[Footnote 171:  The passage is in the Phoenissae of Euripides, v. 531 &c.: 

    Why seek the most pernicious of all daemons,
    Ambition, O my son?  Not so; unjust the goddess,
    And houses many, many prosperous states
    She enters and she quits, but ruins all.

]

[Footnote 172:  The exhibition of wild animals in the Roman games was now become a fashion.  In the latter part of the Republic it was carried to an enormous extent:  the elephant, the rhinocerous, the lion, and other wild animals, were brought from Africa to Rome for these occasions.  When Sulla was praetor B.C. 93, he exhibited one hundred lions in the Circus, which were let loose and shot with arrows by archers whom King Bocchus sent for the purpose. (Plinius, N.H. viii. 16, Seneca, De Brevitate Vitae, c. 13.) There was an old decree of the Senate which prohibited the importation of African wild beasts, but it was repealed by a measure proposed by the tribune Cn.  Aufidius so far as to render the importation legal for the games of the Circus.

Plutarch speaks of Sulla as immediately canvassing for the praetorship after his return to Rome.  The dates show that at least several years elapsed before he succeeded.]

[Footnote 173:  Probably Sextus Julius Caesar, consul B.C. 91, and the uncle of the Dictator, C. Julius Caesar.]

[Footnote 174:  Ariobarzanes I. called Philoromaeus, or a lover of the Romans, was elected king of Cappadocia B.C. 93, but he was soon expelled by Tigranes, king of Armenia, the son-in-law of Mithridates.  Ariobarzanes applied for help to the Romans, and he was restored by Sulla B.C. 92.  He was driven out several times after, and again restored by the Romans.]

[Footnote 175:  The name is written Mithradates on the Greek coins.  The word Mithradates occurs in various shapes in the Greek writers; and it was a common name among the Medes and Persians.  The first part of the name (Mithra) is probably the Persian name Mitra or Mithra, the Sun.  This Mithridates is Mithradates the Sixth, king of Pontus in Asia, who succeeded his father Mithridates V. B.C. 120, when he was about eleven years of age.  He was a man of ability, well instructed in the learning of the Greeks, and a great linguist:  it is said that he could speak twenty-two languages.  He had already got possession of Colchis on the Black Sea, and placed one of his sons on the throne of Cappadocia.  He had also strengthened himself by marrying his daughter to Tigranes king of Armenia.  Other events in his life are noticed in various parts of the Lives of Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompeius. (See Penny Cyclopaedia, “Mithridates VI.")]