BOOK VI

1. In the consulship of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Quintus Catulus, after Sulla had settled the affairs of the republic, new wars flared up; one in Spain, another in Pamphylia and Cilicia, a third in Macedonia, and a fourth in Dalmatia. Sertorius, who had belonged to the Marian faction, feared the fate of the others who had been slain and incited Spain to war. The generals sent against him were Quintus Caecilius Metellus, the son of Metellus who had defeated King Jugurtha, and Lucius Domitius, the praetor. Domitius was slain by Sertorius’ general, Hirtuleius. Metellus fought against Sertorius with mixed success. Afterwards, since Metellus by himself was thought to be unequal to the challenge, Cnaeus Pompey was sent to Spain. Sertorius fought often with varied success against the two opposing generals. Finally, in the eighth year, Sertorius was slain by his own men, and the young Cnaeus Pompey and Quintus Metellus Pius ended the war. Almost all of Spain was brought under the authority of the Roman people.

2. Appius Claudius was sent to Macedonia after his consulship. He fought several minor engagements against various tribes inhabiting the province of Rhodopa and died there from illness. After his consulship, Caius Scribonius Curio was sent there as his successor. He defeated the Dardani, advancing all the way to the Danube, and earned a triumph, having ended the war inside of three years.

3. Publius Servilius, a vigorous man, was sent to Cilicia and Pamphylia after his consulship. He subjugated Cilicia and stormed and captured the most famous cities of Lycia, among which were Phaselis, Olympus, and Corycus. He also attacked the Isaurians and brought them under Roman control. He finished the war within three years and was the first of all the Romans to march in the Taurus mountains. On his return, he received a triumph and obtained the name “Isauricus.”

4. Caius Cosconius was sent to Illyricum as proconsul. He subjugated a large part of Dalmatia, captured Salonae, and having ended the war, he returned two years after he had left.

5. Around the same time, the consul Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, the colleague of Catulus, attempted to incite a civil war, but in the space of one summer, his uprising was crushed. Thus, there were many triumphs at the same time; Metellus’ for Spain, Pompey’s second (also for Spain), Curio’s for Macedonia, and Servilius’ for Isauria.

6. In the six hundred and seventy-sixth year after the city’s founding, when Lucius Licinius Lucullus and Marcus Aurelius Cotta were consuls, Nicomedes, the king of Bithynia, died and left the Roman people as heir in his will. Mithridates disrupted the peace and again attempted to invade Bithynia and Asia. Both consuls were sent against him with mixed success. Cotta was defeated in battle by him near Chalcedon, and was forced into the town and besieged. But when Mithridates left from there to Cyzicus, in order to invade Asia after Cyzicus was captured, Lucullus came upon him. While Mithridates lingered in the siege of Cyzicus, Lucullus besieged him from the rear, wore him out from hunger, and defeated him in many battles. Finally, he forced him to flee to Byzantium, which is now Constantinople. Lucullus defeated his commanders in a naval battle as well. Thus, in a single winter and summer, up to one hundred thousand of the king’s men were slain by Lucullus.

7. In the city of Rome’s six hundred and seventy-eighth year, Marcus Licinius Lucullus, the cousin of Lucullus who had waged war against Mithridates, obtained the province of Macedonia; and in Italy, a new war suddenly flared up. Seventy-four gladiators, led by Spartacus, Crixus, and Oenomaus, broke out of their gladiator school at Capua and fled. As they roamed through Italy, they started a war that was not much less serious than that of Hannibal. After they had defeated several generals and both consuls at once, and raised an army of some sixty thousand armed men, they were defeated by the proconsul, Marcus Licinius Crassus, in Apulia. This war was ended in the third year after many calamities to Italy.

