14.5
However, partly at the instance of the exiles Meidias and Calliphon, who threw themselves at his feet in supplication, and partly because all the Roman senators who were in his following interceded for the city, being himself also by this time sated with vengeance, after some words in praise of the ancient Athenians, he said that he forgave a few for the sake of many, the living for the sake of the dead.
14.6
He took Athens, as he says himself in his Memoirs, on the Calends of March,86 B.C. Cf. the description of the capture of Athens given by Appian, Bell. Mith. xxx. a day which corresponds very nearly with the first of the month Anthesterion. In this month, as it happens, the Athenians perform many rites commemorating the destruction and devastation caused by the flood, believing that the ancient delugeIn the time of Deucalion, the Noah of Greek tradition. (Cf. Pausanias, i. 18, 7.) occurred at about this time.