[Sidenote: FRAG. XCVIII] [Sidenote: B.C. 89 (_a.u._ 665)] ¶Cato,[64] the greater part of whose army was effeminate and superannuated, found his power diminished in every direction: and once, when he had ventured to rebuke them because they were unwilling to work hard or obey orders readily, he came near being overwhelmed with a shower of missiles from them. He would certainly have been killed, if they had had plenty of stones; but since the site where they were assembled was given over to agriculture and happened to be very wet, he received no hurt from the clods of earth. The man who began the mutiny, Gaius Titius,[65] was arrested: he was a low fellow who made his living in the courts and was excessively and shamelessly outspoken; he was sent to the city to the tribunes, but escaped punishment. (Valesius, p. 641.)
[Footnote 64: _L. Porcius Cato_ (consul B.C. 89).]
[Footnote 65: Properly _C. Titinius Sisenna_.]
[Sidenote: FRAG. XCIX] [Sidenote: B.C. 88 (_a.u._ 666)] 1. ¶All the Asiatics, at the bidding of Mithridates, massacred the Romans; only the people of Tralles did not personally kill any one, but hired a certain Theophilus, a Paphlagonian (as if the victims were more likely thus to escape destruction, or as if it made any difference to them by whom they should be slaughtered). (Valesius, p. 642.)
2. ¶The Thracians, persuaded by Mithridates, overran Epirus and the rest of the country as far as Dodona, going even to the point of plundering the temple of Zeus. (Valesius, ib.)
[Sidenote: FRAG. C] [Sidenote: B.C. 87 (_a.u._ 667)] 1. ¶Cinna, as soon as he took possession of the office, was anxious upon no one point so much as to drive Sulla out of Italy. He made Mithridates his excuse, but in reality wanted this leader to remove himself that he might not, by lurking close at hand, prove a hindrance to the objects that Cinna had in mind. He fairly distinguished himself by his zeal for Sulla and would refuse to promise nothing that pleased him. For Sulla, who saw the urgency of the war and was eager for its glory, before starting had arranged everything at home for his own best interests. He appointed Cinna and one Gnæus Octavius to be his successors, hoping in this way to retain considerable power even while absent. The second of the two he understood was generally approved for his excellence and good nature, and he thought he would cause no trouble: the other he well knew was an unprincipled person, but he did not wish to antagonize him, because the man had some influence and was ready, as he had said and declared on oath, to assist him in every way possible. Sulla himself, though an adept at discovering the minds of men and inferring correctly in regard to the nature of things, made a thorough mistake in this matter and bequeathed a great war to the State. (Valesius, p. 642.)