the exploits of each other, and congratulating one another on their victories:  in their conferences however they came to no reasonable or fair settlement, but even fell to mutual abuse, Pompeius charging Lucullus with avarice, and Lucullus charging Pompeius with love of power; and they were with difficulty separated by their friends.  Lucullus being in Galatia assigned portions of the captured land and gave other presents to whom he chose; while Pompeius, who was encamped at a short distance, prevented any attention being paid to the orders of Lucullus, and took from him all his soldiers except sixteen hundred, whose mutinous disposition he thought would make them useless to himself, but hostile to Lucullus.  Besides this, Pompeius disparaged the exploits of Lucullus and openly said that Lucullus had warred against tragedies and mere shadows of kings, while to himself was reserved the contest against a genuine power and one that had grown wiser by losses, for Mithridates was now having recourse to shields, and swords and horses.  Lucullus retorting said, that Pompeius was going to fight with a phantom and a shadow of war, being accustomed, like a lazy bird, to descend upon the bodies that others had slaughtered and to tear the remnants of wars; for so had he appropriated to himself the victories over Sertorius, Lepidus and Spartacus, though Crassus, Metellus and Catulus had respectively gained these victories:  it was no wonder then, if Pompeius was surreptitiously trying to get the credit of the Armenian and Pontic wars, he who had in some way or other contrived to intrude himself into a triumph over runaway slaves.

XXXII.  Lucullus[254] now retired, and Pompeius after distributing his whole naval force over the sea between Phoenicia and the Bosporus to keep guard, himself marched against Mithridates, who had thirty thousand foot soldiers of the phalanx and two thousand horsemen, but did not venture to fight.  First of all, Mithridates left a strong mountain which was difficult to assault, whereon he happened to be encamped, because he supposed there was no water there; but Pompeius, after occupying the same mountain, conjectured from the nature of the vegetation upon it and the hollows formed by the slopes of the ground that the place contained springs, and he ordered wells to be dug in all parts:  and immediately the whole army had abundance of water, so that it was a matter of surprise that Mithridates had all along been ignorant of this.  Pompeius then surrounded Mithridates with his troops and hemmed him in with his lines.  After being blockaded forty-five days Mithridates succeeded in stealing away with the strongest part of his army, after having first massacred those who were unfit for service and were sick.  Next, Pompeius overtook him on the Euphrates and pitched his camp near him; and fearing lest Mithridates should frustrate his design by crossing the river, he led his army against him in battle order at midnight, at which very hour