After his year in Rome, the Senate ordered Sulla to Cilicia to keep an eye on the pirates preying on Mediterranean shipping. But while in the east, he was ordered on a delicate mission. For the last few years the kings of Pontus and Bithynia had fought over the border kingdom of Cappadocia. An interminable round of squabbling between the Pontic king Mithridates VI and the Bithynian king Nicomedes III led the Senate to throw up their hands and order both Nicomedes and Mithridates to confine themselves to their own kingdoms. Cappadocia would henceforth be free of foreign tribute and govern themselves. By “govern themselves” the Senate of course meant Cappadocia would be ruled by a pro-Roman puppet king. For this job they selected a pliant young noble named Ariobarzanes. Sulla was instructed to guarantee the new puppet king’s peaceful ascension to the throne.44
Sulla successfully installed Ariobarzanes and then traveled even farther east to settle a border dispute with the Armenians. The trip made Sulla the first Roman ambassador to formally sit down with envoys from the Parthian Empire, the heirs of the great Persian Empire in the far-off Iranian highlands. Rome and Parthia were destined for endless rounds of conflict in Syria and Mesopotamia once the Romans enveloped the Mediterranean, but at this point the Romans hadn’t even moved beyond the Aegean Sea. At this first summit, however, Sulla gave the Parthians a taste of Roman manners. He laid out the chairs with himself in the middle facing the other two, making Parthia the equal not of Rome but Cappadocia. When the Parthian king found out his ambassador took this inferior seat, he had him put to death.45
After this successful tour, Sulla returned to Rome, and in the summer of 91 welcomed a visit from old friend King Bocchus. Bocchus brought along some magnificent works of art, which he offered for display on the Capitoline Hill. One of the pieces depicted Bocchus handing Jugurtha to Sulla—the same scene depicted on Sulla’s seal. Furious at this insulting reminder that Sulla had
THE CAMPAIGNS OF 90 showed just how much more prepared the Italians were than the Romans. In the south, consul Lucius Caesar led an army thirty thousand strong into an ambush and was forced into a chaotic retreat. It wasn’t until he received reinforcements from Gaul and Numidia later in the year that he was able to recover. While his campaign stalled, a Cretan mercenary approached the consul and offered his services. The Cretan said, “If by my help you defeat your enemies, what reward will you give me?” Caesar replied, “I’ll make you a citizen of Rome.” The Cretan scoffed: “Citizenship is considered a nonsense amongst the Cretans. We aim at gain when we shoot our arrows… so I have come here in search of money. As for political rights, grant that to those who are fighting for it and who are buying this nonsense with their blood.” The consul laughed and said to the man, “Well, if we are successful, I will give a reward of a thousand drachmae.” A Cretan could be bought for a thousand drachmae, but the Italians demanded the Romans pay in blood.47
Though the war in the south did not start well, at least Lucius Caesar lived. In the north, his colleague Lupus would not be so lucky. Lupus seemed well positioned to succeed; he was Gaius Marius’s nephew and called his uncle to serve as a legate. But though he had an invaluable asset inside his command tent, Lupus did not use it. Marius advised his nephew to drill the new recruits before marching into battle, but Lupus was impatient and brushed off the recommendation. An entire detachment of his army was subsequently lost on patrol, and then when the Romans reached the Tolenus River, the Marsi ambushed Lupus’s main army. Marius was downriver when he noticed the bodies floating by and rushed up to help. He found his nephew dead and the army in shambles. Marius took charge of the situation, regrouped the survivors, and built a strong camp. For the first time in a more than a decade, Gaius Marius was in command of an army.48
But Marius had plenty of enemies in the Senate who did not want him back in command of an army. So they dispatched Quintus Caepio to share the command in the north. The son of the infamous Caepio who caused the catastrophe at Arausio, Caepio the Younger was himself a tempestuous and abrasive young man. He arrived in the north without any interest in listening to the advice of Gaius Marius. Like his father before him, this arrogant disdain led him to ruin.49
