he got most popularity by relieving the people from having soldiers quartered on them; for he compelled the soldiers to fix their winter tents in the suburbs of the towns, and he was the first to set the example.  However, Sertorius did not depend altogether on the attachment of the barbarians, but he armed all the Roman settlers in Iberia who were able to bear arms, and by commencing the construction of all kinds of military engines and building ships he kept the cities in check; showing himself mild in all the affairs of civil administration, but formidable by his preparations against the enemy.

VII.  Hearing that Sulla was master of Rome,[116] and that the party of Marius and Carbo was on the wane, and being in immediate expectation of an army coming to fight against him under some commander, he sent Julius Salinator to occupy the passes of the Pyrenees, with six thousand heavy armed soldiers.  Shortly after this, Caius Annius[117] was sent from Rome by Sulla; but, seeing that the position of Julius could not be attacked, he was perplexed, and seated himself at the base of the mountains.  But one Calpurnius, named Lanarius, assassinated Julius, on which the soldiers left the summits of the Pyrenees, and Annius, crossing the mountains, advanced with a large force and drove all before him.  Sertorius, being unable to oppose him, fled with three thousand men to New Carthage,[118] and there embarking and crossing the sea, landed in Mauritania, in Libya.  His soldiers, while getting water without due precautions, were fallen upon by the barbarians, and many of them were killed, upon which Sertorius sailed again for Iberia.  He was, however, driven off the coast, and, being joined by some Cilician piratical vessels,[119] he attacked the island of Pityussa,[120] and landing there drove out the garrison of Annius.  Annius soon arrived with a large fleet and five thousand heavy armed men, and Sertorius ventured on a naval battle with him, though his vessels were light and built for quick sailing and not for fighting; but the sea was disturbed by a strong west wind, which drove most of the vessels of Sertorius upon the reefs, owing to their lightness, and Sertorius, with a few ships, could not get out to sea by reason of the wind, nor land on account of the enemy, and being tossed about for ten days, with the wind and a violent sea against him, he held out with great difficulty.

VIII.  As the wind abated he set sail, and put in at some scattered islands, which had no water.  Leaving them, and passing through the Straits of Gades,[121] he touched at those parts of Iberia on the right which lie out of the strait, a little beyond the mouths of the Baetis,[122] which flows into the Atlantic Sea,[123] and has given name to those parts of Iberia which lie about it.  There he fell in with some sailors, who had returned from a voyage to the Atlantic[124] Islands, which are two in number, separated by a very narrow channel, and ten thousand stadia from the coast