small bands operating only during the regular season on sea and on land; whereas at this time, ever since war had been carried on continuously in many different places, and many cities had been uprooted, while sentences hung over the heads of all the fugitives even, and fear confronted men in everything, large numbers turned to plundering.  Now the bandit organizations on the mainland, being rather in sight of towns, which could thus perceive a source of injury close by, proved not so very difficult to overwhelm and were somehow broken up with a fair degree of ease;