8. In the six hundred and eighty-first year since the founding of the city, in the consulship of Publius Cornelius Lentulus and Cnaeus Aufidius Orestes, there were only two serious wars in the Roman Empire — the Mithridatic and Macedonian. The two Luculli, Lucius Lucullus and Marcus Lucullus, conducted these wars. After the battle at Cyzicus, in which Lucius Lucullus defeated Mithridates, and the naval battle in which he defeated his commanders, Lucius Lucullus pursued Mithridates and recovered Paphlagonia and Bithynia. He also invaded his kingdom and captured Sinope and Amisus, the noblest cities of Pontus. In a second battle near the city of Cabira, where Mithridates had brought an enormous number of men from his entire kingdom, thirty thousand select troops of the king were annihilated by five thousand Romans. Mithridates was forced to flee, and his camp was seized. Lesser Armenia, which Mithridates held, was taken from him as well. Mithridates was given refuge by Tigranes, the king of Armenia, who at that time reigned in great glory. Tigranes had defeated the Persians often and seized Mesopotamia, Syria, and part of Phoenicia.

9. Therefore, Lucullus, as he was pursuing the fleeing enemy, also entered the kingdom of Tigranes, who ruled the Armenias. He captured Tigranocerta, a city of Arzanena, the most noble of the Armenian kingdom. With eighteen thousand soldiers, he defeated the king himself, who was approaching with seven thousand five hundred cuirassiers and one hundred thousand archers and armed men, destroying a large part of the Armenians in the process. From there, he proceeded to Nisbis and captured that city as well, along with the brother of the king. But those whom Lucullus left in Pontus with part of the army, for the sake of guarding the regions that the Romans had already conquered, gave another chance to Mithridates, through negligence and greed, of invading Pontus, and thus the war was renewed. After Nisbis was captured, while Lucullus was preparing an expedition against the Persians, a successor was sent to him.

10. The other Lucullus, who was managing affairs in Macedonia, was the first of the Romans to wage war against the Bessi and defeated them in a great battle on Mount Haemus. He took the town of Uscudama, which the Bessi were inhabiting, on the same day that he attacked it. He captured Cabyle and penetrated all the way to the Danube. He went on from there and attacked many cities located above Pontus. There he destroyed Apollonia and captured Callatis, Parthenopolis, Tomis, Histrus, and Berziaone. Then, having ended the war, he returned to Rome. Both Luculli celebrated triumphs, but with the one who had fought against Mithridates enjoying the greater glory since he had returned victorious over such great kingdoms.

11. When the Macedonian war was finished, but the Mithridatic war (which the king had renewed after gathering his forces when Lucullus departed) still remained, the Cretan war arose. Quintus Caecilius Metellus was sent to the Cretan war, and he captured the whole province within three years in a series of great battles. He was given the name “Creticus,” and he celebrated a triumph over that island. At this time, Libya was also added to the Roman Empire, through the will of Appion, its king. In it were the renowned cities of Berenice, Ptolomais, and Cyrene.

12. While these events were taking place, pirates were infesting all the seas. Since the Romans were victorious throughout the world, only travel at sea was not safe. Therefore, the war against the pirates was decreed to Cnaeus Pompey. He finished the war with great haste and good fortune within a few months. Soon, he was also given the war against Kings Mithridates and Tigranes. After undertaking the war, he defeated Mithridates in Lesser Armenia in a night battle, seizing his camp and killing forty thousand of his men, while losing only twenty men and two centurions from his own army. Mithridates fled with his wife and two companions. Not much afterwards, when he was raging at his own men, he was forced to commit suicide by the revolt of his son, Pharnaces, along with the soldiers, and he drank poison. This was the end of Mithridates, a man of great energy and prudence. He died near the Bosporus. He had reigned for sixty years, lived for seventy-two, and was at war with the Romans for forty.

13. Then, Pompey waged war against Tigranes. Tigranes surrendered to Pompey and came to his camp, located at the sixteenth milestone from Artaxata. As he was prostrating himself at the knees of Pompey, he placed his diadem in Pompey’s hands. Pompey returned his diadem to him and treated him honorably, but fined him part of his kingdom and a large amount of money. Syria, Phoenicia, and Sophene were taken from him, and he was ordered to pay six thousand silver talents to the Roman people because he had waged war against them without cause.

