As he raised Italian legions, Cinna also induced the defection of the single legion left behind by Sulla to maintain the siege of Nola. Addressing the legion, Cinna dramatically laid his symbols of office down on the ground and said, “From you, citizens, I received this authority. The people voted it to me; the Senate has taken it away from me without your consent. Although I am the sufferer by this wrong I grieve amid my own troubles equally for your sakes… Where will after this be your power in the Assemblies, in the elections, in the choice of consuls, if you fail to confirm what you bestow, and whenever you give your decision fail to secure it.” Cinna then fell to the ground and lay there until the men picked him up, returned the symbols of office, and swore an oath to follow him. * 15
While Cinna forged this huge army, his consular colleague Octavius could call on few forces beyond the plebs urbana. The armies of Pompey Strabo remained near Asculum, but Strabo’s loyalties were unclear. Strabo was his own man and would not likely subordinate himself to Cinna, but he was also furious at Sulla for the attempt to strip him of his army. Cinna skillfully exploited Strabo’s anger and vanity, and proposed an alliance sealed by a shared consulship in 86. If Cinna and Strabo joined forces they would be stronger than any other faction in Italy—and more than a match even for Sulla when their shared enemy returned from the east.16
The only other army Octavius could call on were the legions of Metellus Pius. But Pius was pinned down trying to subdue the last of the Samnites and could not break away. In desperation, the Senate ordered Pius to cut a deal with the Samnites to end the war so he could come back to Rome. Aware they were in a strong bargaining position, the Samnites demanded “citizenship be given not alone to themselves but also to those who had deserted to their side”; they also “refused to give up any of the booty which they had, and demanded back all the captives and deserters from their own ranks.” But Pius refused to let the rebels retire on such generous terms. Cinna jumped at Pius’s hesitation. He sent a hard-line Marian partisan named Gaius Flavius Fimbria to present his own terms to the Samnites: Cinna would accept their demands if they joined his fight against Octavius. The Samnites agreed. Rome trembled.17
AFTER THE SLAUGHTER of the Italians, Mithridates ruled Asia unchallenged in 87. Most of Asia had already accepted the king’s generous terms, but a few stubborn cities like Rhodes held out. With his opening gambit such a success, Mithridates let his ambitions grow. He now planned to cast himself as the liberator of Greece, expel the Romans, and reign over an empire that stretched from the Black Sea to the Adriatic.18
While the king himself stayed behind in Asia to integrate the new domains, he sent out a two-pronged invasion of Greece in early 87. On land, an army of mercenary Thracians descended on Macedonia. By sea, the main Pontic army sailed under the command of General Archelaus. Archelaus had been one of Mithridates’s longest-serving generals, and even tangled directly with Sulla in Cappadocia over the installation of the puppet king Ariobarzanes in 95. Archelaus sailed his massive fleet across the Aegean Sea to Athens. There, with the help of a friendly political faction, he secured an Athenian declaration of allegiance to Mithridates. The Athenians knew their declaration meant war with Rome, but with Archelaus’s fleet already bobbing in their harbor, Rome’s vengeance was a distant threat.19
When Athens went over to Mithridates, most of Greece followed its lead. With the entire region throwing off Roman authority, only the few lonely legions under the command of a praetor named Sura remained to hold the line. Guarding the Macedonian frontier, Sura fended off the Thracian invasion, but unless he was reinforced, Rome would lose Greece as quickly as they had lost Asia. Luckily for the beleaguered praetor, help was on the way.20
