3.6
Driven from the land by me, and excluded from the sea by you, he will crown us both with success, and the much heralded exploits of Sulla at Orchomenus and Chaeroneia will cease to interest the Romans. And there was nothing absurd in the proposition. It is clear to everyone that if Lucullus, who was close at hand, had then listened to Fimbria, brought his ships thither, and closed up the harbour with his fleet, the war would have been at an end, and the world freed from infinite mischief.
3.7
But, whether he ranked the honourable treatment of Sulla above every consideration of private or public advantage, or whether he regarded Fimbria as a wretch whose ambition for command had recently led him to murder a man who was his friend and superior officer, or whether it was by some mysterious dispensation of fortune that he chose to spare Mithridates, and so reserved him for his own antagonist,—for whatever reason, he would not listen to the proposal, but suffered Mithridates to sail off and mock at Fimbria’s forces,
3.8
while he himself, to begin with, defeated the king’s ships which showed themselves off Lectum in the Troad. And again, catching sight of Neoptolemus lying in wait for him at Tenedos with a still larger armament, he sailed out against him in advance of the rest, on board of a Rhodian galley which was commanded by Damagoras, a man well disposed to the Romans, arid of the largest experience as a sea-fighter.