14. Soon, Pompey also waged war against the Albani and defeated their king, Orodes, three times. Finally, after peace was sought through letters and gifts, Pompey granted a pardon and peace to Orodes. He also defeated Artoces, the king of Iberia [Eastern Iberia], in battle and accepted his surrender. He gave lesser Armenia to Deiotarus, king of Galatia, because he had been an ally in the Mithridatic war. He returned Paphlagonia to Attalus and Pylaemenes, and imposed Aristarchus as king of Colchis. Soon after, he defeated the Itureans and Arabians. When he arrived in Syria, he gave Seleucia, a city near Antioch, its liberty because it had not admitted King Tigranes. He returned their hostages to the people of Antioch. He gave a considerable amount of land to the Daphnians, in order for them to expand their sacred grove, after being delighted by the pleasantness of the place and the abundance of the waters there. From there he went to Judea and captured Jerusalem, the capital of that nation, in three months, while slaying twelve thousand Jews and receiving the rest in allegiance. After these deeds, he returned to Asia and put an end to the Romans’ longest war.

15. In the consulship of Marcus Tullius Cicero, the orator, and Caius Antonius, in the six hundred and eighty-ninth year since the founding of the city, Lucius Sergius Catalina, a man of the highest birth but of very depraved character, conspired to destroy the state with certain distinguished, but rash, men. He was expelled from the city by Cicero, and his co-conspirators were arrested and strangled in prison. Catalina himself was defeated in battle and slain by the other consul, Antonius.

16. In the six hundred and ninetieth year from the founding of the city, in the consulship of Decimus Junius Silanus and Lucius Murena, Metellus triumphed for Crete, and Pompey triumphed for the pirate and Mithridatic wars. There has never been a triumph equal in ostentation to Pompey’s. The sons of Mithridates, the son of Tigranes, and Aristobulus, king of the Jews, were led before his chariot. A colossal sum of money and an immense weight of gold and silver were carried before his chariot. At this time, there were no serious wars throughout the world.

17. In the six hundred and ninety-third year since the city’s founding, Caius Julius Caesar, who reigned afterwards, was made consul with Lucius Bibulus. Gaul and Illyricum were decreed to him with ten legions. First, he defeated the Helvetii, who are now called the Sequani; then, he proceeded all the way to the British ocean by conquering in great wars. In nine years, he subdued almost all of Gaul, which lies between the Alps, the river Rhone, the river Rhine, and the ocean — a circuit of three thousand two hundred miles. He soon brought war to the Britons, who had not even heard of the name of the Romans before him. He defeated them as well, and after receiving hostages from them, he made them pay tribute. He demanded from Gaul, in the name of tribute, forty million sesterces a year. After advancing against the Germans across the Rhine, he defeated them in a number of savage battles. Among so many successes, he was unsuccessful in battle three times — once among the Arverni while present, and twice in Germany while absent; for two of his lieutenants, Titurius and Aurunculeius, were slain by treachery.

18. Around the same time, in the six hundred and ninety-seventh year since the founding of the city, Marcus Licinius Crassus, the colleague of Cnaeus Pompey the Great in his second consulship, was sent against the Parthians. After entering battle near Carrhae, contrary to the omens and auspices, he was defeated by Surena, a general of King Orodes, and was ultimately slain with his son, an illustrious and distinguished young man. The rest of the army was saved by Caius Cassius, who restored the situation with singular courage and such great valor that, as they were retreating across the Euphrates, he defeated the Persians in numerous battles.

19. Henceforth, an execrable and lamentable civil war followed, and in addition to the calamities they suffered in battle, the fortune of the Roman people was changed as well. For when Caesar was returning victorious from Gaul, he began to demand another consulship and that it be granted to him without delay. This was opposed by the consul Marcellus, Bibulus, Pompey, and Cato, and Caesar was ordered to dismiss his armies and return to the city. Due to this insult, he departed from Ariminum, where his soldiers were assembled, and marched with the army against his country. The consuls, along with Pompey, the entire Senate, and all the nobility, fled from the city and crossed over into Greece. The Senate, with Pompey as general, prepared for war against Caesar in Epirus, Macedonia, and Achaia.

