IX.  In the meantime Mithridates resolved to attack the Kyzikeni,[349] who had received a blow in the battle at Chalkedon, for they had lost three thousand men and ten ships.  Accordingly, wishing to give Lucullus the slip, he put himself in motion immediately after supper, taking advantage of a dark and rainy night; and he succeeded in planting his force at daybreak right opposite to the city, at the base of the mountain tract of the Adrasteia.[350] Lucullus, who perceived his movements and followed him, was well satisfied that he had not come up with the enemy while his own troops were out of battle order; and he posted his army near the village named Thrakia, in a position excellently adapted to command the roads and the places from which and through which the soldiers of Mithridates must bring their supplies.  Now, as he had in his own mind a clear comprehension of the issue, he did not conceal it from his men; but as soon as he had chosen his ground, and the men had finished the entrenchments, he summoned them together, and confidently told them that he would, in a few days, give them a victory which would cost no blood.  Mithridates had hemmed in the Kyzikeni with ten camps on the land side, and towards the sea with his ships, by blocking up the narrow channel which separates the city from the mainland, and thus he was besieging them on both sides.  Though the citizens were disposed to resist the enemy boldly, and had determined to sustain all hardships for the sake of the Romans, they were troubled at not knowing where Lucullus was, and at having heard nothing of him.  Yet the army of Lucullus was visible and in sight of the city; but the citizens were deceived by the soldiers of Mithridates, who pointed to the Romans in their entrenchments on the higher ground, and said, “Do you see them?  That is the army of the Armenians and Medes, which Tigranes has sent to support Mithridates.”

The Kyzikeni were alarmed to see such a host of enemies around them, and they had no hopes that they could be released, even if Lucullus should come.  However, Demonax, who was sent to them by Archelaus, was the first to inform them of Lucullus being there.  While they were distrusting his intelligence, and thinking that he had merely invented this story to comfort them in their difficulties, there came a youth, who had been captured by the enemy and made his escape.  On their asking him where he supposed Lucullus to be, he laughed outright, for he thought they were making sport of him; but, seeing that they were in earnest, he pointed with his hand to the Roman camp, and the citizens again took courage.  Now the lake Daskylitis[351] is navigable for boats of a considerable size, and Lucullus, drawing up the largest of them, and conveying it on a waggon to the sea-coast, put into it as many soldiers as it would hold.  The soldiers crossed over by night unobserved, and got into the city.