XX.  After the battle Sulla received intelligence that Flaccus,[245] who belonged to the opposite faction, was chosen consul, and was crossing the Ionian[246] sea with a force which was said to be designed against Mithridates, but was in fact directed against himself; and accordingly he advanced towards Thessalia to meet Flaccus.  He had advanced to the neighbourhood of Meliteia,[247] when reports from all sides reached him that the country in his rear was ravaged by another army of Mithridates as numerous as that which he had dispersed.  Dorylaus had landed at Chalkis with a large navy, on board of which he brought eighty thousand men of the best trained and disciplined troops of Mithridates, and he immediately advanced into Boeotia and occupied the country, being eager to draw Sulla to an engagement, and paying no regard to Archelaus, who dissuaded him from fighting:  he even said publicly that so many thousands could never have been destroyed if there had not been treachery.  However, Sulla, who quickly returned to Boeotia, showed Dorylaus that Archelaus was a prudent man and had formed a very just estimate of the courage of the Romans; for after a slight skirmish with Sulla near Tilphossium,[248] Dorylaus was himself the first among those who were not for deciding the matter by a battle, but thought it best to prolong the war till the Romans should be exhausted by want of supplies.  However, Archelaus was somewhat encouraged by the position of their encampment near Orchomenus, which was very favourable for battle to an army which had the superiority in cavalry; for of all the plains in Boeotia noted for their beauty and extent, this, which commences at the city of Orchomenus, is the only one which spreads without interruption and without any trees, and it reaches to the marshes in which the river Melas[249] is lost.  The Melas rises close to Orchomenus, and is the only river of Greece that is a copious and navigable stream at its source; it also increases like the Nile about the summer solstice, and the same plants grow on its banks; but they produce no fruit and do not attain any large size.  Its course however is short, for the larger part of the water is soon lost in obscure marshes overgrown with shrubs:  a small part joins the Kephisus somewhere about the point where the lake is said to produce the reed that is adapted for making musical pipes.

XXI.  The two armies being encamped near one another, Archelaus kept quiet, but Sulla began to dig trenches on both sides with the view, if possible, of cutting off the enemy from the hard ground and those parts which were favourable to cavalry and driving them into the marshes.  However, the barbarians would not endure this, and as soon as their generals allowed them to attack the Romans, they rushed forward with so much vigour and force, that not only were the men dispersed who were working at the trenches, but the greater part of the Roman troops that were drawn up for their protection were involved in the fight.