20. Caesar entered the vacated city and made himself dictator. From there he headed to Spain. There, he defeated three powerful and brave armies of Pompey with their generals — Lucius Afranius, Marcus Petreius, and Marcus Varro. After returning from there, he crossed into Greece and fought against Pompey. In the first battle, Caesar was defeated and routed but escaped because night was intervening, and Pompey was unwilling to pursue him. Caesar remarked that Pompey did not know how to conquer and that Pompey could have vanquished him on that day alone. Next, near Palaeopharsalus in Thessaly, they both fought after leading forth great numbers of men. The line of Pompey had forty thousand infantry, six hundred horsemen on the left wing, five hundred on the right, auxiliary troops from all of the East, the entire nobility, innumerable senators, men of praetorian and consular rank, and men who had already been victorious in great wars. Caesar had not quite thirty thousand infantry in his line and a thousand horsemen.

21. Never before had Roman forces convened in one place in greater numbers or under more skilled leaders. They could have easily subjugated the entire world if only they had been led against the barbarians. The battle was fought with great contention, but at last, Pompey was defeated, and his camp was taken. Pompey himself fled to Alexandria in order to seek assistance from the king of Egypt, whom Pompey had been appointed guardian over by the Senate on account of his young age. The king, pursuing fortune rather than friendship, killed Pompey and sent his head and ring to Caesar; at the sight of which, even Caesar is said to have wept as he gazed at the head of so great a man, who was also once his son-in-law.

22. Caesar soon arrived in Alexandria. Ptolemy planned a trap for him also, and because of this, war was waged against him as well. Ptolemy perished in the Nile after being defeated, and his body was found wearing golden armor. Caesar took control of Alexandria and gave the kingdom to Cleopatra, with whom he was having an affair and who was also the sister of Ptolemy. As he was returning from there, Caesar defeated in battle the son of Mithridates the Great, Pharnaces, who had aided Pompey in Thessaly and revolted in Pontus, occupying many provinces of the Roman people. Afterwards, Caesar compelled him to commit suicide.

23. Upon returning from there to Rome, Caesar made himself consul for the third time, with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, who had been the master of horse to him as dictator the preceding year. Then, he set out for Africa where a great multitude of the nobility with King Juba, the king of Mauritania, were renewing the war. The Roman leaders were Publius Cornelius Scipio (also the father-in-law of Pompey) of the ancient family of Scipio Africanus, Marcus Petreius, Quintus Varus, Marcus Porcius Cato, and Lucius Cornelius Faustus, the son of the dictator Sulla. Caesar entered battle against them, and after many struggles, was victorious. Cato, Scipio, Petreius, and Juba killed themselves. Faustus, son of the former dictator Sulla and son-in-law of Pompey, was slain by Caesar.

24. Caesar returned to Rome the next year and made himself consul for the fourth time. He departed at once for Spain, where the sons of Pompey, Cnaeus Pompey and Sextus Pompey, had prepared a vast war. There were many battles, the last of which was near the city of Munda, where Caesar was so close to being beaten that, as his men were beginning to flee, he was planning to commit suicide in order not to fall, at fifty-six years of age, into the power of young men after such great military glory. His men rallied at last, and he was victorious. Of the sons of Pompey, the elder was slain and the younger fled.

25. Then, after the civil wars were finished throughout the world, Caesar returned to Rome. He began to act more arrogantly and contrary to the custom of Roman liberty. Therefore, when he bestowed honors which previously were conferred by the people, failed to rise as the Senate approached him, and did other things in a kingly and almost tyrannical fashion, a conspiracy was formed against him by sixty or more Roman senators and knights. Chief among the conspirators were the two Bruti (from the family of Brutus who was the first consul of Rome and who had expelled the kings), Caius Cassius, and Servilius Casca. When he went to the senate house with the others on the day of the convening of the Senate, he was stabbed twenty-three times.

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